Free Republic

U.S. defense leaders have allowed China’s military might to grow unchecked while they prattle on about critical race theory and climate change. That increases the risk of war over Taiwan.The Chinese Communist Party is open about its imperial ambitions. Chinese leader Xi Jinping calls explicitly for “the transformation of the global governance system”—which means China in charge of the Asian Pacific and, ultimately, the world. America must act now to stop it. Our economic prosperity, no less than our national security, depends on it. A China that bestrides the Pacific would make today’s supply chain woes look pleasant. A China...

TOKYO, July 26 (Reuters) - Russia plans to set up a special economic zone with no customs and a reduced set of taxes on a disputed chain of islands near Japan, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin was quoted as saying on Monday by Russia's RIA and Interfax news agencies. A territorial row over the islands, which the Soviets seized at the end of World War Two, has prevented the two countries from signing a formal peace treaty. Japan calls the islands the Northern Territories and Russia calls them the Kurils. Mishustin visited the islands on Monday, prompting a top Tokyo government...

While our military fights American civilians for exercising their constitutional rights, their effectiveness at their actual job is in question.As Chris Bedford pointed out Friday, it’s no surprise U.S. military brass released a fake outrage squirrel with Tucker’s Carlson’s name on it the day after a war games leak suggesting the United States would lose a fight with China over Taiwan. Noncommissioned officers marshaling military resources to wage an information operation against an American journalist over his opinions doesn’t just happen by accident.The operation also reveals that Carlson was right on the mark to target leftist identity politics as compromising...

Tucker Carlson is correct about utopian ideas from the national security blob resulting in flawed and destructive policies.For the first time in history, the leaders of the Quad—the informal alliance of India, Japan, Australia, and the United States—met in a virtual conference, agreeing to jointly form supply chains for crucial rare earth minerals and to supply vaccines to Asian states, diminishing their dependence on Beijing. The vaccine plan is crucial and a continuation of the Trump administration’s approach to China. As the Financial Times reports, the plan uses the competitive advantage of all the powers, from American and Japanese research...

Nothing less than a major milestone in global economic history and a huge victory for China over increasing US regional hegemony has been realized on Sunday with the signing of the biggest free trade deal ever among fifteen Asia Pacific Nations.Called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, the agreement was signed virtually during the annual summit of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and effectively establishes the world's largest trading block that is expected to encompass almost one-third of all global economic activity, crucially without the United States.Via Grain.orgIt's being further seen as a massive blow to...

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan embarks Tuesday, May. 28 to visit Hawaii, Jakarta, Singapore, Seoul, and Tokyo. In Singapore, Secretary Shanahan will attend the Shangri La Dialogue where he will meet with key leaders from the region and announce the Department of Defense’s new strategy for the Indo-Asia Pacific. Throughout his trip, Secretary Shanahan will meet with key leaders to reaffirm defense relationships and conduct bilateral and multilateral meetings with senior officials.

China is producing naval vessels at a rate that will soon see the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) eclipse the US Navy (USN) in force structure and capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. Sources indicate that China is intent on replacing the US as security guarantor for the region, and could use its position to force regional neighbours to serve as tributary states. China’s naval modernisation efforts are based entirely on modelling their navy after the US naval combatant structure, said Chris Cavas, a Washington-based naval analyst. They are emulating the USN’s ‘balanced fleet concept’, he said, with destroyers, frigates, logistics,...

Russia on Friday rejected U.S. concerns about its use of a former American base in Vietnam for the refueling of Russian bomber flights around U.S. territory in the Pacific, dismissing recent U.S. statements as "puzzling" and "strange." It was reported on Wednesday that the United States had asked Vietnam to stop letting Russia use Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay for tanker aircraft that have refueled nuclear-capable bombers engaged in shows of strength over the Asia-Pacific region. "It is strange to hear such statements from representatives of the state whose armed forces are permanently stationed in a number of Asia-Pacific countries and...

State Councilor Yang Jiechi and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit early next month, to China, to prep him for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Beijing. Chinese official said China welcomes Obama's visit and is willing to work with the U.S. side to make sure that the upcoming Xi-Obama summit will achieve positive results, The state councilor reiterated China's "clear, determined and consistent position" that realizing denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula..are in the common interest of China and the United States,"

Legislation key to President Barack Obama’s agenda to boost exports to the fast-growing economies of the Asia-Pacific is being welcomed by business but faces stiff opposition from Obama’s fellow Democrats. A bill to grant the president “fast track” authority for negotiating trade deals was introduced Thursday, co-sponsored by a senior Democrat and two leading Republicans. Fast track, which was last approved in 2002 and expired in 2007, assures that the administration can negotiate trade deals that Congress can accept or reject but cannot change.The administration will be counting on strong support from Republicans, who traditionally are more supportive of free...

Makiko Yanada / Yomiuri Shimbun CorrespondentNUKU’ALOFA—Japanese, U.S. and Australian defense authorities are increasingly wary over China’s moves to develop port facilities in island countries in the Pacific Ocean amid concern that those facilities could become Chinese Navy footholds in the future. Japan, the United States and Australia aim to take concerted action to curb China’s growing influence in the Pacific at the Pacific Islands Forum, which opened on Tuesday, and on other occasions. Military vessels can dock In late July, a 1,900-ton patrol ship from New Zealand was anchored at Vuna Wharf in Nuku’alofa, the capital of Tonga. The wharf...

SINGAPORE – Following the recent launch of free trade negotiations between the United States and the European Union, there are now three mega-trade-and-investment liberalization blocs being shaped in various parts of the world. Each is different in geographic coverage. But all have substantial economic clout. So whichever is first to conclude a credible agreement will have a significant impact on international trade and geopolitics. With multilateral negotiations under the World Trade Organization stalled, the big bloc negotiators are, by default, setting key rules and standards for global commerce in the 21st century. This is important. All three mega-blocs are often...

JULIA Gillard did important and useful work in India this week. Three headline results came out of the Prime Minister's three-day visit. First, Australia and India will negotiate a formal safeguards agreement that will allow the export of Australian uranium to India. A year ago Gillard got the Labor Party to reverse its previous opposition to selling uranium to India. At the moment, India is not short of uranium. But its nuclear industry is embarked on a huge expansion, as is the nuclear industry of some other countries such as China. In an interview in 2006, India's Prime Minister Manmohan...

HONOLULU (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday vowed to expand U.S. engagement in the Asia-Pacific by building trade ties, reinforcing alliances and continuing to press for democratic reforms in authoritarian nations like China and Vietnam. In a nearly hour-long outdoor speech, Clinton addressed a few hundred invited guests including Hawaii's political leaders, heads of a dozen Pacific island nations and senior U.S. military officials. Clinton was in Hawaii to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, calling the event's host state "America's gateway to Asia." "It is becoming increasingly clear that in the 21st century, the world's...

Out on stands, now, here in Japan. Mass circulation. Hope and "CHANGE"."CHANGE" (North Korea and Red China) can believe in. Hmmm mmmm MMMM!

A dramatic deterioration in Asian security could push Australia to acquire nuclear weapons, a strategy that it abandoned four decades ago, a new study says. But Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyst Dr Rod Lyons says such a decision certainly isn't close nor is it inevitable. He said the 2006 Switkowski report on nuclear power suggested it would take Australia at least 10 years and probably 15 to bring the first civil reactor into service. "It's true that Australia might be able to conduct an emergency nuclear weapon construction effort in rather less time, especially if it were to focus...

HUA HIN, Thailand — Asian leaders will pledge to overcome their differences and push towards the formation of an EU-style community as they wrap up an annual summit in Thailand on Sunday. Human rights issues, border disputes and signs of apathy over a meeting that was twice delayed by protests have at times marred the gathering of leaders from a region that contains more than half the world's population. But plans to increase the region's global clout by building closer ties eventually dominated the three-day meeting of Southeast Asian nations along with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2009 – Calling counter-terrorism one of U.S. Pacific Command’s top priorities, its commander says he’s seeing headway made through increased regional cooperation and information-sharing. Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating, in a Sept. 2 news conference, called the merger of assets and capabilities a big step toward the ultimate goal of eliminating violent extremist groups scattered throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim. “We are a long way from that, in my personal view, but it is one of our highest priorities at U.S. Pacific Command,” Keating said during the news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Wellington, New...

There are queues at expensive oyster restaurants and the housewives are once again trading foreign exchange — signs that Japan’s return to economic growth has restored its confidence. The world’s second-largest economy is expected to grow 1% next year after contracting 3%. The recession has led to Japanese firms shedding 100,000 jobs since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, pushing unemployment up to 5.4%. ...Now the apocryphal “Mrs Watanabe” and her fellow traders have ventured back to the Tokyo Financial Exchange, according to brokers who report that transactions are up by more than half on a year ago.

ADELAIDE - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has proposed an Asia-Pacific community by 2020 that would include among others the United States, China, Japan and India and be capable of canvassing security, political and economic matters. He unveiled his brand new idea in a speech last week that he gave to the Asia Society AustralAsia Center in Sydney. >>> China obsession Even before Rudd became prime minister there were apprehensions in the region that his Asia foreign policy would revolve around China. Rudd studied China at university and speaks fluent Mandarin and spent considerable time in the Middle Kingdom both...