Free Republic

Watching the recent proceedings of China's National People's Congress — the country's legislature, if you believe China's constitution, which of course you should not — I got that sinking feeling I always get nowadays when I pay attention to Chinese affairs. Hearing the Communist-party hacks droning on about "safeguarding China's sovereignty and territorial integrity" (read: intimidating Taiwan) and "socialist modernization" (read: get rich by all means, citizen, but never forget who's running this show); watching the drilled "representatives" of the people applauding the wise decisions of the party in unison*... Sinking feeling. The words that go with the sinking feeling...

CCP Withdrawals Pass 300,000, News Broadcast in China China Official News Agency Officially Reports on the Broadcasts By Zeng Ni The Epoch Times Mar 16, 2005 According to an Epoch Times reader, on the night of March 14, the signals of more than eight provincial TV stations and more than six satellite TV stations were intercepted and replaced with broadcasts about “The Nine Commentaries On The CCP” and the withdrawals from the CCP. (Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images) Around 11:30 am on March 16 (Beijing time), The Epoch Times reported that the number of people who withdrew from the CCP exceeded...

In his FrontPage Magazine article Andrew Alexander’s Lies About the Cold War, Jamie Glazov speaks of the Soviet regime’s aggressive and expansionist designs against the West in the post-WWII period, and how de-classified Soviet sources prove that they had extensively infiltrated their agents into Western society. "...the Venona transcripts are thousands of Soviet intelligence messages that were intercepted and decoded over four decades by the FBI and the NSA (National Security Agency). Released over the past few years, these files prove that there was a large-scale Communist penetration of the U.S. government, and that Communist spies passed on valuable information...

Special Interview with Chen Yizi - Former Advisor to Zhao Ziyang The Chinese Communist Regime Faces Widespread Indignation and Discontent The memorial service for former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Zhao Ziyang was held on the morning of Jan. 29 in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing. Xinhua News Agency briefly reported Zhao's biography without mentioning his great contribution to China’s political and economical reforms, but specially indicated that Zhao had made “serious mistakes” in the 1989 political turmoil. The Epoch Times interviewed Chen Yizi, former senior adviser to Zhao Ziyang and former director of the Institute for Economic...

China 'threat' strengthens US-Japan military tiesBy Kosuke Takahashi TOKYO - This is just the beginning of a war of nerves of military strategy among the world's three most powerful countries, based on real hardball politics, military hardware and spyware. The theater is the East China Sea, surrounding Taiwan and Okinawa. The actors are Japan, its ally the United States, and an increasingly powerful China that already is an economic powerhouse and is expanding and upgrading its military on the sea, on land and in the air. This perceived Chinese "threat" - vehemently denied by Beijing - is a factor in...

More than a decade after the fall of the former Soviet Union and Eastern European communist regimes, the international communist movement has been spurned worldwide. The demise of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is only a matter of time. Nevertheless, before its complete collapse, the CCP is trying to tie its fate to the Chinese nation, with its 5000 years of civilization. This is a disaster for the Chinese people. The Chinese people must now face the impending questions of how to view the CCP, how to evolve China into a society without the CCP, and how to pass on...

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND - Jingsheng Wei, a well-known Chinese dissident and democracy advocate, stated on December 18th that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would collapse “sooner or later”. Wei believes that this will occur in part due to the effects of a recently published uncensored history of the CCP that has been sending shockwaves throughout Chinese communities throughout the world. The Epoch Times has published a nine-part commentary on the CCP, thoroughly detailing its brutal history in a way never before seen in modern China. Since the publication of the commentaries, over 1,700 Communist Party cadres have decided to renounce their...

This is the second of Nine Commentaries on the CCP. According to the book Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters (Shuowen Jiezi) written by Xu Shen (d. 147 AD), the traditional Chinese character meaning “party” or “gang” consists of two radicals that correspond to “still or even” and “dark or black” respectively, connoting the meaning “still dark.” “Party” or “party member” (which can also be interpreted as “gang” or “gang member”) carries a derogatory meaning. Confucius said, “I heard that a noble man would not join a gang (party).” In the Analects (Lunyu), Confucius’ interpretation of this character explains that...

This is the first of NineCommentaries on the CCP. For over five thousand years, the Chinese people have created a splendid civilization on land nurtured by the Yellow River and Yangtze River. During this long period of time, dynasties have come and gone, and the Chinese culture has waxed and waned. Grand and moving stories have played out on the historical stage of China. The year 1840, the year commonly considered by historians as the beginning of China’s contemporary era, marked the start of China’s journey from tradition to modernization. Chinese civilization experienced four major episodes of challenge and response....

HIGHLIGHTS: Maybe some day in the future, people would suddenly discover that the Taiwan issue has become a most important and most sensitive question between China and Japan. Ishihara Shintaro, representative of Japan's ultra-Right forces and mayor of Tokyo has been carrying out activities in Taiwan these days. Though Ishihara' s present visit is carried out under the cover of "promoting the activity of going sightseeing in Taiwan", judged from the series of his performances put up during his previous visits to Taiwan and from the schedule made for his meetings with Chen Shui-bian and Lee Teng-hui and talks...

Madison - Gov. Jim Doyle's veto of a concealed weapons bill Tuesday shot the emotional issue back to four Senate Democrats, who will decide whether the Senate takes the first step toward overriding the governor. Concealed Weapons Bill Photo/Elizabeth Flores With law-enforcement officers behind him, Gov. Jim Doyle announces in Dane County on Tuesday that he has vetoed concealed-carry legislation. What's Next The State Senate will vote, probably in December, on whether to override the concealed-carry veto. A two-thirds vote of the 33 senators is required to do so. The original Senate vote to pass the bill was 24-8. If...

Wen Jiabao elected China's PM BEIJING -- Wen Jiabao was on Sunday elected China's premier, taking the reins of government from the retiring Zhu Rongji. A chief task for Mr Wen is to implement economic changes required by China's World Trade Organisation membership. -- AP He won 2,906 of the votes, or 99.3 per cent. Three delegates voted against and 16 abstained. Mr Wen rose and shook hands with Mr Zhu as the Great Hall of the People broke into applause. The legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), approved Mr Wen's elevation overwhelmingly as the final rubber-stamp personnel appointment...

BEIJING With the new Chinese Communist leaders launching their rule this week, I dropped by to get the perspective of the bravest man I've ever met. They won't change the dictatorship, scoffed Ren Wanding, the pioneer of China's human rights movement. They'll change economically to a capitalist society, but not politically. Mr. Ren is so tough-minded that during the time he was imprisoned, from 1979 to 1983, for pressing his human rights campaign, he wrote a four-volume book on democracy with the only material he could find: toilet paper and the discarded nib of a pen. After his release he...

The closest political associate of Jiang Zemin, who is expected to end his 13-year tenure as China's Communist party chief this week, has won a place on the politburo's standing committee, according to official sources. The ascent of Zeng Qinghong is of crucial importance in securing Mr Jiang's legacy and may help ensure continuity in key areas such as foreign policy, Beijing's attitude toward Taiwan and issues such as structural reform to the political system, one insider said. Several official sources said Mr Zeng's influence within the new politburo could rival that of Hu Jintao, the vice-president who is expected...

A Chinese national flag flutters in front of the hammer and sickle logo of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing on November 4. REUTERS/Wilson Chu Suo Xincai pauses for a picture before a lush hill of plants topped with towering tropical palm trees brought to Beijing's Tiananmen Square despite near freezing temperatures. Plain-clothes police brave the cold and shuffle to and fro, attempting to blend in with tourists while uniformed colleagues check identity papers of people entering the square. Beijing, with Tiananmen at its heart, has whipped into a clean-up frenzy ahead of a key Communist Party congress due to...

<p>In theory, the seven members of the supreme Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) of the Chinese Communist Party will be chosen by the 2010 delegates who are attending Friday's 16th party Congress.</p> <p>However, in long-standing party tradition, the participants of the week-long congress will just endorse the decisions of Jiang and powerful out-going leaders such as Premier Zhu Rongji and National People's Congress (NPC) Chairman Li Peng.</p>

HONG KONG, Oct. 10 — Zhu Xiaohua, the former president of China's sixth-largest bank and previously one of China's leading financial officials, was convicted today in Beijing on bribery charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The verdict, reported by the official New China News Agency, was the latest sign of Beijing's increasingly tough stance in cases of possible corporate malfeasance. Mr. Zhu is the highest-ranking banker convicted so far in the Chinese government's move against executives at state-owned banks. Some have made huge loans to close friends — poor credit risks who are also sometimes the sources of...

An orchestrated campaign to have China's president keep most of his influential posts is being played out in the media, and it's not yet clear if he can succeed By Hsia Wen-szu ®L¤å«ä Jiang Zemin (¦¿¿A¥Á) is needed for political stability," read the cover headline of the March issue of Hong Kong's leftist magazine The Mirror (Ãè³ø). The article said, "That Jiang will serve another term as the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) secretary-general ... is a consensus among Chinese people and within the party," and "Jiang's taking the nation's helm is good news for the Chinese people." This is the...

With the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) 16th National Congress only two months away, there has been much speculation about how President Jiang Zemin (¦¿¿A¥Á) will hand over his posts. The succession issue has attracted great attention, as befits a matter which concerns the future of China and also has a close bearing on the global strategic situation and the triangular relations between the US, China and Taiwan. Ever since Jiang's anointed successor, Vice President Hu Jintao (­JÀAÀÜ), visited the US in early May, there have been many rumors about the succession. There are at least five reasons for this. First,...

The Will of the People UnheardChief Executive Tung Chee-hwa and his Beijing masters seem in no mood to move toward fostering democracy in Hong Kong. Instead, the underground Chinese Communist Party cell in the territory is playing a key role in helping the main pro-Beijing party to gain groundCOMMUTERS SURGE past Emily Lau and fellow democracy activists outside the Star Ferry terminal as they launch a hunger strike to protest against a new term for Hong Kong's Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. Beyond the pier, the green-and-white ferries, antiquated against the steel and concrete skyline, churn the harbour as they and...