Free Republic

BEIJING (Reuters) - Peter Wang was asleep at his home in Beijing last Monday when police officers arrived before dawn to detain him, saying he had helped organize a protest planned for later that day. Across the city, others who had lost money investing in China’s online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms - including some who had traveled from as far away as Shandong and Shanxi provinces - got similar visits from police. By the time they were released, the demonstration they had planned using social media chat groups had fizzled amid a massive security response around the China Banking and...

China’s expanding line-up of multirole, all-weather J-16 fighter jets will help the air force to launch strikes deep into enemy territory and destroy key strategic assets like airfields and bridges, military analysts say. While it is not as advanced as the new J-20 – officially named Weilong, or powerful dragon – the Shenyang J-16 will become a key part of PLA Air Force operations and any strategy against Taiwan or to deter US military intervention, they said. China’s air force announced last week that a squadron of J-16s would soon be combat ready. Based on the Russian Sukhoi-30 fighter jet,...

Speaking to a foreign journalist is usually a stressful endeavor for a Uighur in China. Uighurs belong to a Muslim ethnic minority and speak a language closer to Turkish than Chinese. These differences from China's dominant ethnicity, the Han, have been at the root of a tense and sometimes violent relationship between Uighurs and China's government. But there's another difference many Uighurs possess that the rest of China is attracted to: their appearance. With their looks, they can easily flow through cultures," says Liu. "They can play multiple roles. If you need to cast a foreigner in a movie, they...

China has long avoided entangling itself in direct military conflict abroad. But the Chinese ambassador to Syria last week suggested that China is considering doing just that — in Syria. On August 1, Ambassador Qi Qianjin told the Syrian pro-regime news outlet Al-Watan that China’s “military is willing to participate in some way alongside the Syrian army that's fighting the terrorists in Idlib and in any other part of Syria.” Qi praised the China-Syria military cooperation. The Chinese military attache in Syria, Wong Roy Chang, said that cooperation between the Syrian and Chinese militaries was “ongoing,” adding, “We – China...

The intensifying trade war between China and the US has caused a massive rift between the countries, but sources say tension is also rising internally among elite members of the Communist Party of China. Over the past decade, President Xi Jinping has worked diligently to consolidate power and cement his rule over China, claiming control over the country' military and government and cracking down on all forms of political dissent. In the process, Chinese propaganda has pushed hard on the portrayal of China as a strong, nationalistic country, with Xi at its core. Several sources close to the government told...

First-of-its-kind courtroom testimony here has corroborated allegations that the Chinese government has built a network of internment camps in western China where Muslim minorities are held without charge for “reeducation.” Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh Chinese national, said she crossed from China’s Xin­jiang region to Kazakhstan without proper papers after being forced to work at a camp where around 2,500 ethnic Kazakhs were being held for indoctrination. “In China, they call it a political camp, but really it was a prison in the mountains,” she told a court last month packed with Kazakh villagers, reporters and a few tight-lipped Chinese...

Authored by Kurt Schlichter via Townhall.com, Of all Donald Trump’s many sins against the Great Church of the Transnational Leftist Establishment, his greatest may be his stubborn refusal to subordinate the needs of the normal citizens of the United States to the dogmas of our alleged betters. He rejects the secular civic religion of our betters, one that urges the sacrifice of regular folk’s interests on the altar of their self-regard and cheesy self-interest. Trump is a heretic, a blasphemer, and it’s no surprise they want to burn him at the stake. Horrors! He demands that the Europeans fund...

IRVINE, Calif. — George Li grew up in a Chinese society that he felt did not offer a fair shake. The government of Mao Zedong deemed his family capitalists and imprisoned his father. So when Mr. Li moved to California in 1999, he felt he had found his American dream. He worked hard and earned his rewards: a master’s degree, then a job that allowed him to live comfortably with his wife and two children. But four years ago, he became alarmed when a co-worker told him about a state measure that would allow California’s public universities to use affirmative...

A growing trade war with the United States is causing rifts within China's Communist Party, with some critics saying that an overly nationalistic Chinese stance may have hardened the US position, according to four sources close to the government. Chinese President Xi Jinping still has a firm grip on power, but an unusual surge of criticism about economic policy and how the government has handled the trade war has revealed rare cracks in the ruling Communist Party. A backlash is being felt at the highest levels of the government, possibly hitting a close aide to Xi, his ideology chief and...

Xu Yimiao writes that China is running out of retaliatory tariffs against the US and has watched other major parties like the EU and Japan close ranks against it. Before the trade war gets more severe, Beijing’s leaders should seek direct talks with Trump, and may have to swallow their pride

igh above one of the most hotly contested regions in the world, CNN was given a rare look Friday at the Chinese government's rapidly expanding militarization of the South China Sea Aboard a US Navy P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane, CNN got a view from 16,500 feet of low-lying coral reefs turned into garrisons with five-story buildings, large radar installations, power plants and runways sturdy enough to carry large military aircraft. During the flight the crew received six separate warnings from the Chinese military, telling them they were inside Chinese territory and urging them to leave. "Leave immediately and keep out...

The election of Tsai Ing-wen of the Taiwan-centric Democratic Progressive Party in January 2016 marked the end of a phase in cross-strait relations when Beijing still believed in the possibility of winning the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese through “goodwill” and economic incentives. Since then, Beijing has embraced a strategy that seeks to corner, isolate and punish Taiwan for its intransigence on the unification question. Although many would ascribe that change in attitude to the 2016 elections and blame the Tsai administration’s refusal to acknowledge the so-called “1992 consensus” for the souring relations, this reckoning actually occurred earlier –...

Xu Yimiao writes that China is running out of retaliatory tariffs against the US and has watched other major parties like the EU and Japan close ranks against it. Before the trade war gets more severe, Beijing’s leaders should seek direct talks with Trump, and may have to swallow their pride Some serious discussions are going on in China as the country faces an escalating trade war with the United States, slowing domestic growth and increasing investment restrictions in the US and Europe. There seems to be recognition that the previous playbook drafted by hardliners has not worked and Beijing...

In a secret underground base, Command Post Tango, the combined headquarters of the U.S.-South Korean command, is abuzz with activity. North Korean artillery has pummeled sites around Seoul, leaving thousands of South Korean and American civilians and service members dead. A toxic combination of North Korean provocations and U.S. escalation has prompted the North to launch a last-ditch effort to seize the whole peninsula. As the generals fill an auditorium-sized sand-table battlefield showing the disposition of friendly forces and the extent of likely follow-up attacks, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans are displaced in and around Seoul, seeking shelter and...

Google and its parent company, Alphabet, have had pretensions to morality since “Don’t be evil” became a corporate motto. But when the company discovered in 2010 that Chinese agents had hacked into the Gmail accounts of dissidents, it decided to stop obeying Chinese censorship laws, in effect withdrawing the bulk of its business from the country. Within months the Communist Party shut down the company’s search engine, as well as Gmail and Google News. But under CEO Sundar Pichai, the company appears to be changing tack. Reports emerged last week that Google was developing versions of a search engine, news...

A cargo ship carrying American soybean exports has reportedly been stuck in the Pacific Ocean off China for a month after failing to arrive at the country before a 25 percent tariff on the good was implemented. The Peak Pegasus had rushed to sail from the U.S. to China last month, ahead of the tariff start date of July 6. But The Guardian reported Wednesday that the ship arrived just past the deadline, and has been stuck outside China since. The ship is owned by JP Morgan Asset Management, while the cargo belongs to global merchant Louis Dreyfus, The Guardian...

China's exports surged more than expected in July despite U.S. duties and its closely watched surplus with the United States remained near record highs, as the world's two major economic powers ramp up a bitter dispute that some fear could derail global growth... (please see link for full article)

• Arms expert Dr Jeffrey Lewis has predicted of what nuclear war with the North Korea could look like • In his imagined history, North Korea launches missiles at Japan, South Korea and the United States after wrongly believing that an American invasion is imminent • 3 million people are killed instantly as Tokyo, Seoul and New York are vaporized by atomic weapons • Millions more die from horrific burns as outbreaks of plague and other diseases ravage survivors whose immune systems are permanently compromised The year is 2023 and the world is still recovering from the devastating North Korean...

There was no collusion between her and China via the PRC spy on her staff. And no Special Counsel is needed to investigate this. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along now. The first cousin of Fake News is Ignored News. Ignored News happens when the liberal media suppresses—in part or in full—a story that’s unfavorable to a Democrat politician, political operative, or politically active celebrity in the entertainment, educational or business venues. Ignored News has no competition because it’s, well, largely ignored. Or, if it’s distributed, it’s only “up” for a short time on a secondary news platform.

Amid a steep correction in crude prices, China said on Wednesday that it would impose a 25-percent tariff on U.S. imports worth US$16 billion, including crude oil, diesel, cars, coal, and steel products, in retaliation to the U.S. list of US$16 billion worth of Chinese imports that will be taxed by U.S. authorities from August 23. On Wednesday, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) released a list of around US$16 billion worth of imports from China that will be subject to a 25-percent additional tariff as part of the United States’ response to China’s unfair trade practices...