Free Republic

I arrived here in China yesterday and after checking into my hotel I decided to take a look at the news and of course free republic is the first place I go. It is now blocked here, I come here often (747 CPT) And have never had an issue before. Looks like you guys of all been on your worst behavior and highlighted yourself somehow! I’d consider it a badge of honor, thank God for VPNs!

The Chinese Foreign Ministry's over the weekend condemned a U.S. State Department statement that said Washington was closely monitoring territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and that China's establishment of a military garrison for the area risks "further escalating tensions in the region". The mosaic of rival territorial claims in the South China Sea has become Asia's worst potential military flashpoint. Beijing has said its disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines and other southeast Asian claimants should be settled one-on-one, and it has bristled at U.S. backing for a multilateral approach to solving the overlapping claims. "We are entirely entitled...

........This week, Beijing set up a new provincial-level city government to administer all its island claims in the South China Sea, as well as administer all the waters in the Sea, and “elected” a mayor for its insta-city of Sansha. The new governing council will represent approximately 1,100 Chinese residents of three island groups, all of which are claimed by multiple countries, including Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, in addition to China. The real news, however, is that Beijing is also setting up a military garrison on Yongxing Island, which is also claimed by Vietnam. The garrison will serve “self-defense”...

China's state-run media ramped up condemnation of the United States on Monday over tensions in the South China Sea, with the Communist Party's top newspaper telling Washington to "Shut up" and charging it with "fanning flames" of division in the region. The Chinese Foreign Ministry's over the weekend condemned a U.S. State Department statement that said Washington was closely monitoring territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and that China's establishment of a military garrison for the area risks "further escalating tensions in the region". The mosaic of rival territorial claims in the South China Sea has become Asia's worst...

During his visit to Vietnam in early June, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta displayed eagerness to have the U.S. military return to the bases it once occupied at Cam Ranh Bay. The Pentagon lost its foothold there when South Vietnam fell to communist forces in the mid-1970s, and military officials have longed to regain access. Once Washington established diplomatic relations with Hanoi in 1995, that objective seemed to be an attainable goal rather than a hopeless wish. The Vietnamese government, worried about China’s growing power in the region, may now be receptive to a renewed U.S. military presence at...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The Obama administration pressed Beijing on Thursday to accept a code of conduct for resolving territorial disputes in the resource-rich South China Sea, a difficult U.S. mediation effort that has faced resistance from the communist government. It has endeared the U.S., however, to once-hostile countries in Southeast Asia. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' annual conference. Sitting across from each other at a long table in a grand hall with chandeliers, Clinton stressed the different ways Washington...

China recently declared that most of the 3.5 million square kilometers South China Sea had become Sansha, the latest Chinese city. The area China claims is within the city limits comprises over two million square kilometers of largely open ocean and a few hundred tiny islands and reefs, many of which are only above water during low tide. Sansha is administered from one of the Paracel islands (Woody Island). The U.S. government responded by asking that China obey international law. China currently claims South China Sea areas close to neighboring nations, except for areas about 22 kilometers from the coast....

Last week during an East Asia Summit meeting in Phnom Penh, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to stand fast and use diplomacy to resolve claims over territorial waters in the South China Sea. China has insisted that it had “’indisputable sovereignty’ over Islands that are claimed by Vietnam to the Scarborough Shoal near the Philippines. They include Islands near Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Secretary Clinton urged the nations to collectively negotiate with the Chinese regarding territorial waters. China wanted bilateral talks with each country where they felt they can intimate the nations into surrounding territorial claims without much...

HK, Taiwan, mainland activists plan to land on Diaoyu islands A Hong Kong activist group set sail on Sunday for the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku in Japan, in an attempt to join forces with counterparts from the mainland China and Taiwan to assert China's sovereignty over the islands. The official Global Times reported that the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands set sail at noon from the Tsim Sha Tsui pier in Hong Kong with four crewmembers and 11 activists aboard, including one Macanese and one mainland Chinese. Chan Miu-tak, chairman of...

Kathmandu: Thousands of Tibetan children and their families face stiff punishment at the hands of the Chinese government for enrolling into schools in India that are run by the Tibetan government in exile, headed by their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, a rights body said. The Washington-headquartered International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) has expressed its misgivings as the ultimatum issued by the Communist Party of China authorities to the Tibetan Party and government workers expired last week. In July, Communist Party authorities in the Tibet Autonomous Region had issued a directive stating that Tibetan children must confess if they have...