Free Republic

A Chinese national was arrested Tuesday for allegedly creating a phony U.S. Army unit and recruiting other Chinese nationals by telling them it was a path to U.S. citizenship. Yupeng Deng, also known as David Deng, was taken into custody by agents from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Defense and jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail. According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, the 51-year-old El Monte resident is facing 14 felony counts, including obtaining money, labor or property by false pretenses, deceptive document crime and an unrelated count of possession of matter depicting a minor...

Recent discourse concerning the Chinese People’s Liberation Army's (PLA) modernization has principally focused on technological advances and less on the human dimension of PLA force transformation. In particular, a review of these discussions revealed the absence of a publicly available database of Chinese military leaders with the rank of full general (shangjiang). Against the backdrop of the PLA’s stated intention to reorient the armed forces as part of its modernization efforts, an analysis of promotion patterns of the 118 PLA generals (1981 - 2009) may yield important insights into the foci of PLA force transformation. PLA to Build Up Navy...

The gay bishop of New Hampshire should resign in order to save the Anglican Communion, a senior African archbishop said today. The call came from the Rt Rev Dr Daniel Deng, the archbishop of Sudan, and followed a strongly worded statement that accused the US Episcopal church of exposing Anglicans to ridicule and damaging their credibility in a multi-religious environment. African bishops who signed the statement rejecting homosexual practice said they could not accept it as part of their church. They reiterated their opposition to developments in the US and Canada, where gay clergy are ordained and where same-sex relationships...

China's communist leadership is trying to paint a smiley face over its most recent brutal suppression of dissent. Five days ago, protestors were gunned downed by police in a village not far from Hong Kong. The authorities blame a "few instigators" for the violence, but this event is indicative of growing socio-economic shifts in mainland China; namely the disparity between those profiting from communist experimentation with capitalism, and those left on the sidelines. China's government is trying to put lipstick on the pig. From MSNBC.com: The government said three people died in Tuesday’s violence in this coastal village northeast of...

...The choice in the 2004 election is about much more than merely aligning oneself with this or that party. Politics alone, and certainly not campaign politics, rarely alters the social or economic course of this country. More often it is an event that "changes everything." Back in the 1920s, Republicans won presidential elections with whopping 60% majorities.... The Depression changed everything.... It would now take a force much stronger than the normal process of American politics to change the nation's political economics. Despite periodic displays of strength by both parties (the two-term presidencies of Reagan and Clinton) our politics has...

BEIJING, Aug. 20 - In keeping with the gold- and diamond-encrusted watches the Communist Party made to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth, Deng Xiaoping is being widely hailed as a visionary who freed China from its socialist straitjacket and created new wealth. Yet influential party elders have used the anniversary, which falls on Sunday, to emphasize the urgency of one great endeavor that Deng never embraced: overhauling the one-party political system. In party political journals and interviews as the Deng centenary has neared, several retired leaders made unusually direct pleas to allow more media freedom and to introduce...