Free Republic

Chinese authorities have tightened already rigorous Internet controls by cracking down on online pornography and what state media called “rumormongers” and “slanderous content.” […] Xinhua said the government would also increase punishments for spreading rumors online, although it didn’t specify how it would do that. Already, Chinese courts can sentence people for up to three years in prison for writing online comments deemed defamatory. As part of the new campaign, the government has shut down websites and punished nearly 40 people it called rumormongers. …

One of ChinaÂ’s renowned ancient towns was under water on Wednesday as heavy rain hit the centre of the country, with tens of thousands of people evacuated from the area. The old town district of Fenghuang nestles on the banks of a winding river in a picturesque, mountainous part of Hunan province, and boasts stunning Qing and Ming dynasty architecture dating back hundreds of years. [Â…] According to ChinaÂ’s official Xinhua news agency, the Tuojiang river in the town had reached 1.1 meters above its previous highest recorded level, and several bridges had been damaged or destroyed. Â…

Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry showcased his guitar-playing skills when he hosted a lunchtime jam session during talks with officials in Beijing, China. In the Wall Street Journal news item about the performance, which was posted last night, reporter Sarah Larimer reached out to two guitar "experts," asking them to comment on Kerry's skills.

As diplomatic talks in China come to a close, one of the country’s biggest newspapers is warning citizens against a “new Cold War” with the United States. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/12/new-cold-war-chinas-top-paper-warns-slippery-slope/#ixzz37Gx5rNiO Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

(Reuters) - A Beijing court has ruled against Apple Inc by upholding the validity of a patent held by a Chinese company, clearing the way for the Chinese company to continue its own case against Apple for infringing intellectual property rights. Apple had taken Shanghai-based Zhizhen Internet Technology and China's State Intellectual Property Office to court to seek a ruling that Zhizhen's patent rights to a speech recognition technology were invalid. But the Beijing First Intermediate Court on Tuesday decided in Zhizhen's favour, the People's Daily state newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Chinese officials believe that Pres. Obama is “fundamentally weak and disinterested” regarding Chinese aggression, says Christopher Johnson, a former top CIA analyst and current senior advisor to the Center For Strategic & International Studies on China Studies. “They believe Obama is fundamentally weak and disinterested,” Johnson says, warning, “We need a lot more weight on the economic side, because that’s what keeps your relationship from tipping into a Cold War relationship.” The Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and India all face illegal maritime or territorial claims by China, Forbes reports, citing China’s interest in taking over the natural resources...

The U.S. is looking for concessions from China to kick start international negotiations on liberalizing trade in high-technology products. […] Negotiations to update the 1996 agreement have been snared by China’s desire to protect dozens of new product categories. Some 70 countries participate in the agreement, accounting for much of global trade in that sector. …

German Chancellor Angela Merkel heads to China this weekend for her seventh visit, eager to deepen trade and investment ties between the export powerhouses of Europe and Asia. For the EU’s biggest economy, China is a crucial mass market, where companies want its technology and millions of newly prosperous crave German goods from Audi sedans to luxury home appliances. […] China is Germany’s number-two export market outside Europe after the United States. It sold goods worth €67 billion to China last year, while imports from the Asian giant topped €73 billion. …

China Now Claims Japan’s Okinawa 25 July 2012 The Global Times, the newspaper run by China’s Communist Party, ran an editorial this month suggesting that Beijing challenge Japan’s control of Okinawa, part of the Ryukyu island chain. Why would China want to start a fight over Okinawa? At the moment, China, Taiwan, and Japan are engaged in a particularly nasty sovereignty dispute in the East China Sea over five islands and three barren rocks called the Senkakus by the Japanese and the Diaoyus by the other claimants. The disputed chain is north of the southern end of the Ryukyus and...

Media urge China to 'not interfere' in Iraq Many families have fled the ongoing violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul Media advise China to not interfere in Iraq, while criticising the US for "creating a mess" in the Middle East. President Barack Obama says the US will send 300 military advisers to Iraq to help fight Islamist-led insurgents. Sunni radical group Isis has taken control of several Iraqi cities and towns in the past few days, report say. Mr Obama said the US was prepared for "targeted and precise military action, if and when" required, but added that US...

Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers voted Friday in an unofficial referendum on democratic reform that has alarmed Beijing and sets the stage for a possible showdown with the government, with mass protests aimed at shutting down the Chinese capitalist enclave’s financial district. Tensions are boiling over in Hong Kong, which came back under Chinese control in 1997, over how to choose the city’s next leader. Since the end of British colonial rule, Hong Kong’s leaders have been picked by an elite pro-Beijing committee. Beijing has pledged to allow Hong Kongers to choose their own chief executive starting in 2017....

On May 30, 2014, The New York Times published a story by Ian Johnson about what seems to be a concerted government effort to clamp down on Christian churches in Wenzhou, the city with the highest percentage of Christians in China. It has long been known that there are regional differences in official attitudes toward religion, not always reflecting the views of the central government. It is conceivable that the events in Wenzhou could be a relatively local matter. But at any rate one aspect of the story makes one wonder: The provincial head of the Communist party who initiated...

Hong Kong does not enjoy “full autonomy” and must accept Beijing’s control and oversight, China announced on Tuesday, less than a week after more than 100,000 protesters gathered in the former colony to berate the Communist Party and demand greater democratic rights. In a lengthy and controversial “white paper”, China's powerful State Council claimed “comprehensive jurisdiction” over the former British colony, which returned to Chinese hands in 1997. Hong Kong held no “residual power” and while it enjoyed considerable independence from Beijing, “the central government has the power of oversight over the high degree of autonomy,” it added. …

As we have been reporting (and forecasting for the past several years), the Eurasian anti-US Dollar axis is rapidly taking shape, with recent events catalyzed and certainly accelerated by US foreign policy in Ukraine, which has merely succeeded in pushing Russia that much closer, and faster, to China. The latest proof of this came overnight when the FT reported that Russian companies are preparing to switch contracts to renminbi and other Asian currencies amid fears that western sanctions may freeze them out of the US dollar market, according to two top bankers. According to Pavel Teplukhin, head of Deutsche Bank...

Leaders of the Tiananmen Square protest movement 25 years ago told members of Congress today they were crushed that America didn’t step in to help back then, but they’re more troubled about what the U.S. government isn’t doing as human rights abuses in China increase to a rate not seen since that era. No Democrats showed up on the dais for the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations hearing, at which Chairman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) raised a range of concerns including persecution of anyone who tries to mark the massacre in China,...

A quarter century after the (Tiananmen Square pro-democracy) movement’s suppression, China’s communist authorities oversee a raft of measures for muzzling dissent and preventing protests. They range from the sophisticated—extensive monitoring of online debate and control over media—to the relatively simple—routine harassment of government critics and maintenance of a massive domestic security force. The system has proven hugely successful: No major opposition movement has gotten even a hint of traction in the 25 years since Tiananmen. President and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping seems intent on ensuring things stay that way. […] Some degree of labor activism has been permitted, especially...

China is targeting popular smartphone-based instant messaging services in a month-long campaign to crack down on the spreading of rumors and what it calls “hostile forces at home and abroad,” the latest move to restrict online freedom of expression. The official Xinhua News Agency said the campaign started Tuesday and the services targeted included WeChat, a service run by TenCent Holdings Ltd, which incorporates social media functions that resemble microblog features and that has surged in popularity the last two years. Users can use such services to send messages to a select group of friends, or can follow public accounts,...

Few economists have had a more distinguished career than Martin Feldstein. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1961, he became a fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. In 1977, he won the John Bates Clark Medal, the most prestigious award in American economics. He went on to become chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors in the Reagan administration and is now a member of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Promoting travel to the U.S. as a job creator, President Barack Obama wants to make it easier for people from other countries to visit the 50 states and spend money at their hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and other businesses. Obama planned to discuss the economic benefits of tourism to the U.S. and the latest steps he is taking to boost it at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, on Thursday. Obama acted two years ago to speed the processing of tourist visas for visitors from China and Brazil, steps that have dramatically reduced the length...

Amid a bitter crisis in relations with the West over Ukraine, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has turned to China to form a new alliance. Putin, who called Russia’s biggest neighbor his “reliable friend”, is in Shanghai to agree on a widely anticipated multibillion-dollar natural gas sale. A deal would give Moscow an economic and political boost at a time of Western sanctions, although China has been warned by the US to avoid taking steps that might offset the ban. …