Free Republic

PetroChina just surpassed Exxon Mobil to become the largest energy company in the world, on a market cap basis. PetroChina was able to accomplish this despite Exxon’s growth of 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) in reserves. These new reserves are located at the Permian Basin in West Texas and the Kearl Oil Sands project in Canada. PetroChina’s primary operations are located in China. This may not seem like a major oil hub to the average investor, but China is actually the 5th largest oil producing country in the world. Now the question becomes: can PetroChina retain its status...

If the U.S. intelligence community believes that Russia poses a greater cyber spying threat than China, what will it make of this? Russia and China signed a cyber-security deal on Friday, which experts say could firm up Russia’s ties with the east and may become a foundation for binding cyber security ties in the future. According to the text of the agreement posted on the Russian government’s website on Wednesday, Russia and China agree to not conduct cyber-attacks against each other, as well as jointly counteract technology that may “destabilize the internal political and socio-economic atmosphere,” ”disturb public order” or...

The United States voiced concern Friday over a report that China manipulated international Internet traffic intended for a major Chinese Web service company and used it for a cyberattack on U.S. sites. State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke’s comments follow complaints from anti-online censorship group Greatfire.org that Chinese authorities carried out denial-of-service attacks in late March that intermittently shut down San Francisco-based Github, a U.S.-based computer-code sharing site that hosts some of Greatfire’s data. Greatfire.org said it was a direct target of similar attacks earlier that month. […] The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for...

A Chinese province where authorities have forcibly removed hundreds of rooftop crosses from Protestant and Catholic churches has proposed a ban on any further placement of the religious symbol atop sanctuaries. The draft, if approved, would give authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang solid legal grounds to remove rooftop crosses. Since early 2014, Zhejiang officials have toppled crosses from more than 400 churches, sometimes resulting in violent clashes with congregation members. They have said the crosses violate building codes, but critics say the rapid growth of Christian groups have made the ruling Communist Party nervous.“The authorities have attached great...

China has employed an unusual method in trying to crack down on Muslim violence and attacks by Uyghurs in the western Xinjiang region—in a new notice, it has ordered Muslim merchants to sell alcohol prominently to “weaken” Islam, which forbids the consumption of alcohol. In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region separatist Sunni Muslim Uyghur factions have conducted numerous attacks, including those with guns and explosives. China has cracked down in response and is trying to have them blacklisted as terrorists, although much of the international community has denounced the Chinese actions accusing the state of repression. In its latest move,...

A Chinese attorney who escaped house arrest in his home country for his efforts to protect women from forced abortion for violating the government’s one-child policy said on Thursday that in the 35 years since the practice hundreds of millions of babies have been killed. “Over the past 35 years, China has killed a total of 360 to 400 million young lives as a result of its inhumane and violent birth control policies,” Chen Guangcheng, now senior fellow at Catholic University of America said at a hearing of the Congressional Executive Commission on China. “During a six-month period of 2005,...

Barack Obama was a piker when he wrote about audacity. Hillary Clinton seems to be calling for nothing less than a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the United States, mimicking Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing, who sought to overturn millennia of Chinese culture in order to impose a communist paradise through the Cultural Revolution. But of course, Hillary was urging the rejection of our religious and cultural heritage in order to facilitate the killing of unborn children. Kerry Pickett of The Daily Caller reports: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took a feminist tone on Thursday. She told attendees at the...

HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, has ordered a review into whether it should move its headquarters out of Britain and potentially back to its former home in Hong Kong, threatening London’s reputation as a global hub for finance and investment. The announcement from HSBC, founded in Asia but a key part of the British establishment, prompted a warm response from Hong Kong, where it is revered as “The Bank”, and silence from the British government. The commitment to the review comes less than two weeks before British parliamentary elections on May 7 and poses challenges for both Prime Minister David Cameron...

As ISIS first blitzed across northern Iraq in June 2014, the militants seized large quantities of US arms and vehicles from the fleeing Iraqi forces. Over the almost past year of fighting, however, ISIS has gone from fielding large quantities of US weapons to using a mixture of Iranian, Chinese, Russian, Soviet, and Sudanese ammunition. According to a fact sheet from the Forum on Arms Trade, citing the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) and the Small Arms Survey, ISIS was largely able to acquire this ammunition from the constantly shifting battle lines of the Syrian civil war. A large amount of...

Just U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E !! (HatTip Gateway Pundit) In “honor” of his meeting with China Ambassador Cui Tiankai, Washington Governor Jay Inslee has posted the Chinese flag between the American flag and the state flag at the capitol building in Olympia. Hat Tip State Rep. Elizabeth Scott On Saturday – A small group of people arrived at the capitol in the morning and removed the Communist flag. They were assisted by an officer from the Washington State Police. Video, courtesy of activist Maria Bosworth.

We have heard repeatedly about Americans and Europeans fighting for ISIL, but little attention is being devoted to the Russian-speaking foreign fighters that make up the group. Their numbers are estimated at 500 or more. Omar al-Shishani is usually described as a prominent Islamic State fighter who is Chechen. In fact, he was born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia and was trained there. Some reports suggest these fighters are opposed to the Russian-backed Assad regime in Syria and Russia itself. But if this is the case, then why is Russia opposed to U.S. bombing of these terrorists? NBC...

In “honor” of his meeting with China Ambassador Cui Tiankai, Washington Governor Jay Inslee has posted the Chinese flag between the American flag and the state flag at the capitol building in Olympia. Hat Tip State Rep. Elizabeth Scott On Saturday - A small group of people arrived at the capitol in the morning and removed the Communist flag. They were assisted by an officer from the Washington State Police. Video, courtesy of activist Maria Bosworth.

While the world focuses on the dangers that a nuclear-armed Iran could present in the Middle East, a potentially more dangerous and unstable nuclear proliferation is occurring in the Indian Ocean. In the coming years India, Pakistan, and perhaps China will likely deploy a significant number of nuclear weapons at sea in the Indian Ocean. This could further destabilise already unstable nuclear relationships, creating a real risk of a sea-based exchange of nuclear weapons. Observers have long seen India-Pakistan nuclear rivalry as the most unstable in the world, and South Asia as the most likely location of nuclear conflict. This...

Most countries, including the United States, do not recognise Taiwan due to pressure from China. Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. However it is a member of the Asian Development Bank under the name of Taipei, China. China views Taiwan as a renegade province and has not ruled out the use of force to bring it under its control. However, since Taiwan's current president Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008, enmity has declined considerably and the two sides have signed a number of trade and investment deals. The AIIB...

Japan is not planning to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, its government spokesman said Tuesday, while Taiwan announced it would apply for membership, joining dozens of countries in signing up to an initiative opposed by Washington. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that Japan, the world’s No. 3 economy, is still seeking answers about how the regional financing institution would be governed. “As of today, Japan will not join AIIB and a clear explanation has not been received from China,” Suga said. The U.S. has found itself isolated in its resistance to the bank, with more than...

“The Chinese side has noticed that (Saudi Arabia has launched airstrikes against Yemen) and is deeply worried about the situation in Yemen that is getting worse,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said at a weekly press briefing on Thursday. Expressing hope that the crisis could be resolved “through political dialogues”, Hua said, “We hope that all parties will act in accordance with relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council… and restore national stability and order at an early date.” Saudi-led attacks: widely condemned The Saudi invasion of Yemen drew condemnation from Iran, Russia, the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, Syria,...

A North Korean envoy says his country has developed nuclear missiles and is prepared to use them at any time. North Korean Ambassador to Britain Hyun Hak Bong said in a recent interview with British broadcaster Sky News that his government would use the missiles in response to a nuclear attack by the United States. Asked whether North Korea has the ability now to launch a nuclear missile, Hyun replied, “Any time. Any time. Yes.” “If the United States strike us we should strike back,” he said. …

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble confirmed on Tuesday that Germany has agreed to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), despite pressure from the US.Germany, France and Italy “want to bring our long experience … to help the bank build a solid reputation,” Schäuble said at a joint press conference in Berlin with Chinese vice-premier Ma Kai. “We want to make a contribution to the positive development of the Asian economy, in which German companies are actively taking part,” he said. France and Italy have also agreed to become members of the $50-billion institution, seen as a rival to the...

Hillary Can’t Delete This As Secretary of State, Clinton says she stopped at nothing to get a blind dissident out of China. That’s not what he remembers. By DAVID FEITH March 15, 2015 This book won’t help Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. Its author, Chen Guangcheng, is the blind Chinese human-rights lawyer who in April 2012 escaped rural house arrest and sought refuge at the U.S. embassy in Beijing. The ensuing diplomatic tussle over his fate was a high drama that Mrs. Clinton touts as an accomplishment of her tenure as secretary of state. It reminded her of the “responsibility...

Currency wars and the growing trend away from dollar dominance in international finance, particularly in emerging markets, was highlighted in an interesting CNBC article this morning entitled “Is the Dollar Losing its Clout Among EMs?” It refers to the deliberate and stated policy of “de-dollarization” around the world, the decline in the use of the dollar in international trade and as a reserve currency, and the emergence of the new BRICS bank. The article quotes best-selling author and Pentagon insider, Jim Rickards. Rickards says that the status of the dollar as a reserve currency is still solid despite its decline...