Free Republic

The Chinese Coast Guard said on Monday it is conducting “law enforcement” patrols east of Taiwan in response to Japan and the Philippines reaching an agreement on maritime boundaries. China denounced the Japanese-Filipino agreement as “completely illegal, null, and void” because it could disrupt China’s expansive territorial claims. “This is a necessary action taken in response to Japan and the Philippines unilaterally announcing the initiation of maritime boundary delimitation negotiations in the waters east of China’s Taiwan island,” the Chinese Coast Guard said. “We urge Japan and the Philippines to immediately cease all illegal actions that infringe upon ​China’s sovereign...

The Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision, initially articulated by Prime Minister Abe Shinzō in 2016...includes capacity-building assistance aimed at strengthening governance, maritime security, and navigational safety. FOIP represented a major step forward in Japan’s strategic engagement in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly in Southeast Asia. For example, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force has conducted Indo-Pacific Deployment long-range training missions, mainly in the South China Sea, since 2017. These deployments deliberately incorporate port visits and joint exercises with regional navies, reflecting broader strategic considerations. Over the past decade, China’s maritime law-enforcement capabilities and naval power have expanded significantly, fundamentally transforming the security...

Muslim street takeovers in the name of ‘prayers’ have become a global problem from New York to London to Moscow, they’re creating conflict in India, and, less expectedly, in South Korea. On a Friday afternoon, dozens of men stream out of a five-story building in Ansan’s Danwon-gu, some dressed in long white garments and caps, quietly walking away or chatting in small groups along the street. The building they emerge from looks like an ordinary commercial property, but it is the Ansan Islamic Center, one of 21 mosques operated nationwide by the Korea Muslim Federation. The crowd, made up mostly...

DONALD Trump has warned Taiwan not to declare independence after his crunch talks with Xi Jinping at his Beijing summit. The US president revealed Xi asked him directly if America would intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion to which he refused to answer.

The 2025 article marks a significant evolution. It adapts Maoist strategy as a framework for far-seas operations, showing how a weaker force might offset U.S. advantages through asymmetric means. In doing so, it envisions not only countering intervention in a Taiwan conflict, but also protecting China’s global maritime interests. The application of Mao’s doctrine at sea signals ambitions well beyond regional defense—toward a PLAN capable of contesting influence across the world’s oceans.Once in place, these seemingly civilian platforms, operating in coordination with military forces, would be poised to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities in wartime. They would target critical nodes and weak...

Days before Donald Trump is scheduled to visit mainland China, a group of mostly Democrat senators reportedly is urging the president to move ahead with a long-delayed $14 billion weapons package for Taiwan.The bipartisan group pressed Trump in a Friday letter to formally notify Congress of the major arms sale ahead of his summit this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, warning that U.S. support for Taiwan "is not up for negotiation," The New York Times reported. The senators argued Taiwan has already demonstrated its commitment to self-defense after lawmakers in Taipei approved a massive $25 billion special defense budget...

Hong Kong has become a critical financial and logistical lifeline for Iran’s regime — helping move illicit oil, weapons technology and surveillance tools that fuel Tehran’s military machine and domestic repression, according to a bombshell report set for release Monday. The 26-page report by the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, titled “Oil, Arms, and Cash: How Hong Kong Fuels the Iranian Regime,” alleges that dozens of Hong Kong-based companies have helped Iran evade Western sanctions while funneling billions of dollars into the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its terror proxies. “Simply put, without Hong Kong’s...

Fujisawa, Kanagawa Pref. – A mosque construction project in Fujisawa, a city of 440,000 about an hour south of Tokyo, has become a focal point for debate over how Japanese communities are adapting to a growing Muslim population.Sri Lankan businessman Mohamed Khaleel, 54, says the idea of building a mosque in his adopted hometown emerged over a decade ago among the local Muslim community. The closest big mosque to the city center, Ebina Masjid, is 20 kilometers away and has been struggling to serve the increasing Muslim population in the area. . . . Hirofumi Tanada, a professor emeritus at...

MANILA – The Philippines said on May 3 that thousands of people have evacuated the area south of Manila after Mayon Volcano erupted, and the authorities advised the public to stay out of the 6km radius danger zone. The volcanology institute issued Alert Level 3 in its five-step scale as it reported “strombolian activity and short-lived lava fountaining” from one of the South-east Asian nation’s most active volcanoes. It warned of landslides and lava flows. Nearly 1,500 families are now staying in evacuation centres, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Heavy ashfall blanketed several towns in Albay...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: While bones can regrow themselves when they break, teeth aren’t so lucky, and that leads to millions of people worldwide suffering from some form of edentulism, a.k.a. toothlessness. Now, Japanese researchers are moving a promising, tooth-regrowing medicine into human trials. If the trial is successful, the researchers hope the drug will become available for all forms of toothlessness sometime around 2030. The average adult human body contains 206 bones—the hardened mixtures of calcium, minerals, and collagen that provide the biological scaffolding that walks us through our day. While we may not...

The annual festival of Songkran usually signifies a dazzling week-long celebration — but this year’s death toll paints a picture that’s anything but. While the Thai holiday is globally famous for being the “world’s largest water fight,” the reality on the ground is a horrific cycle of road accidents, drunk driving and reckless behavior. In the first three days of Songkran this year, more than 191 deaths have been recorded with 951 accidents and 911 injuries. According to the Road Accident Victims Protection Company, an average of 38 road deaths per day occur throughout the calendar year, indicating a large...

With American warships tightening a naval blockade off Iran and global attention fixed on the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon this week quietly executed a significant move in the Indo-Pacific, announcing a Major Defense Cooperation Partnership with Indonesia that underscores its and the Trump administration's focus on counterbalancing future Chinese aggression. The partnership will elevate bilateral military ties between the two countries in the Strait of Malacca as American forces enforce a naval blockade in the Persian Gulf. When asked about the deal’s impact on the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, a Department of War official told RedState the agreement...

A video of a 24-year-old Pakistani inmate who escaped from Malaysia's Sungai Buloh Prison during a transfer within the jail compound last week has gone viral. In the video shared on Facebook on Sunday (April 12), the fugitive Muhammad Hassan can be seen breaking away from a line of inmates as they disembark from a prison truck on April 9 after attending court proceedings. Hassan, who was clad in an orange t-shirt and black pants, appears to alight slowly before suddenly running off unshackled. Shortly after, two prison officers are seen chasing after him. Based on the timestamp, the incident...

TRUMP BOOM: Asian buyers are abandoning Middle Eastern oil & lining up 28 supertankers to carry US crude in May alone. Normal bookings at this point: 5. US Gulf Coast exports hit a record 4.90 million barrels a day in April. Trump's energy dominance is not a talking point. It is a shipping manifest. h/t @KobeissiLetter

While Washington has been trying to reduce Iran's oil exports to zero with heavy sanctions for years, these sanctions have been thwarted by a key factor: China. A country that has injected billions of dollars into Tehran's economy with the massive purchase of Iranian oil and has become the main pillar of the Islamic Republic's financial sustainability. At the same time, ideas such as acquisition of Iranian oil by Donald Trump have been proposed, which is more than practical, it is a reflection of geopolitical competition with Beijing. «maximum pressure policy » America is designed with the aim of completely...

Asian nations - most recently the Philippines - have been particularly keen to reach agreements as their economies are heavily reliant on energy from the Gulf. In recent weeks - several Asian countries including Pakistan, India and the Philippines - have made agreements with Tehran to let some ships pass through the strait safely. China has also acknowledged that their vessels have also used the channel. Questions remain over the scope of these assurances and just how lasting these agreements with Iran will be. The Philippines imports 98% of its oil from the Middle East and was the first country...

US citizens traveling to Hong Kong are being warned that refusal to hand over passwords or access to their personal devices is now a criminal offense. The US Consulate General in Hong Kong and Macao issued a warning that the Hong Kong government has changed the rules relating to the National Security Law on March 23. The change applies to everyone in Hong Kong, including residents, visitors and travelers transiting through the airport. “It is now a criminal offense to refuse to give the Hong Kong police the passwords or decryption assistance to access all personal electronic devices, including cellphones...

Thousands of Chinese fishing boats have been massing in geometric formations in the East China Sea, in coordinated actions that experts believe are part of Beijing's preparations for a potential regional crisis or conflict. Monitoring ship-tracking data on Christmas Day, Jason Wang could tell something "unusual" was underway as fishing boats swarmed into two parallel inverted Ls,each about 400 kilometres (about 250 miles) long. Wang could see the roughly 2,000 fishing boats among the many thousands of vessels that ply the busy waterway through their automatic identification systems (AIS) -- a GPS-type signal that commercial ships use to avoid collisions.

The captain of a ship of the Iranian Navy has handed his vessel over to the Sri Lankan government, a neutral party, for internment, saving the lives of his crew hours after another Iranian warship was destroyed nearby by the United States Navy. Sri Lanka (Ceylon) has assumed control of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ship (IRIS) Bushehr, a fleet supply ship (oiler). Sri Lanka has sent craft to receive the 1970s-era ship within its territorial waters and, per local media, has taken off 208 officers and men, who are to be sent ashore. The ship will now be taken...

The infamous picture of Bill Clinton in a hot tub with a mystery woman is from a 2002 trip to Asia the ex-president took with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and madam Ghislaine Maxwell, The Post can reveal. Clinton was grilled on the racy photo during his deposition before the House Oversight Committee Friday, insisting he did “nothing wrong” and did not have sex with the woman whose face was redacted in the picture released as part of the Department of Justice’s files on the sex predator. The snap that landed Bubba in hot water was taken at the Emperor suite of...