Free Republic

Taiwanese National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen said that Taiwan and the United States have reached a “consensus” to keep tariffs off Taipei’s semiconductor industry.The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Oct. 20, 2021. AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, FileIn a Financial Times interview published on Nov. 20, Wu said that Taiwan will support the United States in building its chip industry, and in return, the United States will offer tariff relief for the island’s semiconductor sector.“Of course, there’s the recipes of how to make the chips, but it’s also about the science park management, attracting...

The biggest stories of the age...but everyone missed them? How’s that possible? Tofu dregs projects are now collapsing throughout China. From fine homes to skyscrapers, bridges, and malls, many, many thousands of these structures are so shoddy that they fall apart soon after they are constructed. Imagine that plastic rods are substituted for rebar. Plaster and sand are substituted for concrete. Five years ago, China was counted as the next superpower. Now it’s engaged in massive self-destruction. Here they are in 2025, real estate and financing have collapsed; even menial jobs are hard to find. The country is broke because...

China’s homegrown passenger jet, the COMAC C919, was supposed to be a national triumph—a gleaming symbol of independence from Boeing and Airbus. But as the world looks on, one thing is becoming clear: this aircraft might just be the aviation equivalent of tofu dreg architecture. It looks smooth on the outside, sounds patriotic in the press release, and gives passengers a front-row seat to a grand experiment in airborne state-sponsored optimism...

A project heralded by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and accelerated by President Donald Trump stands to deal a huge blow to China’s dominance in the nanotechnology, energy and automotive sectors as the GraphiteOne site near Nome uncovered vast reserves — for which Beijing previously accounted for 90% of production. As of 2024, the U.S. was at least 93% import-dependent on both rare earth elements (REEs) and graphite itself, according to the International Energy Agency, and the Graphite Creek deposit has already been dubbed the largest such tranche in the U.S. But, this week’s announcement that REEs were discovered in addition...

Two Chinese nationals and two U.S. citizens have been charged with a scheme to illegally export advanced Nvidia chips to China in violation of U.S. export controls, the Department of Justice said on Nov. 20.In a file photograph, the logo of Nvidia Corporation during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 30, 2017. Tyrone Siu/ReutersLi Cham, 38, a California resident, and Chen Jing, 45, who resides in Florida on an F-1 nonimmigrant student visa, are the two Chinese nationals accused of the illegal exporting scheme. The two U.S. citizens are Ho Hong Ning, 34, a Florida resident...

Is the Chinese economy collapsing? Or is something worse waiting in the wings?The short answer is that we could be looking at something much worse than a crashing economy. China could be part of a collapse of the global monetary system.We’ll begin the analysis with the latest official economic releases from China. These releases showed some of the weakest performance by the Chinese economy since the 2020 pandemic collapse.Things Aren’t Looking GoodIndustrial production growth for October declined to 4.9% (year-over-year) from a prior level of 6.5%. This was the weakest reading since August 2024. Some sectors receiving state support such...

For all the talk about artificial intelligence and quantum supremacy, the fate of civilizations still depends on breakfast. ChatGPT can’t grow corn. Empires rise on stomachs as much as on silicon. And America’s food system – long dismissed as safe and self-sufficient – has quietly become a front line in the US-China rivalry. We act as if lunch is inevitable, but Beijing knows that food is power. A new report from the America First Policy Institute should wake us up. Washington long treated agriculture as a post-political space where globalization could do no harm, and was therefore happy to let...

The USDA is “crunching numbers” as it considers potential relief for farmers from tariff-related losses, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen A. Vaden said Monday. President Donald Trump’s administration previously hinted that it might devote up to $12 billion to aid payments for farmers who were hurt by tariff policies this year, Politico reported in late October. “This department only woke back up on Thursday of last week,” Vaden said, referencing the Nov. 12 conclusion of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. “Lots of things changed during (the government shutdown),” including trade agreements with China, Southeast Asia, Pakistan, and...

On Oct 25, Xue Jian, Consul General of China in Osaka, used “beheading” language toward U.S. @SecWar Pete Hegseth. This must be translated and reported to the U.S. government. A China diplomat threatening to behead a U.S. official should be widely exposed!

Guest post by Joel Gilbert California Representative Eric Swalwell has faced a barrage of controversy in recent years, from his alleged ties to the Chinese spy “Fang Fang,” to his removal from the House Intelligence Committee over national security concerns, to his infamous on-air mishap during a 2019 interview on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Now, a new revelation raises even more serious questions about Swalwell’s integrity and eligibility to serve in Congress.

A former top aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul enjoyed a life of luxury because she was an undeclared agent for China, federal prosecutors have claimed. Linda Sun, 41, is accused of acting as an unregistered operative for the Chinese Communist Party and using her position to influence Hochul and ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo into actions favorable to Beijing. Sun earned a government salary of $145,000, but was also receiving millions of dollars from side deals arranged by Chinese officials, prosecutors told her trial Monday. She and her husband Chris Hu used cash to purchase a $3.6 million mansion in...

When President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods, the Chinese Communist Party didn’t just retaliate with trade measures. It launched an information war, using American insiders to spread its narrative that tariffs were reckless and self-defeating. One of the most prominent voices in that campaign is Rick Waters, a former senior U.S. diplomat who once directed the State Department’s China House. Since leaving government, Waters has become a reliable messenger for Beijing’s preferred positions, appearing with CCP-linked influence groups and using Western media outlets to promote pro-China talking points that undermine Trump’s trade strategy. From State Department Insider to...

The top secret June 2025 B-2 Bomber strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was launched from Whiteman Air Force base, which shares a fence with a foreign-owned trailer park linked to a convicted fraudster with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence ties. The Knob Noster Trailer Park in rural Missouri is located less than a mile from the runway of “the world’s only nuclear-capable stealth bomber.” Business filings and social media posts reveal the RV park is one of several properties near U.S. military interests acquired by a web of shell companies, which are ultimately owned by a couple who live in...

On Saturday, Nov. 8, less than an hour before the planned launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, chunks of metal and other debris were spotted streaking across the sky across Florida. Spaceflight Now Photographer John Pisani captured video of what was later determined to be the upper stage of a Chinese Long March 3B rocket that launched back in 2019. Chinese Long March 3B upper stage makes uncontrolled reentry over Florida | 1:36 Spaceflight Now | 383K subscribers | 1,650 views | November 8, 2025

Looks like china is getting its own Apollo 13 mission... The Daily Mail has the details: Three astronauts already in space for six months are now stranded in orbit after their craft may have been damaged by dangerous debris floating around Earth. China's Manned Spaceflight Agency (CMSA) has revealed that crew from its Shenzhou 20 mission will need to stay on board the Chinese station Tiangong. The team of astronauts scheduled to relieve the first group had already taken off and were on their way to swap out with them, but the astronauts aboard the space station discovered a potentially...

War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Tuesday another lethal strike against a drug trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific. Two were killed in the attack. According to NewsNation, at least 66 people have been killed in at least 16 strikes since the United States campaign in South America started in September. This strike came “the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower,” per NewsNation. Hegseth wrote in a statement on Tuesday, Today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has launched an investigation into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Ford Foundation over reports the organizations funneled millions of dollars to the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliates. Grassley sent letters to each foundation asking whether the reports are accurate and how any such payments comply with federal tax laws governing 501(c)(3) charitable status. “According to recent reports, [your organizations], through grants and direct payments, have funded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its allies,” Grassley wrote. “To maintain tax exempt status, an organization’s activities must be...

n anti-Israel transgender rabbi who was once tossed out of the White House has become the face of a “Jews for Zohran” ad — as she tries to rally support for socialist mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani in the final days of the election. Abby Stein, a part-time rabbi at Brooklyn’s progressive Kolot Chayein synagogue, is among a handful of female rabbis featured in the ad recently put out by the Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JREJ). “We know Zohran will fight to make our city affordable and safe for our families,” Stein declared in the campaign ad.“As Jews, as...

Photo of "rabbi" Abby Stein omitted, to minimize reader nausea. An ad campaign from the “Jews for Zohran” caught our attention yesterday. We tracked down the “rabbis” in the ad. You won’t believe it, but one of them, “Rabbi” Abby Stein, is a transgender rabbi who was booted from a Biden White House shindig for disrupting the event with demands to end U.S. aid to Israel. This is my shocked face. Stein, a biological man, is the type of committed Jew who sat down for an interfaith dialogue with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian just days before he launched nearly 200...

On Friday, I started a regular series that I'll post at the end of each week called "The New Monroe Doctrine." (And thank you all for the wonderful feedback I've received. It's encouraging.) My goal with that is to tell you what's going on in the Western Hemisphere each week as it relates to the United States. Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are making this a priority, thank goodness, and I'm going to cover it every step of the way. In that article, I mentioned that I was also planning to launch a second, complementary column specifically about China's influence...