Free Republic

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has technically been banned from visiting China by its communist government, but he accompanied President Donald Trump on his trip to Beijing on Tuesday using a bureaucratic loophole created by the Chinese to let him in. Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles to Florida who was elected to the Senate in 2011, was one of several congressional representatives banned from traveling to China in July 2020 because they spoke out against China’s brutal oppression of the Uyghur Muslims of occupied East Turkistan. The U.S. had previously sanctioned four Chinese officials for herding the Uyghurs into...

On the eve of President Trump’s meeting in Beijing with Xi Jinping, it is worth reminding ourselves of something not often discussed—the Chinese president's family background. Xi’s is so radically different from almost all Americans that it's extremely difficult for most of us to understand exactly who he is. I first ran into this some years ago, when, at the beginning of writing columns for The Epoch Times, I was informed by their then-publisher (now deceased) to “go easy” on Xi because their objective was to encourage the Chinese leader to liberalize. That seemed naive. But I went along, assuming...

The World War II slogan (that’s a two, not an eleven, Ilhan) “loose lips sink ships” reminded Americans that careless talk could provide our enemies with vital intelligence. Here we are, nearly a century later, and the principle still applies. Recent events involving Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Defense secretary Pete Hegseth illustrate how public disclosures about military capabilities can still compromise our national security.AdvertisementSenator Kelly appeared Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. Drawing from a classified Pentagon briefing on U.S. weapons stockpiles that were depleted during operations against Iran, Senator Kelly detailed the strains on specific munitions: Tomahawk missiles,...

Like Fang Fang, the Chinese spy who had former Rep. Eric Swalwell under her thumb, Arcadia's Democrat mayor, Eileen Wang was quite the social butterfly. She got around. She was an active member of the Arcadia Rotary Club, the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce, the Arcadia Lions Club, the Arcadia Association of Realtors and the Arcadia High School Chinese Parents Booster Club in addition to organizing the “U.S. Heroes Music and Art Festival” which sounds like a pretty busy calendar.AdvertisementAnd with all this socializing, she won a seat on the Arcadia city council in 2022, which in its rotating system, allowed...

Gunshots have been heard in the Philippine Senate building, Senate authorities said on Wednesday, where a senator wanted by the International Criminal Court has been holed up to resist arrest. [SNIP] Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos insisted the incident was not carried out by government personnel, but rather an apparent shootout between an unidentified armed group and Senate security personnel. Marcos said no government forces attempted to enter the Senate to arrest Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, a longtime ally of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who evaded arrest by local investigative unit officers earlier this week. Senator Dela Rosa was filmed...

A very interesting video about the Carney Doctrine: Behind the Scenes in Toronto and President Trump's Doctrine.

Hao Fengjun Reveals Facts of the ‘610 Office’Hao Fengjun, from Model Police Officer to 610 Office DefectorBy Li HuaThe Epoch Times Jun 19, 2005 Hao Fengjun being interviewed (The Epoch Times) MELBOURNE - Hao Fengjun never thought his visit to Melbourne’s Epoch Times office on June 4, 2005 would send shock waves throughout Western society. Hao chose to step forward to tell people why he defected from his post as a police officer in China’s notorious 610 Office. He risked his own and his family’s lives to help people understand the situation in China. A Model Police Officer at the...

A California mayor who has since resigned has been charged with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China and has agreed to plead guilty, according to federal prosecutors who say she secretly worked to push pro-Beijing messaging inside the United States before she took office.Eileen Wang, former mayor of Arcadia, California, has been charged with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China and has agreed to plead guilty to the felony offense, the Justice Department announced. She now faces up to 10 years in federal prison along with a potential $250,000 fine,...

This video provides an immersive tour of Shenzhen, showcasing the rapid transformation and high-tech integration that makes it one of the most advanced cities in the world. Key Highlights of Shenzhen's Tech Scene: Futuristic Payments & Logistics: The host demonstrates palm payments at a local convenience store (1:14) and experiences drone delivery for tea, which was significantly faster and more efficient than traditional methods (1:40 - 3:18). Autonomous Transportation: The video captures the experience of riding in a driverless taxi (5:21), observing how it handles complex traffic, turns, and obstacle avoidance (5:21 - 7:37). Domestic Innovation: The host explores the...

President Donald Trump has been compared to many historical figures, by opponents (who claim he’s another Adolf Hitler) and by boosters (who cite Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt). With his blockade of Iran, though, maybe we should start comparing him to Gen. Winfield Scott. In the mid-19th century, Scott was America’s preeminent military mind, the architect of victory in the Mexican War and the “Grand Old Man of the Army.” As the Civil War loomed, he developed a plan to defeat the Confederacy with the smallest number of casualties possible. He called it the Anaconda Plan — and like its...

The former mayor of Arcadia resigned after admitting to acting as an illegal foreign agent of China in a federal plea deal unsealed on Monday. Eileen Wang agreed with prosecutors that she worked with the People’s Republic of China to boost propaganda with a fake news website on US soil between 2020 and 2022. She was elected to Arcadia City Council in November 2022. The city is within LA County. Wang pled guilty to the federal charge at her arraignment in downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon. She faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. LA’s top federal prosecutor...

The mayor of Arcadia, California, has been charged in federal court with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Justice Department announced today. Eileen Wang, 58, of Arcadia, is charged via information with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government. In a related filing, Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony count, which comes with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. She is expected to make her initial appearance this afternoon in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles. Wang is...

If you needed another reminder that the state of California needs help, this should do the trick. Eileen Wang, the mayor of the city of Arcadia, has just been charged with acting as a foreign agent for China. She was posting information on a supposed news website that was basically regime-approved propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party. How many more sleepers like Wang are out there? It’s disturbing to consider that possibility, isn’t it? From ABC News: California mayor charged with acting as illegal agent for China Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, California, has been charged with acting as...

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...

In this age of technology, it's not uncommon to come across at least one AI-generated video with every scroll on social media. But recently, a particular trope of short-form videos took the internet by storm - in the form of snowy mountains, a wood-chopping man, braised duck and a mystical woman draped in white. "Did you save a fox on a snowy mountain?" is a question that has made its rounds with the release of a Chinese AI-generated microdrama. Created to appear like a period drama made in the 1970s, it follows a traveller on a snowy mountain who saves...

Just yesterday, the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Beijing, meeting with his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The two ministers reportedly discussed bilateral ties, the Iran-U.S. conflict, the Strait of Hormuz, and regional issues. But today, as Araghchi is already back in Tehran, the unpredictable happened, with the Iranians reportedly striking a Chinese-owned cargo ship in the Hormuz waterways. The attack was confirmed by US Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz. “A Chinese-owned oil products tanker was attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, Chinese media outlet Caixin reported, as President Donald Trump launched a...

Jinlin Crater A team of scientists has uncovered evidence that a massive asteroid strike created a prominent crater in southern China’s Guangdong province roughly 10,000 years ago, during a period of rapid human development. The Jinlin crater, situated near Zhaoqing city, marks only the fifth confirmed impact site in China and the very first identified in the country’s southern region. Measuring approximately 2,950 feet across, the tilted, bowl-shaped formation suggests it was formed by an extraterrestrial object roughly 100 feet in diameter, unleashing an explosion comparable to dozens of atomic bombs. Researchers believe the impact would have had a profound...

China had a head start on controling rare earths. Trump cut off oil from Iran to China, and uses that as leverage to get access to China rare earths. Israel is pioneering new rare earth extraction technology in the Negev, and working on recycling old electronics and batteries for their rare earth content.

Long-standing regulations mean the United States may not be able to compete with Chinese critical mineral production despite the recent discovery of 328 years’ worth of lithium stretching across the Appalachian Mountains. In April, the United States Geological Survey estimated 2.33 million metric tons of extractable lithium lay underneath multiple Appalachian states. Red tape and lacking infrastructure could thwart the find’s promised economic potential, analysts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Lithium is a critical resource essential for rechargeable batteries, including those used in electric vehicles, portable electronics such as laptops and phones, and electrical grid storage. Chinese companies presently...

Beijing's empire isn't built on factories, AI labs, or rare earths. It's built on a single nation the West spent two decades dismissing — Iran. And the day Tehran's regime falls, the entire architecture China assembled over thirty years folds inward like wet cardboard. In this deep dive, we expose the hidden financial, energy, and geographic dependencies binding Beijing to Tehran — from the secret yuan-settled oil deals and the petroyuan experiment, to the Belt and Road's only viable land corridor, to the $9–12 billion annual "shadow fleet" subsidy quietly underwriting Chinese export manufacturing. We examine why China cannot quietly...