Free Republic

By going public last week about hack attacks by China on computers in his congressional office, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) put the spotlight on a growing trend of cyber attacks on U.S. and foreign government officials. U.S. defense officials confirmed that Chinese military hackers had broken into computers at the Pentagon used for email within the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel complained directly to Chinese President Hu Jintao about Chinese attacks on German government computers, and European and Asian governments from France and Britain to Japan and South Korea have identified widespread Chinese hacking. U.S....

President George W. Bush's nominee for U.S. defense secretary said the United States must prepare its military to resist if China attacks rival Taiwan. Robert Gates, a former CIA director chosen by Bush to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense chief, said that although China appears to want a peaceful merger with Taiwan, Beijing is boosting its military force in case of a war with the island. "We should maintain our capabilities to resist China's use of force or coercion against Taiwan and assist Taipei in maintaining its self-defense," Gates said in testimony submitted Tuesday to the Senate Armed Services...

An Australian mountaineer was among dozens of climbers at a Himalayan base camp who watched in horror as Chinese soldiers shot Tibetan refugees "like rats, dogs [and] rabbits", leaving at least one teenage nun lying dead in the snow. The incident, witnessed by international climbers and Sherpas at a camp on Mount Cho Oyu - about 20 kilometres west of Mount Everest - occurred on September 30 as a group of refugees, including many children, made their way across the 5700-metre-high Nangpa La Pass from Tibet to Nepal and then on to Dharamsala in India - the home of their...