Free Republic

It’s been obvious for years that China has a Potemkin economy, kept alive by slave labor, market bubbles, and government underwriting. it can’t last forever. The latest grim forecast about the economy comes from Peter St Onge, an economist with a much deeper fund of knowledge about and understanding of the Chinese economy than I could have in a thousand lifetimes.The biggest hint that the Chinese economy was in trouble was the demise of Evergrande, a massive property developer in China. The bankruptcy was huge, with the company’s assets valued at a probably inflated $245 billion and debts of $300...

Chinese Sub Pops Up Undetected Near U.S.S. Kitty Hawk During Exercise November 10, 2007 Hot Air posted this story earlier today and it should shake your sense of security at least a little. Recently, when a Chinese submarine popped up undetected in the middle of a Pacific Ocean exercise, dangerously close to the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, American military chiefs were left dumbfounded and red-faced, according to UK newspaper, Daily Mail. When the Navy deploys a battle fleet on exercises, they take the security of the aircraft carriers very seriously. At least a dozen warships are used to provide a physical...

TOKYO - In a sign of deepening popular and political animosity between China and Japan, Tokyo took formal possession this week of a tiny archipelago in the Pacific waters south of Japan. In the early morning of Feb. 9, Tokyo informed Beijing's embassy here that the Senkaku Islands would be administered by the Japanese coast guard. The unexpectedly bold action by Tokyo received little attention here. But it is seen as a "serious chess move," says one diplomat, in a region where power relations are being redefined, and where tensions over energy, borders, military buildups, and ethnic rivalries are palpable....