Free Republic

Using Covid as an excuse for more restrictions, the CCP and its lackeys in Hong Kong are hoping to further assimilate the city into the top-to-bottom-run system used in China.In a bid to further cripple the freedom of their citizens, Hong Kong government officials are ramping up their response to Covid with a series of new draconian policy measures.On Monday, the city’s Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau announced several new restrictions allegedly aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, including a mandate that requires positive Covid patients quarantined at home to “wear an electronic tracking bracelet.” Used earlier during the...

The five therapists, who were arrested over a year ago, are finally facing trial for charges of sedition for a series of books about a village of sheep and a village of wolves. The books very clearly differentiate the two towns as good and bad, with the wolves' society bearing a striking resemblance to mainland China. The books depict the society of wolves — monitored by CCTV cameras — plotting an infiltration of the sheep village after their shepherd has left. "[The books'] combined effect was to influence or educate readers to neither be Chinese nor have a sense of...

The Jumbo Floating Restaurant capsized and sank in the South China Sea just five days after the 76-meter vessel was towed from Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter last Tuesday. Jumbo's owner, Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises Limited, announced the "death" of the vessel, saying it was hit by a thunderstorm as it was sailing near the Paracel Islands on Saturday afternoon. "Water got into the boat and it started to list. The tow company tried to save it but in vain," it said. The vessel eventually fully listed and capsized on Sunday. No crew members were injured. "The vessel sank more than 1,000 meters...

Warships from the U.S. Navy sailing off the coast of California in 2019 were swarmed by drones from a nearby Hong Kong cargo ship on multiple occasions, the Navy has revealed. The incidents were all reported between March 30, 2019 and July 30, 2019. Seven different vessels were involved. One of the warships reported in their official memo that the Hong Kong ship was observing them, noting: 'MV Bass Strait likely using UAVs (unidentified aerial vehicles) to conduct surveillance on US Naval Forces'.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver told reporters this week that China’s response to former Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey expressing his support for anti-government Hong Kong protesters in 2019 cost the league hundreds of millions of dollars. Morey, who is now general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, tweeted in October 2019 an image that read, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” Morey would later delete the tweet and explain that he did not intend to offend Rockets fans or his friends in China. Demonstrators were protesting against China’s control of Hong Kong at the time. China first pulled games...

June 4, come rain or shine, tens of thousands of people would descend on Victoria Park in Hong Kong to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre... every year the park would turn into a sea of candles.... Authorities banned the vigil in 2020 and 2021 citing coronavirus health restrictions... Many say the Hong Kong government would be stretching credulity if it again banned the event on the grounds of Covid. Yet that appears to be what outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam has suggested. The police cited Covid measures and a public order ordinance and warned those who advertised or organized...

Cardinal Zen and five others denied charges of allegedly failing to register a pro-democracy legal relief fund with Hong Kong police. The group awaits trial in September.HONG KONG (LifeSiteNews) – Former Bishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen appeared in court Tuesday, charged with failing to properly register a fund which offered legal and financial assistance to pro-democracy activists. 90-year-old Zen, now retired, was arrested earlier this month under China’s controversial 2020 national security law alongside five other prominent figures – four of whom acted as trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, and the fifth as its secretary. The...

Hong Kong saw a net outflow of 65,295 and 66,334 residents in February and March respectively, according to the city’s official immigration data. The trend will remain strong, as a new poll revealed that nearly 80 percent of Hong Kong residents surveyed were interested in emigrating. In mid-March, Bartra interviewed nearly 500 Hong Kong residents aged 18 and above through an online questionnaire. According to the poll, 79 percent of the respondents indicated that they are considering emigration or will consider this in the future; 48 percent indicated that it was “possible in the future,” and 31 percent indicated that...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed the arrest of a Catholic cardinal in Hong Kong, calling it “one of the clearest signs yet of Beijing’s worsening crackdown” in an op-ed published Friday in The Washington Post. Cardinal Joseph Zen and four other people were arrested earlier this week by national security police in Hong Kong but were later released on bail amid continuing arrest operations, the Post reported.

Hong Kong’s national security police arrested 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen under its national security law for his role in a now-defunct humanitarian relief organization that helped people who participated in the large-scale 2019 pro-democracy protests. Zen was arrested Wednesday, along with other trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which helped protesters legally and financially. According to Hong Kong Free Press, others arrested include Cantopop singer and actor Denise Ho, ex-legislator Margaret Ng and academic Hui Po Keung. They were accused of colluding with foreign forces. If found guilty, they could face life in prison. “The Holy See has learnt...

Hong Kong “elected” a new chief while the world wasn’t paying attention. Hong Kong’s current chief Carrie Lam will retire at the end of June. The selection of her successor has followed the rules Beijing dictated since it took control of Hong Kong in 1997. Beijing stamped out any hope of universal suffrage in Hong Kong in 2004. Rather than letting more than 7 million residents in Hong Kong have a say in whom the city’s chief should be, Beijing created a “nomi­nating committee” (which has more than 1,400 members today), the majority of which are pro-Beijing elites. The committee...

Patrick Ho hardly seemed the profile of a big-time international fixer. A short, pudgy man, affectionately known to friends as “Fat Ping,” Ho had been a Harvard-trained ophthalmologist and a Hong Kong government minister. Yet in the fall of 2017, after landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City, he was arrested by FBI agents and charged in an audacious plot to dole out millions of dollars in bribes to African leaders in exchange for major energy contracts that appeared to advance Chinese government interests. What emerged in his indictment and later trial and conviction in federal court...

The United States State Department says non-essential personnel in Shanghai should leave the city due to the strict COVID-19 restrictions. “Reconsider travel to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws and COVID-19-related restrictions,” the Dept. said in an alert. “Do not travel to the PRC’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), Jilin province, and Shanghai municipality due to COVID-19-related restrictions, including the risk of parents and children being separated. Reconsider travel to the PRC’s Hong Kong SAR due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws.”

Washington CHINA is the global epicenter of pirating and counterfeiting. By its government's own estimate, China's domestic trade in bogus goods accounts for $19 billion to $24 billion annually. That is undoubtedly a significant understatement, and it doesn't even include the stolen technologies and phony brands China exports to the rest of the world. Since welcoming China into the World Trade Organization in 2001, the United States has had a historic opportunity to stop the Chinese piracy trade. So far, the Bush administration has failed to seize it. I opposed bringing China into the trade organization, and I don't like...

<p>China and the Solomon Islands have signed a draft version of a security pact that could see Chinese police and other forces take up duties in the Pacific Island nation, drawing concerns from traditional partners New Zealand, Australia and the United States.</p>

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi made an unannounced surprise visit to Afghanistan Thursday, where he held talks in Kabul with Acting Deputy Prime Minister of the Afghan Interim Government Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. The visit comes seven months after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving behind a power vacuum that China is waiting to fill. China is especially interested in Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which includes gold, precious stones, coal, oil and gas, lithium, copper and rare-earth minerals. China is not the only power taking advantage of the power vacuum that the U.S. withdrawal...

About 87 percent of vaccinated Hong Kong people who died from the latest wave of COVID-19 outbreak had taken China-made vaccines, local media reported, citing official data. But most deaths occurred among those who were not vaccinated.Ming Pao, a local newspaper, said it conducted an analysis of data from the Hospital Authority of 5,167 out of overall 5,400 local death cases in the latest Omicron-driven outbreak. It found that 71 percent of those who died were unvaccinated.Among the 1,486 vaccinated people who died from COVID-19, almost 1,300 of them—87 percent—had received at least one dose of the CoronaVac vaccine developed...

Competitive swimmer Jody Lee’s goal is to compete at the Paris Olympics in 2024, but with only two years left to qualify, Hong Kong’s months-long shutdown of swimming pools is making achieving his dream tougher. Pools and all other sports facilities, including tennis courts, golf courses and gyms, have been shut since January – and for more than 13 months total since the start of the pandemic in 2020. Lee, 15, has been trying to keep fit by training in the ocean, braving red tides and currents, but the city closed beaches on Thursday (Mar 17), making it even harder...

Joe Biden has a problem, and his name is Hunter. Because the former vice president hasn’t had to answer any questions on this topic, that problem could soon become America’s. That’s the reality now that a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s has come forward to provide the ugly details of the “family brand.” Tony Bobulinski, a Navy veteran and institutional investor, has provided the Journal emails and text messages associated with his time as CEO of Sinohawk Holdings, a venture between the Bidens and CEFC China Energy, a Shanghai-based conglomerate. That correspondence corroborates and expands on emails recently published...

Hunter Biden's emails reveal his close relationship with the Chinese-American secretary who worked for him when he went into business with the man he called the 'spy chief of China.' The mysterious young assistant wrote the president's son flirty messages, sent him opposition research for Joe's White House run and encouraged him to draw funds from the company's accounts when the joint venture collapsed and even ended up with Hunter's military dog tags. In 2017 Hunter went into business with Patrick Ho, secretary general of Chinese oil giant CEFC.