Free Republic

Chang's comments follow a recent Pentagon report suggesting that China is planning to double its stockpile of nuclear warheads in this decade -- including those designed for ballistic missiles and that can reach the U.S. The report adds a time clock to Trump's decision, Chang said. "[President] Xi Jinping has been talking increasingly about this notion that China has a mandate of heaven to rule the world," Chang explained. "They [beleive that they] not only have the right to do it, they have the obligation to do it.

Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, possessed the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven," a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by all Vietnamese. What is not commonly known is that Diem was a devout Roman Catholic - in fact, he was a third-order Benedictine and daily communicant. Diem was taken down by a military coup sponsored by the U.S. government and ultimately betrayed by the administration of the first Catholic President, John F. Kennedy, which resulted in Diem's brutal murder on Nov. 2, 1963. In his new book, THE LOST MANDATE OF HEAVEN: The...

The massive quake that shook China's Sichuan province this week is one of the worst natural disasters – in terms of lives claimed and property destroyed – that the world has seen in some time. But an earthquake, according to Chinese tradition, is not a mere act of nature, nor is it simply a matter of fate. Traditionally, every earthquake announces profound changes that will affect the entire society. The Chinese still remember – as do I, having been in Beijing at the time – that the great Tangshan quake of 1976, which killed more than 240,000, came just before...