Free Republic

SALT LAKE CITY — Orrin G. Hatch, who became the longest-serving Republican senator in history as he represented Utah for more than four decades, died Saturday at age 88. His death was announced in a statement from his foundation, which did not specify a cause. He launched the Hatch Foundation as he retired in 2019 and was replaced by Mitt Romney. A conservative on most economic and social issues, he nonetheless teamed with Democrats several times during his long career on issues ranging from stem cell research to rights for people with disabilities to expanding children’s health insurance. He also...

The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is vitally important, touching on a wide range of areas including, among others, economic policy, security, foreign relations, and human rights. U.S. and PRC interests are bound together much more closely now than even a few years ago. The Administration of President Barack Obama has inherited not only more extensive policy mechanisms for pursuing U.S.-China policy, but a more complex and multifaceted relationship in which the stakes are higher and in which U.S. action may increasingly be constrained. Economically, the United States and the PRC have become...

PACIFIC POWER PLAY By PETER BROOKES March 19, 2007 -- RECENT military news out of China includes double trouble. First, Beijing an nounced a jaw-dropping 18 percent jump in its defense budget - 5 percentage points more than last year's alarming rise -at the yearly meeting of the National People's Congress. On top of that came news from an unidentified Chinese admiral via a Hong Kong newspaper that China is pretty far along in aircraft-carrier R&D - and could have one in the water by 2010. This isn't good news. The existence of a Chinese "flattop" program has long...

"The next area to look for anything significant in Sino-Russian cooperation is with ongoing nuclear diplomacy. China and Russia have long fuelled North Korean and Iranian nuclear ambitions. Both countries have pocketed myopic profits in deals boosted by technical training which had application beyond peaceful energy purposes." "This issue illustrates equal partnership component of the Sino-Russian partnership quite well. Russia takes the lead on Iran with China's support. The roles are reversed with North Korea as China assumes the dominant role with Russia happily takes a secondary stance." "At the end of the day Putin is the one facing the...