Free Republic

The promise of allowing China to enter “most favored nation status” in 1980 and entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was predicated on the notion that insurgent free markets would revolutionize and liberate the largest communist nation in the world. The economic reality of 2025 is that this project has largely failed. Dictator Xi of China embodies one of the most hardline manifestations of Communist Party power in a generation. Previous reforms are now repealed and a pattern of internal and global human rights abuses are better funded than ever and rationalized in a growing technological network of...

So far, American consumers have been shielded from much of the impact. But as the world of international shipping adjusts to his policies, the president is facing a potential reckoning. With the US-China trade war starting to gum up container traffic between the world’s two biggest economies, freight companies are warning of plunging bookings and a surge in “blank sailings” – where ports are skipped or voyages are called off altogether. Earlier this week, America’s most powerful retail executives trooped into the White House to deliver a blunt prognosis: tariffs on Chinese goods risked causing “empty shelves” in two weeks...

On Jan. 20, Donald Trump was sworn in, for a second time, as the president of the United States. As the country begins to see the early effects of a second Trump term (including the signing of dozens of executive orders), SFGATE set out to decipher what his new administration and its proposed policies could mean for the food, agriculture and restaurant industries in California. Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the Golden State, consistently referring to Gov. Gavin Newsom as “Newscum” in Los Angeles wildfire-related posts on Truth Social. The president has also touted plans for...

The company, along with rival Shein offer heavily discounted items and have seen increased popularity in the US and UK. Temu’s founder Colin Huang has recently become China’s richest man with a net worth of $48.6bn (€44.50m), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He replaced bottled-water tycoon Zhong Shanshan, the founder and chairman of beverage company Nongfu Spring, who has held the title since April 2021. A serial entrepreneur, Huang has previously started a number of other businesses, such as e-commerce platform Oku, online games company Xinyoudi and agricultural platform Pinduoduo. Huang was also previously an engineer at Google and...

Russia and China Vie for Najin Port Russia is trying to strengthen ties with North Korea, citing a "China threat" in Korea and the Far East. The Gudok, the daily newspaper of Russian Railways, said in an article Tuesday, "If China takes control of Najin port in North Korea, Russia may suffer huge losses in the project to link the TKR (Trans-Korea Railway) and the TSR (Trans-Siberian Railway)." Gudok is published by Vladimir Yakunin, the president and CEO of Russian Railways and one of the closest allies of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Sources say the report can be viewed as...

The Uyghurs Forced to Process the World’s Fish (Can't be posted, per FR rules.)

Dubai is an amazing city. It Has One of the Most Diverse Populations in the World About 90% of the population in the entire UAE are expats and immigrants and most of these people live in Dubai. Combine that with the fact that there are about 70% more foreigners to locals and that makes it an incredibly diverse population. Statistics show that 15% of the people in Dubai comprise locals, while foreigners represent the other 85% of the population. Most of the expatriates are from Sri Lanka and the Indian subcontinent.

CUPERTINO, CA — Apple capped off its rollout day by announcing the first ever totally carbon-neutral Uyghur slave camp, to raucous cheers from those gathered in attendance. "Let your conscience rest easy, knowing that the entire slave camp is one hundred percent carbon-neutral," said CEO Tim Cook. "Not an ounce of carbon will escape those camps - much like the child slaves working there." Loud cheers broke out across the auditorium, the audience rising to its feet to give a standing ovation. "Carbon-neutral slaves! What will they think of next??" said onlooker Jamie Ruskin. "This will be an absolute game-changer...

In addition to the disadvantages of a high purchase price, lengthy recharging times, difficulties in finding charging stations, and occasional spontaneous combustion, it now turns out that electric vehicle batteries are extremely fragile. Fender-bender collisions are resulting in damage to the vehicle's battery that cannot be repaired. Consequently, many of these vehicles are considered "totalled" for insurance purposes. Unsurprisingly, insuring EVs is becoming more costly. The scrapping of these damaged low-mileage EVs is also undermining the promised "sustainability" performance claims for the EVs. Matthew Avery, research director at automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham Research, said "replacing gasoline powered cars with...

Nike has decided to fully exit Russia three months after suspending operations in the country due to its invasion of Ukraine, the sportswear giant announced Thursday. The company has no announced plans to exit China due to that country’s gross human rights abuses and organized use of slave labor in making Nike products. Nike initially suspended operations in Russia on March 3, a week after Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine in an attempt to take over the neighboring nation. However, Nike seems to have been motivated to leave the country entirely by the prospect of new criminal...

According to Footman James' study, reality is far different because classic cars with those evil, gas-burning engines are better for the environment than new electric vehicles. The thing is people who believe the opposite just look at tailpipe emissions, behaving as if that’s everything in the equation. They don’t consider pollution generated by the manufacturing process. In the study, Footman James mentions that in the UK a classic car on average is driven 1,200 miles a year and puts out 563 kg of CO2 as a result. But a new VW Golf is made by generating 6.8 tonnes of CO2e....

Ford Motor Co.’s hot-selling Mustang Mach-E electric SUV and other plug-in models are being rendered unprofitable by rising raw material costs. “We actually had a positive bottom line profit when we launched the Mach-E, commodity costs have wiped that out,” Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said Wednesday at the Deutsche Bank Global Automotive Conference, referring to 2020, when the vehicle went on sale. “You’re going to see pressure on the bottom line when we launch our EVs, they’re not going to be positive.”

Do you remember Armand Hammer? If you're over 50, you may. Hammer was a business tycoon who died in 1990. He was most famous for his deal-making with the Soviet Union. Hammer would cut business deals directly with the Kremlin. This was unusual; most U.S. businesses had very few dealings with America's greatest adversary. Today, by contrast, many American multinational businesses see their growth as much or more tied to China, our new primary adversary, as they do to America. I began my career as a young lawyer on a special congressional committee set up to investigate the transfer of...

Mihrigul Tursun, a survivor of China’s concentration camp system, urged the National Basketball Association (NBA) in remarks to Breitbart News on Friday to condemn China’s human rights abuses. Tursun also warned star player LeBron James, one of China’s biggest business partners in the league, to distance himself from the regime “because money cannot do everything.” Tursun was participating in a march Friday organized by the East Turkistan Government in Exile in Washington, DC, the purpose of which was to demand that the administration of President Joe Biden act to protect the Uyghur people from the ongoing genocide they are enduring...

Biden administration climate czar John Kerry holds $1 million stake in Chinese private equity fund, Hillhouse China Value Fund, tech company blacklisted for human rights abuses and major shareholder of solar panel firm connected to Uyghurs labor abuses. Human rights groups and U.S. lawmakers have accused LONGi of sourcing raw materials from companies using forced labor in Xinjiang, a region the Chinese government abusing the Uyghur population and other ethnic minorities. Hillhouse is also a funder of a tech firm connected to Beijing’s surveillance of Uyghurs, a revelation last week leading Republican senators urging Biden to fire Kerry over ethics...

Enes Kanter torched China and Nike in a new Twitter video. The Boston Celtics player has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese dictatorship, and his latest video took direct aim at the nation’s cozy relationship with Nike. Kanter said the following in part in a video tweeted Monday afternoon: When it comes to China, Nike remains silent. You do not address police brutality in China. You do not speak about discrimination about the LGBTQ community. You do not say a word about the oppression of minorities in China. You are scared to speak up. Who makes your shoes in...

The Chinese Communists don’t like having their oppressive regime called out for human rights abuses and they let U.S. climate envoy John Kerry know that in no uncertain terms. ... The reason their solar panels are being sanctioned is that the Communists are engaging in unfair trading practices by deliberately selling the products at a loss to undercut the viability of the U.S. solar panel industry. The Chinese were also using slave labor to produce the panels. It’s harder to sell those solar panels because the Chinese are cheating and got caught. Should we lift the restrictions because of human...

Apple spent $90,000 lobbying against past version of the bill.. A bipartisan group of senators on Friday introduced a bill that would stop U.S. companies from relying on Chinese slave labor. Introduced by Sens. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would require companies to ensure forced labor is not used in their supply chains. It would also direct federal departments to produce a strategy for cutting Chinese forced labor out of the U.S. supply chain. Up to one million members of the Uyghur ethnic minority have been placed in "re-education camps"...

Several U.S. lawmakers are urging National Basketball Association (NBA) players to end endorsement deals with Chinese sportswear firms that are linked to forced labor, according to reports.“Americans can’t and shouldn’t conduct business with companies and players that profit through human slavery,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Penn.) told Politico. “And that includes NBA players—they can’t sign endorsement deals and benefit off slave labor.”There are currently more than a dozen players in the NBA who have signed contracts with firms that include Anta, Li-Ning, and Peak, which have all admitted to using cotton produced in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.“If they...

Former President Donald Trump on Feb. 17 expressed dismay at the Biden administration’s stance toward China, pointing to the Biden family’s business ties with the regime in Beijing. When asked about President Joe Biden’s comments on Feb. 16 that appeared to repeat Chinese Communist Party (CCP) talking points used to justify the government’s repression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, Trump noted the controversy surrounding Biden’s son, Hunter, and his dealings with China. “His family’s involved with the Chinese, certainly, a long time and a lot of money,” Trump said in an interview with Newsmax. “The whole thing is ridiculous: We...