Free Republic

Beijing — A private Chinese space firm successfully sent its Zhuque-3 rocket to orbit but failed in its historic attempt to re-land the rocket booster Wednesday – the first such trial by a Chinese firm as the country’s growing commercial space sector races to catch up with American rivals like SpaceX. Beijing-based LandSpace, one of the sector’s leading firms, launched its Zhuque-3 rocket into space from a remote, desert launch site in northwestern China. The rocket entered orbit as planned, but its first stage – the portion of the vehicle that propels it at liftoff – did not successfully return...

China has put all its “chips” into China’s fledgling semiconductor industry.Many companies are charging into the semiconductor industry. The trend, with the encouragement of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is occurring because of pressure from the Trump administration to cut off Chinese technology companies from U.S. chips.But this latest chip rush may also create vast inefficiencies, divert local resources into wasteful ventures, and usher in a 21st-century version of the “Great Leap Forward”—the disastrous 1950s plan by Mao Zedong to surpass the West in steel production that resulted in mass famine and economic despair.The need to invest in indigenous semiconductor...

FILE - In this Sept. 2, 2015, file photo, an F-35 jet arrives at its new operational base at Hill Air Force Base, in northern Utah. The top U.S. diplomat overseeing arms sales said Monday, Feb. 5, 2018, she would be promoting American weaponry at the largest air show in Asia, where China’s military footprint and political influence are surging. A large U.S. delegation at the Singapore Air Show is doing “everything we can” to encourage Southeast Asian governments to purchase U.S.-made arms like the F-35 fighter jet, Ambassador Tina Kaidanow told reporters in a telephone briefing. She repeatedly...

A cyber espionage operation by China seven years ago produced sensitive technology and aircraft secrets that were incorporated into the latest version of China’s new J-20 stealth fighter jet, according to U.S. officials and private defense analysts. The Chinese cyber spying against the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II took place in 2007 under what U.S. intelligence agencies codenamed Operation Byzantine Hades, a large-scale, multi-year cyber program that targeted governments and industry. Defense officials said the stolen data was obtained by a Chinese military unit called a Technical Reconnaissance Bureau in the Chengdu province. The data was then passed to the...