Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
Every so often a single image does the work of twenty speeches. This week’s image was the old photograph of young Robert Prevost in 1983, marching in Comiso, Sicily, in protest against the Cruise missiles installed under Ronald Reagan. That protest was organized by the Italian Communist Party. The old photograph fits the man now … Read more
The Chinese Community Party has tightened ideological control, surveillance and travel restrictions on China’s 12 million Catholics, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch, as authorities wage a pressure campaign to get underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled official church. Chinese authorities have pressured underground Catholic communities to join the government-run Chinese … Read more
The Iranian regime used Chinese and Russian technology to silence dissent during recent nationwide anti-government protests, imposing near-total internet shutdowns and disrupting satellite communications to suppress public scrutiny, according to a new study. On Monday, the international human rights organization Article 19 released a new report examining digital cooperation between China and Iran, detailing Beijing’s … Read more
Hundreds of Christians in China will likely spend Christmas in jail this year, according to a recent report. Starting on Dec. 13, the Chinese Communist Party mobilized “more than a thousand police officers, SWAT units, anti-riot forces, and firefighters” in the Zhejiang Province’s Yayang Town in Wenzhou City, raiding churches and conducting mass arrests of … Read more
A Hong Kong court this week convicted Jimmy Lai, the territory’s most prominent champion of democracy and basic human rights, of breaching national security. The sham trial and conviction confirm Hong Kong’s tragic descent into tyranny. Hong Kong was long one of the freest places on earth, and Jimmy Lai, age 78, both symbolizes and … Read more
Last month, Communist China launched its largest ever crackdown on Christians. The raids across Beijing, Shanghai and eight other cities mark the beginning of an escalation as the paranoid Xi regime sets out to suppress the growing number of Chinese Christians. While the Communist regime claims that the official number of Christians in China is … Read more
COMMENTARY: Reconciliation must never sacrifice the timeless truths of the Church, but sadly that appears to be the case in China. Cardinal Stephen Chow, the bishop of Hong Kong, defended the state of religious freedom in Hong Kong in a public dialogue in Parramatta, Australia, on Sept. 15. If what he said were true — … Read more
The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom [Full Film] See also “Trump vows to push for release of jailed Catholic activist Jimmy Lai“ Related PostsReflecting On Communism After 103 Years Hey Disney, don’t Chinese lives matter too? COVID Pandemic Challenges Catholics Regarding How to Provide Better Care for Our Elders Palm … Read more
President Donald Trump has a historic opportunity to turn American academia back into an institution that serves Americans. He recently denied Harvard University additional international students in his crackdown on foreign subversion and discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Harvard won a temporary restraining order, but with the Supreme Court in safe hands, he is … Read more
The best evidence for this is the way so many of the people who scream about Israel’s “apartheid” and “genocide” do not much care about apartheid and genocide elsewhere. China has real apartheid because it practices Han supremacy. Ethnic minorities have fewer rights in China. They are second-class citizens, denied the right to internal migration, … Read more
Serious question. After seeing what Israel did to Iran last night, why are we not taking back the CCP farmland TODAY? China owns over 380,000 acres of land in the United States, much of it adjacent to or near US military bases. The national security concern was highlighted after Israel was able to carry out … Read more
American officials usually accuse China of trying to take over our manufacturing, but that’s old news. China took over our manufacturing long ago. And the parts it still hasn’t taken over are usually the parts that it doesn’t want or that are too uneconomical to be worth taking over. Taking over America’s manufacturing was never … Read more
Frank Dikötter is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has recently returned to the United States after living in Hong Kong since 2006. In this provocative conversation, Dikötter challenges the prevailing narrative about China’s rise. Drawing from his latest book, China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower, Dikötter argues that the Chinese … Read more
Whether China will build a hundred new coal plants in 2025 is uncertain. Nobody, including Mr. Bessent, has a crystal ball. Yet his larger point about China is correct. Though China is often lauded as a world leader in renewable energy (and in some ways it is), in recent years it has ramped up coal … Read more
There’s no need to sophisticated analysis; the numbers tell the story. In 2018, the Vatican entered into a secret agreement with Beijing, explaining that the goal was to ensure that every Chinese diocese was led by a bishop recognized by the Holy See. That goal is undoubtedly desirable. So after six years under the new … Read more
Could the anti-Trump resistance become a Chinese Communist asset? In the 2024 election, voters in California, Washington, Florida and 7 other states were able to choose not only between Trump and Kamala, but also vote for a presidential candidate from the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The Party for Socialism and Liberation was certainly not … Read more
Coming to Lai’s defense have been more than 100 politicians from 24 countries. Political leaders, a United Nations body, and human rights groups have publicly spoken out in defense of Jimmy Lai, the Catholic Hong Kong media mogul who faces possible life imprisonment for his involvement in pro-democracy protests, while the Vatican and senior Church … Read more
Halloween was widely celebrated in Shanghai, perhaps more than in Western cities. Thousands of costumed young people flocked to the city’s art deco core—a remnant of its jazz-age colonial past—joining dozens of parties set to the tune of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and other festive staples. Even the timing was perfect, as late October comes with … Read more
They stand as a testament to the reality that China represses the Catholic Church along with all its other religions. Pope Francis remains enthusiastic about the Vatican’s provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops. He recently told journalists it is a “good result” of dialogue. Yet repression against the Catholic Church in China … Read more
The extent of Chinese government infiltration of our governing system is appalling. Even more than usual, everyone should read Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt from Wednesday, about the appalling extent of Chinese government infiltration of our governing system (at the state and federal levels) and society. Jim is right, of course, to observe that few publications … Read more
We need to defend America from Chinese spies with diligence and accountability, while avoiding witch hunts. A former high-level New York State employee has been charged with acting as an undisclosed agent for Communist China. This incident, along with other similar ones, presents a significant challenge to the United States: How do we effectively address … Read more
House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party chairman Mike Gallagher today urged the Justice Department to launch a review of a beltway organization that he says lobbied on behalf of a Chinese military-linked biotech firm and therefore advanced Beijing’s interests. The allegations in a letter from Gallagher to Attorney General Merrick Garland, obtained exclusively … Read more
At a 1979 White House dinner, actress Shirley MacLaine told Deng Xiaoping, China’s new leader and the guest of honor that evening, about a Chinese scientist she had met. He said that he’d been happier and more productive when he worked on a Chinese farm. Deng cut her short: “He lied. That was what he … Read more
Just after Christmas 50 years ago, the original Russian edition of the first two parts of The Gulag Archipelago was published, followed by French and English translations the next year. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dedicated his book “to all those who did not live to tell it.” This was followed by second and third volumes in 1975 … Read more
The Financial Times has an absolutely breathtaking digital journalism project showing how China is destroying mosques or at least denuding them of Arabic, Persian, and other non-Chinese characteristics. The FT finds that nearly three-quarters of the more than 2,300 mosques in China have been demolished or significantly altered since 2018. Think also on how China … Read more