The whole sick culture is based on everyone "prostituting" themselves, be it from those god awful team building exercises you see restaurant staff being forced to do outside restaurants, to being summoned to some activity on your day off, or your boss calling you at night at some ungodly time and demanding you work on something. It's not a very humane culture in that aspect.

Indeed. You are correct. My error.

You should not be using a hyphen in place of a semicolon, or what is done more often, a colon.

You should use a dash, which is a different animal and can indeed preface an explanatory clause, although students coming out of secondary school for the last few decades don't know the difference.

You are referring me to American style manuals. English per se, is not an American language. They took it, bastardised it and now use a slightly different form with different grammar and spelling 'rules'.

If you have read any of my longer postings on this forum, you would notice that I often use a hyphen (-) where I COULD potentially use a semi-colon.
Is it 'grammatically correct' or just 'common usage'?

The style manuals do not agree on a 'semicolon solution' because there isn't a 'solution' - and that's probably why the semicolon has arguably fallen out of common usage.

You suggested that the style manuals prefer to use a preposition, and given the choice, it's also my preference, as in :-
'from Los Angeles in California, from Nashville in Tennessee and from Beijing in China' etc, but that still doesn't make the previously cited uses 'wrong'.

The word 'ain't' is common usage but is considered 'slang'.

In your original 'complaint' about the way Caring used it, I agree with you.....

"The implication that suggests some of the highest ranked officials in some communist
nations have stolen the wealth from people is interesting; that especially in the
country where there's such a crackdown on corruption."

If the word 'that' is removed directly after the semicolon, he wouldn't be using it 'wrongly' - at least not as far as I can see.

Whilst I am happy to argue the point here, I am not going to argue with Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon

A direct quote from their page is as follows:-

Applications of the semicolon in English include:
• Between items in a series or listing containing internal punctuation, especially parenthetic commas, where the semicolons function as serial commas. This is by far the most frequent use currently.
o The people present were Jamie, a man from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man.
o Several fast food restaurants can be found within the following cities: London, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; Madrid, Spain.
o Here are three examples of familiar sequences: one, two, and three; a, b, and c; first, second, and third.

This is almost exactly the same as my previous example that you said is grammatically wrong.

Another citation, this time from https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/semicolons.asp says, and I quote :-

Rule 3. Use a semicolon to separate units of a series when one or more of the units contain commas.
Incorrect: The conference has people who have come from Moscow, Idaho, Springfield, California, Alamo, Tennessee, and other places as well.
Note that with only commas, that sentence is hopeless.
Correct: The conference has people who have come from Moscow, Idaho; Springfield, California; Alamo, Tennessee; and other places as well. (Note the final semicolon, rather than a comma, after Tennessee.)

I went and found the above examples AFTER you told me I was grammatically wrong, so I would be most interested to hear your reasons why.

That's my point entirely. Why is it not grammatically correct? Semi-colons are essentially a 'super comma', and as far as I am concerned, in British English my example of using them for clarity is accepted as being 'not wrong', so by definition, correct.

Just because we don't LIKE something, doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

Grammarians have argued for centuries over what is 'right' and 'wrong' and I am sure they will continue to do so, willn't they?

When there are arguments of validity on both sides, stating that something is 'wrong', (despite common usage), is as meaningful as saying there is/isn't a god (lower case intentionally used because I am not a 'believer')

As a funny diversion, your post about grammar reminds me of a time at a certain university in China, when a Canadian teacher who was asked about the correct usage of "who" in a sentence by a Chinese student speaking shyly and slowly, retorted back "Who gives a shit!", I had to bite my lip at that one, especially as the poor student in question did not clock on at all.

Hopefully you will heed my advice and avoid the pitfalls and misery of marriage to a Chinese gal. I could save you a lot of money!

Thank you for the career, marital, and prostitution advice, Mr. Greene.
It is not everyday that you meet someone whose area of expertise includes all three

At least they decided to get a life instead of trying to be an esl hero in China. You are only there [edited]. And before you denigrate men who use prostitutes, remember, the current minimum requirement for marriage in even poor Chinese provinces is 100 000 rmb and purchase of a car. On the more developed east coast it is five to ten times that. Many Chinese women are very willing to prostitute themselves, in stark contrast to what you have to say. Go home and get a real job [edited]

It looks like Amused and Dr. Turnoi project their feelings onto the forums out of a queen sized bed together. Or, perhaps it's a left and right hand of the same forum thug. Pardon my observation from this obvious situation. This is how the Panama Papers topic have become a filthy bed sheet of a couple of sideshow bobs. How sad this can get for the readers or anyone who'd like to participate? No wonder there are few FTs that wish to contribute to the board.

Your reading comprehension ability is as limited as your writing skills and ability to reason.
Pardon my continued absence from this discussion while I better invest my time attempting to teach my dog French.

complete grammatical "sentence"

There are no 'partial' grammatical sentences.

at least by
1993

Your meaning is "as early as 1993".

";that, and ...."

Referential demonstrative pronouns after a semicolon are NOT grammatically correct.

The important thing is communicating
one's meaning.

Grammar is a critical tool in communicating meaning in all languages. Once it is mastered, capable writers can and do choose to 'break the rules' to express subtleties of meaning and emotion. It is very easy to distinguish when correct grammar is being calculatedly avoided and when it is being ignorantly mishandled.

the English teaching and writing community

If there were such a community, you would be required to wear a scarlet letter.

The implication that suggests

All implications suggest.

some of the highest ranked officials in some communist nations

Some officials in some countries are always doing something.

; that especially in the country where
there's such a crackdown on corruption.

After a semicolon you need a complete sentence.

What do you guys think?

I think you shouldn't be teaching English.