Category Archives: Asia Pacific

British MPs plan visit to Taiwan as tension with China simmers

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Exclusive: Tom Tugendhat likely to lead trip later this year as London’s relationship with Beijing deteriorates

Britain’s House of Commons foreign affairs committee is planning a visit to Taiwan later this year – probably in November or early December – despite rising tensions in the region, the Guardian has learned.

Sources say the trip – which was originally scheduled for early this year but was postponed due to one member of the delegation testing positive for Covid – was intended to show Britain’s support for the democratically run island, which China considers its own.

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Taiwan’s Rainbow Village defaced after operators told to move out

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Employees of contractor questioned over alleged vandalism after colourful murals painted over

A popular cultural attraction and one of Taiwan’s most “Instagrammable” sites has allegedly been defaced by the operators contracted to run it, after they were told to move out for six months while restoration work was conducted.

It was discovered on Friday that many of the walls of the Rainbow Village had been covered with paint overnight. Police detained 14 employees of the Rainbow Creative Co for questioning over the alleged vandalism, including the company’s head, Wei Pi-Jen, who defended their actions as a protest rather than “malicious destruction”. They were released on Sunday.

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New Zealand borders fully reopened as last Covid restrictions lifted

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Cruise ships, international students and visitors from China and India among those who will be able to once again travel to New Zealand

New Zealand’s borders are fully open for the first time since they abruptly snapped shut to keep Covid-19 out in March 2020.

The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the nation was “open for business” after the final stage of the phased reopening, which began in April, was completed on Sunday night.

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New Zealand will continue to cooperate with ‘more assertive’ China, Ardern says

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Despite their differences the nations have shared interests, Jacinda Ardern says as she plans trip to China

New Zealand will continue to cooperate on “shared interests” with China, even as tensions increase in the region and China grows “more assertive in the pursuit of its interests”, Jacinda Ardern has said.

Speaking to the China Business Summit in Auckland on Monday, the prime minister said she was planning a trip to China “to seize new opportunities for dialogue,” support the trade relationship, and further cooperate on the climate crisis.

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Australia urged to prove it is a safe nuclear custodian as Aukus comes under scrutiny at UN

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Non-nuclear state Australia’s handling of nuclear-powered submarines will have to be ‘impeccable’, Australia Institute says

Australia needs to step up in the fight to stop nuclear conflict, and to prove to the world it is a safe nuclear custodian, a new report argues.

The report by the Australia Institute comes ahead of a major global conference that starts on Monday in New York, where Australia’s Aukus submarine deal will come under scrutiny.

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China’s factory activity shrinks amid Covid disruption

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Sharpest contraction is in energy-intensive industries, such as petrol, coking coal and ferrous metals

China’s factory activity unexpectedly shrank in July as sporadic Covid outbreaks disrupted the sector and the slowing global economy weighed on demand.

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 49.0 in July from 50.2 in June, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday. That was weaker than forecast, below the 50-point mark separating expansion from contraction.

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US airman who rescued film of A-bomb horrors is honoured at last

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Cameraman Daniel McGovern copied footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki devastation to ensure lessons were learned

The photograph shows devastation in Nagasaki after the atomic bomb: a scorched wilderness where there was once a city. At its centre stands a lone man with a camera.

It was 9 September 1945 and Lt Daniel McGovern, a US Army Air Force cameraman, was documenting ground zero, the point directly below the bomb’s detonation four weeks earlier. Few would recognise McGovern, but the vision of apocalypse is familiar from documentary footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the second world war.

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Nancy Pelosi begins Asia trip but does not mention Taiwan

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Reports that House speaker could visit Taiwan have riled China; analysts say she may yet do so in unofficial capacity

The US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has begun a tour of Asia but questions remain over whether it will include a stop in Taiwan.

In a press release on Sunday, Pelosi said a delegation would travel to the Indo-Pacific “to reaffirm America’s strong and unshakeable commitment to our allies and friends in the region”.

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Thailand’s gay-romance TV dramas help revive flagging tourism industry

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The popularity of ‘boy-love’ series sends fans from home and abroad flocking to filming locations across the country

There is a table in Soontaree Thiprat’s Phuket cafe that is always fully booked. Most of her customers at the Dibuk restaurant want to sit in the corner, at the spot with the red tablecloth and purple flower.

It is the table where the male student characters Teh and Oh-aew, played by the actors Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul and Krit “PP” Amnuaydechkorn, would sit together and flirt in I Told Sunset About You and its sequel, I Promised You the Moon, a romantic Thai series that has proved hugely popular in its home country and abroad.

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China conducts military exercises off Taiwan after warning Pelosi to scrap visit

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PLA carries out ‘live-fire exercises’ after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told not to visit the island democracy

China said it was conducting military exercises off its coast opposite Taiwan after warning Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to scrap possible plans to visit the island democracy.

The ruling Communist party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was conducting “live-fire exercises” near the Pingtan islands off Fujian province from 8am to 9pm, the official Xinhua news agency said. The Maritime Safety Administration warned ships to avoid the area.

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‘Logic of brute force’ is rising in Indo-Pacific, says Japan amid China concerns

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Japan’s foreign minister tells Washington audience world at ‘historical crossroads’ and that Russian invasion of Ukraine must not succeed

Japan’s foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, has sounded the alarm about China’s behaviour in the Indo-Pacific during a visit to Washington, saying the “logic of brute force” was gaining more traction over the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific.

Referring to Chinese and Russian joint bomber flights near Japan in May, Hayashi said stronger military coordination between China and Russia was emerging as a security concern. “We are currently standing at a historical crossroads, one fraught with a sense of crisis,” he told the Centre for Strategic and International Studies thinktank on Friday. “We are facing a watershed moment.

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As more space junk falls to Earth, will China clean up its act?

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Parts of a 23-tonne piece of rocket will come crashing down – somewhere – in the next few days

In the next few days, a 23-tonne piece of rocket will plummet to Earth at about 15,000 miles an hour. Much of it may burn up on re-entry, but a significant amount will not.

It could land as one piece but more probably as many, scattered over an area up to several hundred miles across. Scientists have narrowed down the likely impact zone to within the latitudes of 41 degrees north and 41 degrees south, a region covering much of the US and South America, Africa, the Middle East, most of Asia, and all of Australia except the island of Tasmania.

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New Zealand: 15-year-old boy receives life sentence for murder

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The boy, 14 at the time of the offence, must spend at least 10 years in jail after stabbing 22-year-old Bram Willems to death

A New Zealand court has sentenced a 15-year-old boy to life in prison for a murder committed when he was 14.

The sentencing coincides with a separate legal challenge to the country’s practice of giving children life sentences, which advocates argue is “harmful and ineffective”. New Zealand’s sentencing laws currently presume a life sentence for those found guilty of murder, unless it is “manifestly unjust” to do so.

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Australian tourist in serious condition after falling into thermal sinkhole in New Zealand

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The 2m-wide hole opened up suddenly on a footpath at Whakarewarewa tourist village in Rotorua, in central North Island

An Australian woman has been seriously injured after she fell into a geothermal sinkhole that opened up in a popular tourist village in New Zealand.

The woman fell into the two-metre-wide fumarole when it opened suddenly on a footpath near the entrance of Whakarewarewa thermal village in Rotorua, in central North Island.

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New Zealand climbers survive avalanche and blizzard, thanks to snow cave and muesli bars

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The two men were at the end of a three-day trip in The Remarkables above Queenstown when they triggered an avalanche

Two climbers who were buried by an avalanche and then caught in a blizzard atop one of New Zealand’s most famous mountain ranges survived their ordeal by digging themselves out of the snow, building a cave and living off muesli bars.

The two men in their 20s were on a three-day ice climbing adventure in The Remarkables – a 2,300-metre high range above Queenstown – when they triggered an avalanche and were carried about 20 metres downhill.

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Horror at Hong Kong boyband concert as huge video screen falls on to performers

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Two dancers injured as suspended LED screen crashes down on to stage during show by Cantopop band Mirror

Two dancers have been injured at a Cantopop concert in Hong Kong after a massive video screen suspended above the stage fell on to performers below.

The concert on Thursday, by Cantopop boyband Mirror, was the fourth of a series of 12 scheduled concerts by the band held at the Hong Kong Coliseum.

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Xi Jinping tells Joe Biden not to ‘play with fire’ over Taiwan in two-hour call

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US president reiterates opposition to undermining peace in Taiwan amid tension over potential Pelosi trip

The Chinese president has warned Joe Biden against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a highly anticipated phone call that lasted more than two hours on Thursday, as tensions remain high over the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s possible trip to the island next month.

“Those who play with fire will be perished by it. It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this,” said Xi Jinping, according to a Chinese statement. He also urged the US to implement the three joint communiques that serve as the foundation for relations between the two countries “both in word and in deed”. Xi vowed “resolutely” to safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and said this is “the firm will of more than 1.4 billion Chinese people”.

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Pelosi’s Taiwan trip plan apparently confirmed by US lawmakers

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US-China tension rising as Michael McCaul and Anna Eshoo say they were invited to travel with House speaker

Nancy Pelosi has invited senior lawmakers to join her on a trip to Taiwan, according to a member of the House foreign affairs committee, providing the first apparent confirmation of the widely speculated visit.

The potential visit by the US House speaker to Taiwan is at the centre of spiralling tensions involving the island, China and the US, which analysts fear are at their most dangerous point in decades.

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Thai researchers test wastewater to track spread of monkeypox

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Monitoring sewage thought to be a quicker, more cost-effective way to understand the spread of the virus

Researchers in Thailand are examining wastewater for signs of monkeypox, as part of surveillance efforts to detect the spread of the virus.

Academics from Naresuan University, in Phitsanulok province, northern Thailand, began testing sewage at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport in May, adopting a technique that has also been used to track the spread of Covid-19.

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Asia’s richest woman loses half her $24bn fortune in China property crisis

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Yang Huiyan, a majority shareholder in Chinese property giant Country Garden, saw net worth plunge to $11.3bn in a year

Asia’s wealthiest woman has lost more than half her fortune over the past year as the crisis engulfing China’s real estate sector continues to worsen, a billionaire index showed on Thursday.

Yang Huiyan, a majority shareholder in China’s biggest property developer Country Garden, saw her net worth plunge by more than 52% to $11.3bn from $23.7bn a year ago, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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