Maritime authorities say they called off pursuit of commandeered vessel to avoid inflaming conflict
Taiwan has demanded that Beijing releases a Taiwanese fishing boat that was boarded by the Chinese coastguard and steered to a port in mainland China.
The Dajinman 88 was intercepted by two Chinese vessels late on Tuesday near the Kinmen archipelago, which lies a short distance off China’s coast but is controlled by Taiwan, the Taiwanese coastguard said.
Continue reading...CSIS calls site near Guantánamo a ‘powerful tool’ that will be able to monitor air and maritime activity of US military
Satellite images appear to show that Cuba is building a new radar site likely to be capable of spying on the US’s nearby Guantánamo Bay naval base, in the latest upgrade to the country’s surveillance capabilities long thought to be linked to China.
The base, under construction since 2021 but previously not publicly reported, is east of the city of Santiago de Cuba near the El Salao neighborhood, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report published on Monday and later referenced by the Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading...Clampdown follows fatal stabbing of Chinese woman who tried to stop attack on Japanese mother and child
China’s internet companies have announced a crackdown on “extreme nationalism” online, particularly anti-Japanese sentiment, after a Chinese woman was fatally stabbed while protecting a Japanese mother and child in Suzhou.
Tencent and NetEase, two of the biggest firms, said at the weekend that they would be investigating and banning users who stirred up hatred.
Continue reading...Company Space Pioneer says first stage of its Tianlong-3 launched during test after ‘structural failure’ and crashed in hills near city of Gongyi
The space rocket of a Chinese private company crashed and exploded into flames near a city on Sunday, after it accidentally launched during a test.
The first stage of the Tianlong-3 rocket left its launch pad due to a structural failure at the connection between the rocket and the test stand, said company Beijing Tianbing, also known as Space Pioneer, in a statement on its official WeChat account. The rocket landed in a hilly area of the city of Gongyi in central China, it said.
Continue reading...Li Shangfu, who vanished from public life last year, and Wei Fenghe accused of accepting gifts and facilitating benefits
The Chinese Communist party has expelled two former defence ministers for corruption, including Li Shangfu, who disappeared from public view along with other senior figures last year.
Li was sacked as defence minister in October, two months after he disappeared from public life. He served just seven months as defence minister. No explanation was given for his sudden removal, which temporarily destabilised efforts to rebuild US-China defence dialogues.
Continue reading...Decision could result in retailers being prosecuted if they import goods made through forced labour, campaigners say
The UK National Crime Agency’s decision not to launch an investigation into the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced labour in China’s Xinjiang province was unlawful, the court of appeal has found.
Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which brought the action, said Thursday’s decision was a landmark win that could lead to high street retailers being prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) if they import goods made through forced labour.
Continue reading...Victims were made to pose as well off but once in Europe they were confined to workplaces and severely exploited
Italian police have busted a trafficking network that used luxury cars to smuggle Chinese migrants into Italy before confiscating their passports and treating them like enslaved people.
The smugglers had the migrants pose as “unsuspecting Asian citizens, well-dressed, with little luggage, travelling in powerful and expensive cars driven by Chinese citizens who had lived in Italy for years and spoke Italian”, police said in a statement.
Continue reading...Campaigners allege Uyghur people used as forced labour at some of fast-fashion retailer’s cotton suppliers in China
A human rights group has urged Britain’s financial regulator to block the Chinese fast-fashion retailer Shein’s planned blockbuster flotation on the London Stock Exchange.
Stop Uyghur Genocide, a UK-based human rights charity that alleges minority Uyghur people are being used as forced labour at some of Shein’s cotton suppliers in China’s north-western Xinjiang region, has begun a legal campaign against the planned stock market listing.
Continue reading...Re-entry capsule containing precious cargo from mission has parachuted into Inner Mongolia
China has become the first country to gather samples from the far side of the moon and bring them back to Earth in a landmark achievement for the Beijing space programme.
A re-entry capsule containing the precious cargo parachuted into a landing zone in the rural Siziwang Banner region of Inner Mongolia on Tuesday after being released into Earth’s orbit by the uncrewed Chang’e-6 probe.
Continue reading...Heavy rainfall in Guangdong causes flooding, landslides and mudslides, while northern China gripped by heatwave
Guangdong province in southern China has once more experienced severe flooding, two months after the late April floods and landslides led to more than 50 deaths.
On Sunday 16 June, heavy rainfall affected the area, with an average of 199mm falling in Pingyuan county. The town of Sishui experienced the highest rainfall totals of 367mm, with three others in the area recording more than 300mm.
Continue reading...GeoGPT developed as part of Chinese-funded earth sciences programme aimed at researchers in global south
Geologists have raised concerns about potential Chinese censorship and bias in a chatbot being developed with the backing of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), one of the world’s largest scientific organisations and a Unesco partner.
The GeoGPT chatbot is aimed at geoscientists and researchers, particularly in the global south, to help them develop their understanding of earth sciences by drawing on swaths of data and research on billions of years of the planet’s history.
Continue reading...Robert O’Brien explains his outline to sever US-China economic ties would only be to send in ‘fighting force’
Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien – tipped to play a leading role if the ex-president returns to the White House – backtracked on parts of his proposal to sever US-China economic ties, an aspect of which called for sending the entire US Marine Corps to Asia.
O’Brien, who recently submitted a 5,000-word article outlining his thinking to Foreign Affairs, explained on Sunday that instead of the “entire US Marine Corps”, it would be only the “fighting force”. And he said some Marines would still be stationed at bases like California’s Camp Pendleton and North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune.
Continue reading...The defiant Russia-North Korea friendship pact raises big questions for Washington and Seoul – but also for Beijing
A quarter of a century ago, Vladimir Putin flew to Pyongyang to sign a “friendship treaty” with Kim Jong-il that helped revive Russia’s relations with North Korea without obliging the two sides to come to each other’s aid in case of a military attack.
With his visit last week, Putin has in effect gone further into the past, signing a deal with Kim Jong-un reminiscent of the 1961 security pact that existed under the Soviet Union during the cold war. But today Russia is engaged in a hot war in Ukraine that Putin has made his foreign policy priority, and a nuclear North Korea has become a crucial lifeline of munitions for his military.
Continue reading...Beijing ramps up pressure over ‘crime of secession’ while Taipei says China has no jurisdiction over Taiwan and urges its people not to be intimidated
China has threatened to impose the death penalty in extreme cases for “diehard” Taiwan independence separatists, a ratcheting up of pressure even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction on the democratically governed island.
China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has made no secret of its dislike of President Lai Ching-te, who took office last month, saying he is a “separatist”, and staged war games shortly after his inauguration.
Continue reading...Shadow foreign minister says blasting Beijing in public had negative consequences and a future government would do things differently
The shadow foreign minister, Simon Birmingham, has suggested the Morrison government’s megaphone diplomacy with China was counterproductive and a future Coalition government would approach the relationship differently.
In an interview for Guardian Australia’s Australian Politics podcast, Birmingham conceded that blasting China in public had had negative consequences.
Continue reading...Filipino sailor lost a thumb when coastguards rammed and boarded boats ‘with knives and spears’ in South China Sea
The Philippines has accused China’s coastguard of piracy in the disputed South China Sea after a violent confrontation in which it says its boats were rammed, punctured with knives and boarded by Chinese personnel.
One Filipino sailor lost a thumb in the incident, according to the Philippines military, which said Chinese personnel also destroyed communication equipment, seized personal mobile phones and took away unopened cases containing guns.
Continue reading...Sites named at Collie, Mt Piper, Callide, Tarong, Liddell, Northern energy in South Australia and Loy Yang. Follow the day’s news live
Sussan Ley says Coalition nuclear policy will be a ‘sensible proposition’
I just wanted to return to Sussan Ley’s appearance on Sky News this morning, where she was asked how a potential future Coalition nuclear policy would circumvent nuclear bans:
We’ll work through all that. We have a sensible proposition to put to the Australian people and I know that when we talk about nuclear people are starting to tune in, understanding that if 19 of the 20 biggest economies in the world are using nuclear, if it makes sense for cleaner baseload power, because it’s zero emissions, if it helps us get to 2050 net zero, if it does all of the things that we want it to do in terms of emissions, and in terms of securing affordable cheaper power for Australians … why would people not consider it? And I believe they will.
Now, the government says it’s renewables only. We can see that that’s actually not going to happen. The government talks about hydrogen, it’s not at scale. It’s not even something they can demonstrate works in that short timeframe and they talk about batteries that aren’t going to provide the storage for their renewables.
So, they are in a complete mess over this, and they need to be put on the sticky paper and asked what they are going to do for families, households and manufacturing businesses.
Continue reading...Report finds that religious, historical and cultural references have been removed in crackdown by Beijing
Hundreds of Uyghur villages and towns have been renamed by Chinese authorities to remove religious or cultural references, with many replaced by names reflecting Communist party ideology, a report has found.
Research published on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and the Norway-based organisation Uyghur Hjelp documents about 630 communities that have been renamed in this way by the government, mostly during the height of a crackdown on Uyghurs that several governments and human rights bodies have called a genocide.
Continue reading...Robert O’Brien says US should abandon moratorium but experts say proposal would hasten global nuclear arms race
Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, widely tipped to play a leading role in a second Trump presidency, has advocated the resumption of nuclear testing, and the possible renewed production of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium.
Arms control experts said O’Brien’s proposals would accelerate the global nuclear arms race and backfire in terms of US security, handing greater advantages to Russia and China.
Continue reading...Justice department charges 24 defendants and says long investigation reveals links between Mexico’s Sinaloa gang and China
The US justice department has accused Chinese “underground bankers” of helping Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel launder more than $50m in drug-trafficking proceeds.
An indictment unsealed in California charged 24 defendants with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine and money-laundering offenses.
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