Category Archives: China

David Cameron’s appointment to investment fund ‘part engineered by China’

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The hiring of former PM and Treasury chief was to lend credibility to broader Beijing brand, intelligence watchdog told

David Cameron’s appointment as vice-chair of the £1bn China-UK investment fund and Sir Danny Alexander’s appointment as vice-president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank were in part engineered by the Chinese state, parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) found.

Their appointment was to lend credibility to Chinese investment as well as the broader Chinese brand, according to confidential evidence given to the intelligence watchdog.

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No chance China will join Pacific trade pact in near term, Australia warns

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Assistant trade minister suggests consideration of China’s push to join CPTPP ‘some way off’ as UK becomes 12th member

China has no hope of being accepted into a major regional trade pact in the near term, the Australian government has signalled, as members prepare to welcome the UK into the fold this weekend.

The assistant trade minister, Tim Ayres, is visiting New Zealand for a meeting with fellow members of the CPTPP. The UK, which sees joining as part of its “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific region, is to be formally accepted as the 12th member on Saturday.

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Solomon Islands denies policing deal with China poses ‘threat’ to Pacific security

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Statement comes after US, Australia and New Zealand expressed concerns about new agreement with Beijing

Solomon Islands has said that its policing pact with China poses no “threat” to the Pacific, rebuking western powers that raised fears the deal could inflame regional tensions.

Prime minister Manasseh Sogavare inked a raft of deals during a trip to China this week, including an agreement allowing Beijing to extend its police presence in the developing Pacific nation until 2025.

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Nationals accuse Labor of ‘hypocrisy’ over response to scathing APVMA report – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

Cabinet meeting to decide Lowe’s successor today

Philip Lowe will be replaced as the Reserve Bank governor, with today’s cabinet meeting to decide his successor, Guardian Australia has confirmed.

If I was asked to continue in the role, I would be honoured to do that and I would continue.

If I am not asked to continue in the role, I will do my best to support my successor, and the treasurer has said he will make an announcement before the end of this month.

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Committee report is rightfully scathing on UK’s China strategy

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The ISC’s warnings are unlikely to act as much of a brake on Britain’s approach to China

If there is one constant in the UK’s policy towards China over the past three decades it has been its short-termism and inconsistency, the scathing intelligence and security committee report on China rightly finds, comparing Britain’s endless course corrections with Beijing’s capacity to think strategically about how to advance the global interests of the Chinese Communist party.

If Downing Street thinks in terms of the next news bulletin, China has a planning cycle that in some of its documents takes it to 2049, as the ISC was told by one of its intelligence agency witnesses.

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Nato appears to shelve plans to open Japan liaison office in Tokyo

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Progress expected at Nato summit thanks to attendance of Japan’s PM but no mention made in latest talks

Nato appears to have shelved plans to open a liaison office in Tokyo, a proposal that had been discussed as part of the western military alliance’s plans to deepen cooperation with partners in the Asia-Pacific but which was strongly opposed by China.

The idea to open an office was first discussed after Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, visited Japan earlier this year. It reportedly involved opening a civilian office in Tokyo in 2024, as a means of facilitating Nato’s dialogues in the Asia-Pacific. It was expected progress would be made at the Nato summit thanks to the attendance of Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, for the second year in a row.

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Philippines allows Barbie film but wants ‘childlike’ map lines blurred

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Country’s censors give green light for film to be shown amid South China Sea controversy

Philippine censors have allowed the Barbie film to be shown in the country’s cinemas after asking its Hollywood distributor to blur lines on a brightly coloured drawing of a world map allegedly showing China’s claims to the disputed South China Sea.

The fantasy comedy film about the famous doll, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is to open in the south-east Asian nation on 19 July.

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Opioid crisis: US and China at odds over influx of fentanyl

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Antony Blinken speaks at launch of US-led coalition to address synthetic drug threats

Who is responsible for the United States’ opioid epidemic? According to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, the culprits are “transnational criminal enterprises” who need to be tackled via international law enforcement operations.

But according to Chinese state media, “the fentanyl crisis in the United States is demand-driven”, primarily by “the users themselves”.

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China delays decision on Australian barley tariffs in setback on resolving trade disputes

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Exclusive: The Albanese government says it is ‘disappointed’ Beijing’s review couldn’t be completed in the initial three months

China has asked for an extra month to decide whether to scrap hefty tariffs on Australian barley, dashing hopes of an imminent breakthrough in one of the biggest trade disputes between the two countries.

The Albanese government said it was disappointed by the delay, and warned that it was ready to revive its case at the global trade umpire, the World Trade Organization, if Beijing doesn’t scrap the measure by August.

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Head of US-based thinktank charged with acting as China agent

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Gal Luft, director of a Washington-based organization is accused of recruiting and paying a former adviser to Donald Trump

The head of a US thinktank has been charged with acting as an unregistered agent of China, as well as seeking to broker the sale of weapons and Iranian oil, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said.

Gal Luft, a citizen of the United States and Israel, is accused of recruiting and paying a former high-ranking US government official on behalf of principals based in China in 2016, without registering as a foreign agent as required by law.

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Solomon Islands signs controversial policing pact with China

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Solomons’ prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, meets with leaders as part of week-long visit to China

China and Solomon Islands have signed a deal on police cooperation as part of an upgrade of their relations to a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, four years after the Pacific country switched ties from Taiwan to Beijing.

The police cooperation pact was among nine deals signed as the prime minister of Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, met with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, in Beijing, underlining the Solmons’ foreign policy shift.

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Why Asia matters to Nato as it looks to respond to China’s military expansion

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Beijing is source of ‘systemic challenges’ but alliance members are divided on how to engage

Nato leaders and their allies are heading to Vilnius, Lithuania, this week, for two days of meetings starting on Tuesday. Among them is Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s president, who will give one of the opening speeches.

The summit will be dominated by discussions about the alliance’s relationship with Ukraine. But Yoon’s attendance reflects a growing interest among members in stepping up their dialogue with countries in the Asia-Pacific.

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Six people killed in southern China knife attack at kindergarten

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A 25-year-old man has been detained after attack that also left one person injured

A man has killed six people, three of them young children, and injured a seventh in a knife attack at a kindergarten in southern China.

The 25-year-old began his rampage in the town of Lianjiang, in Guangdong province, at 7.40am local time on Monday, police said.

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Ron DeSantis says he will try to revoke China’s trade status if elected president

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The Republican governor of Florida said he’d take ‘executive action as appropriate’ to revoke Beijing’s legal designation

The Republican presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis said on Sunday he would aim to revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations status if he won the White House next year.

“I favor doing that,” DeSantis told Fox News.

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The US and China are talking again, but what happens next?

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After years of deepening economic and military mistrust between the superpowers, they were finally back in a room together

When Janet Yellen left Beijing on Sunday after four days of talks, the US treasury secretary in effect admitted that the delegation achieved its main objective simply by sitting down with top Chinese officials.

After years of dangerous and deepening separation between the people running the world’s two biggest economies, they were finally back in a room together.

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‘Ukrainian strategy has become a model’: Taiwanese beef up military to face China threat

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Conscripts will serve longer in attempt to improve current crop of ‘strawberry soldiers’ who bruise too easily

For many people in Taiwan, the threat of conflict with China is a distant prospect that has been lingering in the air for some seven decades. Concern in the west that the Chinese Communist party, led by Xi Jinping in Beijing, is moving ever closer towards attempting to realise its goal of “reunifying” China and Taiwan, by force if necessary, can seem hysterical.

The only beneficiary of the increasing tension between China and Taiwan is the US, which is making money from selling arms to Taipei, jokes one resident of Kinmen, a small Taiwanese island a few miles from China’s eastern coastline.

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Janet Yellen tells China the world is ‘big enough for both our countries to thrive’

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US treasury secretary feels trip to Beijing has steadied ties and improved communication despite ‘significant disagreements’ between the powers

The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has said a four-day trip to Beijing has put ties with China on a “surer footing” and paved the way for better communication between top officials who run the world’s two largest economies.

This relatively modest outcome had been flagged by US officials and expected by analysts before Yellen arrived, and is a reflection of how fraught one of the world’s most critical relationships had become.

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Janet Yellen urges China to boost funding to tackle climate crisis

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US Treasury secretary says Beijing could have greater global impact if it worked with global climate institutions

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has pressed China to do more to support international climate institutions that are helping finance green initiatives around the world, urging deeper cooperation in addressing the “existential threat” of global heating.

“Climate finance should be targeted efficiently and effectively,” Yellen said on Saturday in Beijing during a meeting with Chinese and international sustainable finance experts. “I believe that if China were to support existing multilateral climate institutions like the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Investment Funds alongside us and other donor governments, we could have a greater impact than we do today.”

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UN report on Japan’s Fukushima water plans fails to placate opponents

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While South Korea offers official support, China and other voices in region continue to express concerns over discharge from nuclear plant

The publication this week of the UN nuclear watchdog’s positive assessment of Japanese plans to pump more than 1m tonnes of water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean has failed to placate opponents.

China is fiercely opposed to the plans, despite a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) backing the scheme, while the support of the government of South Korea has failed to quell widespread public opposition to the idea in the country.

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Studio defends Barbie movie after controversial map prompts Vietnam ban

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Warner Bros says map is ‘child-like’ after Vietnam accused film-makers of depicting China’s nine-dash line in South China Sea

Warners Bros has described a map that appears in its coming Barbie movie as a “child-like crayon drawing” with no intended meaning, after Vietnam said it would ban the film after claiming the map depicted the disputed South China Sea.

The Barbie movie provoked controversy in both Vietnam and the Philippines over its inclusion of the map that apparently features China’s “nine-dash line”. The line marks China’s claim to much of the South China Sea – a demarcation opposed by Vietnam and other south-east Asian countries and which was repudiated by an international tribunal in The Hague in 2016.

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