Category Archives: China

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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Hong Kong: fifth person arrested for allegedly supporting overseas pro-democracy activists

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Arrests comes days after Hong Kong issued warrants for eight overseas-based dissidents

Hong Kong police have arrested a fifth person accused of supporting overseas activists who allegedly endangered national security, in a further expansion of a government crackdown on pro-democracy dissidents.

Police detained a 24-year-old man at the city’s airport on Thursday, a day after four other people were arrested for allegedly using companies, social media and mobile applications to receive funds for the overseas activists.

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US treasury secretary lands in Beijing in visit aimed at calming tensions

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Janet Yellen expected to emphasise need for cooperation between two superpowers to tackle global threats

The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has arrived in Beijing on a four-day trip that aims to tame spiralling tensions between the world’s two largest economies, particularly over trade and the hi-tech chip industry.

She will meet senior Chinese officials including the premier, Li Qiang, and former vice-premier and economics tsar Liu He, who is seen as close to China’s president, Xi Jinping, in her first day of talks on Friday.

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China accused of scores of abuses linked to ‘green mineral’ mining

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Watchdog identifies 102 violations over past two years as country extracts ‘transition minerals’ for green-energy technology

A new report into China’s dominance in the green-energy market has identified more than a hundred allegations of environmental and human rights violations linked to its overseas transition mineral investments over the past two years.

China dominates the processing and refining of lithium, cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel, zinc, chromium, aluminium and rare-earth elements – and the manufacturing of technologies like solar panels, wind turbines and batteries for electric vehicles (EV), which require so-called transition minerals.

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Kremlin denies China’s president urged Putin not to use nuclear arms in Ukraine

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Xi Jining reportedly warned Russian counterpart against using nuclear weapons on visit to Moscow in March

The Kremlin has denied a report that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, had personally warned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

“No, I can’t confirm it,” Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Wednesday when asked about a Financial Times report that said Xi delivered the message when he visited Moscow in March.

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China floods: Xi Jinping urges action as rains kill 15 and displace thousands

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Scientists have warned the country to expect ‘multiple natural disasters’ this month including typhoons and high temperatures

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has called for stronger efforts to protect lives and property from severe flooding, as the country’s scientists warned July will bring more misery from extreme weather.

Fifteen people died and four were missing after torrential rain lashed the metropolis of Chongqing and swathes of southwestern China, local officials and state media said on Wednesday.

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Albanese urged to cancel China trip as Hong Kong vows to pursue exiled democracy activists ‘for life’

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Labor warns it will not tolerate foreign interference on Australian soil as it vows to protect free speech

The Coalition has urged the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to reconsider plans to travel to China after Hong Kong authorities vowed to pursue exiled democracy advocates “for life”.

The Labor government has also warned that it would not tolerate any foreign interference on Australian soil as it promised to protect the principle of free speech, but China’s foreign ministry said western countries should “stop providing a safe haven for fugitives”.

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Russia is more united than ever, Putin tells allies after failed mutiny

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President also told leaders from China, Pakistan and India that Russia would stand up to western sanctions

Vladimir Putin has said that Russia remains “united as never before” in the wake of the failed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group and claimed the country continued to flourish in the face of heavy western sanctions over his invasion of Ukraine.

In an address from the Kremlin to a virtual gathering of leaders from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group founded by Russia and China to counter western influence, the Russian president attempted to rebuff any suggestion that he had been weakened by last week’s chaotic but short-lived rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

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China accuses UK of protecting ‘fugitives’ after bounty put on Hong Kong democracy activists

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Chinese embassy in London tells UK to ‘stop interfering’ in China’s affairs, as Hong Kong leader says overseas activists will be ‘pursued for life’

China has accused the UK of protecting fugitives after the British foreign secretary criticised Hong Kong’s decision to offer HK$1m bounties for the arrest of eight democracy activists based overseas, as the territory’s leader said the group would be “pursued for life”.

In a statement late on Monday, China’s embassy in London said: “British politicians have openly offered protection for fugitives. This is crude interference in Hong Kong’s rule of law and China’s internal affairs.”

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Minister suggests rate pause based on uncertain outlook – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Foreign minister Penny Wong says the focus of Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo’s visit to Australia will be on strengthening economic ties between the two countries, on ABC RN this morning.

One of the things we’re focused on is how do we improve our economic ties. Obviously, the nation is an increasing economic power and will be over the next decade. We want to make sure we’re partners in that. So there will be a great focus on the economy and the economic relationship.

You’ll see some big changes to make sure we make business travel easier.

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Hong Kong issues arrest warrants for eight overseas democracy activists

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Warrants criticised as ‘indictment’ of judiciary with three of those targeted, including Nathan Law, thought to be in UK

Hong Kong police have issued arrest warrants for eight overseas activists days after the third anniversary of the introduction of a national security law that granted authorities sweeping extraterritorial powers to prosecute acts or comments made anywhere in the world that it deems criminal.

Supt Steve Li Kwai-wah, a police officer, told a press conference on Monday that Nathan Law, Anna Kwok, Finn Lau, Dennis Kwok, Ted Hui, Kevin Yam, Mung Siu-tat and Yuan Gong-yi, high-profile pro-democracy activists, former lawmakers and legal scholars, “have encouraged sanctions … to destroy Hong Kong”.

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Vietnam bans Barbie film over disputed map of China’s South China Sea claims

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Scene shows map of China’s controversial ‘nine-dash line’ – repudiated in international ruling

Vietnam has banned Warner Bros’s Barbie film from domestic distribution over a scene featuring a map that shows China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea, state media have reported.

The U-shaped “nine-dash line” is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea, including swathes of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions.

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