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Category: China

  • The Australian Defence Formula: Spend! Spend! Spend!

    The skin toasted Australian Minister of Defence, Richard Marles, who resembles, with each day, the product of an overly worked solarium, was adamant.  Not only will Australians be paying a bill up to and above A$368 billion for nuclear powered submarines it does not need; it will also be throwing A$100 billion into the coffers of the military industrial complex over the next decade to combat a needlessly inflated enemy.  Forget diplomacy and funding the cause (and course) of peace – it’s all about the weapons and the Yellow Peril, baby.

    On April 18, Marles and Defence Industry Pat Conroy barraged the press with announcements that the defence budget would be bulked by A$50.3 billion by 2034, with a A$330 billion plan for weapons and equipment known as the Integrated Investment Program.  The measures were intended to satisfy the findings of the Defence Strategic Review.  “This is a significant lift compared to the $270 billion allocated for the 10-year period to 2029-30 as part of the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and 2020 Force Structure Plan,” crowed a statement from the Defence Department.

    Such statements are often weighed down by jargon and buoyed by delusion.  The press were not left disappointed by the insufferable fluff.  Australia will gain “an enhanced lethality surface fleet and conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines”, an army with “littoral manoeuvre” capabilities “with a long-range land and maritime strike capability”, an air force capable of delivering “long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” with “an enhanced maritime, land and air-strike capability” and “a strengthened and integrated space and cyber capability”.  The glaring omission here is the proviso that all such policies are being essentially steered by Washington’s defence interests, with Canberra very  much the obedient servant.

    The defence minister was firmly of the view that all this was taking place with some speed.  “We are acting very quickly in relation to [challenges],” Marles insists.  “I mean, the acquiring of a general-purpose frigate going forward, for example, will be the most rapid acquisition of a platform that size that we’ve seen in decades.”  Anyone who uses the term “rapid” in a sentence on military acquisition is clearly a certified novice.

    The ministers, along with the department interests they represent, are certainly fond of their expensive toys.  They are seeking a fourth squadron of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters as replacements for the F/A-18 Super Hornets.  The EA-18G Growler jets are also being replaced.  (That said, both sets of current fighters will see aging service till 2040.)  Three vessels will be purchased to advance undersea war capabilities, including the undersea drone prototype, the Ghost Shark.

    The latter hopes to equip the Royal Australian Navy “with a stealthy, long-range autonomous undersea warfare capability that can conduct persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strike.”  Importantly, such acquisitions and developments are always qualified by how well they will work in tandem with the imperial power in question.  The media release from the Department of Defence prefers a more weasel-worded formula.  The Ghost Shark, for instance, “will also enhance Navy’s ability to operate with allies and partners.”

    The new militarisation strategy is also designed to improve levels of recruitment.  Personnel have been putting down their weapons in favour of other forms of employment, while recruitment numbers are falling, much to the consternation of the pro-war lobby.  A suggested answer: recruit non-Australian nationals.  This far from brilliant notion will, Marles suggests, take some years.  But a good place to start would be the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders resident in Australia.  Sheer genius.

    The announcement was also meant to offer budget trimmers a barely visible olive branch, promising “to divest, delay or re-scope projects that do not meet our strategic circumstances.” (They could start with the submarines.)  A$5 billion, for instance, will be saved from terminating naval transport and replenishment ships intended to refuel and resupply war vessels at sea.

    Hardly appropriate, opined some military pundits keen to keep plucking the money tree.  Jennifer Parker of the National Security College suggested that, “The removal of the Joint Support ship means there is no future plan to expand Australia’s limited replenishment capability of two ships – which will in turn limit the force projection capability and reach of the expanded surface combatant fleet if the issue is not addressed.”

    The focus, as ever, is on Wicked Oriental Authoritarianism which is very much in keeping with the traditional Australian fear of slanty-eyed devils moving in on the spoils and playground of the Anglosphere.  Former RAAF officer and executive director of the Air Power Institute, Chris McInnes, barks in aeronautical terms that Australia’s air power capability risks being “put in a holding pattern for the next 10 years.”  Despotic China, however, was facing no such prospects.  “There is a risk of putting everything on hold.  The People’s Liberal Army is not on hold.  They are going to keep progressing their aircraft.”  (The air force seems to do wonders for one’s grammar.)

    China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian was cool in his response to the latest promises of indulgent military spending Down Under.  “We hope Australia will correctly view China’s development and strategic intentions, abandon the Cold War mentality, do more things to keep the region peaceful and stable and stop buzzing about China.”  No harm in hoping.

    The post The Australian Defence Formula: Spend! Spend! Spend! first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China deepens engagement with new Indonesian president as top diplomat visits Jakarta

    China’s top diplomat met the outgoing Indonesian president and his successor in Jakarta on Thursday, as Beijing deepened its engagement with future leader Prabowo Subianto, amid a competition for regional influence with the United States.

    The meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was part of a joint commitment to advance the partnership between the two countries, said Prabowo, who visited Beijing in early April after his landslide win in the February general election.

    “It is a great honor for me to welcome him [Wang] today. Thank you for the kind reception I received in Beijing a few weeks ago,” Prabowo said, according to an Indonesian defense ministry statement.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping had invited Prabowo to visit, and the latter accepting the invitation raised eyebrows in Indonesia because no president-elect had made a foreign visit such as this one without being sworn in. China is Indonesia’s largest trading partner.

    Wang, too, mentioned Prabowo’s Beijing trip, according to the same statement.

    “We really appreciate and welcome Defense Minister Prabowo’s visit to China,” he said.

    “We are committed to continuing to increase bilateral cooperation with Indonesia, both in the defense sector and other fields such as economic, social and cultural.”

    Wang is scheduled to go to East Nusa Tenggara province on Friday to attend the China-Indonesia High-Level Dialogue Cooperation Mechanism, a process to support more effective bilateral cooperation. His Jakarta stop was the first of a six-day tour that also includes Cambodia and Papua New Guinea.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi attend a press conference after their meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta, April 18, 2024. (Eko Siswono Toyudho/ BenarNews)
    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (left) and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi attend a press conference after their meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta, April 18, 2024. (Eko Siswono Toyudho/ BenarNews)

    Prabowo and Wang discussed cooperation in the defense industry and sector, with potential measures such as educational and training collaboration, as well as joint exercises, said Brig. Gen. Edwin Adrian Sumantha, spokesman at the Indonesian defense ministry.

    In fact, the ministry statement said that “China is Indonesia’s close partner and has had close bilateral relations, especially in the defense sector, for a long time.”

    Of course, China has also invested billions of U.S. dollars in infrastructure projects in Indonesia, including as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative – the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train, which began commercial operations in October 2023, is one such BRI project.

    The two countries have drawn closer during outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s two terms, and Beijing would like that to continue as the U.S. tries to catch up with China’s gargantuan influence in Southeast Asia, analysts have said.

    Indonesia, China call for ceasefire in Gaza

    Both Indonesia and China shared the same position on Israel’s devastating attacks on Gaza, said Wang’s Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi.

    Israel’s air and ground strikes have killed more than 33,000 Palestinians following the Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state by Palestinian militant group Hamas, which killed around 1,100 Israelis.

    “We … have the same view regarding the importance of a ceasefire in Gaza and resolving the Palestinian problem fairly through two state solutions,” Retno told reporters in a joint press conference after meeting with Wang. 

    “Indonesia will support full Palestinian membership in the U.N. Middle East stability will not be realized without resolving the Palestinian issue.”

    For his part, Wang slammed Washington for repeatedly vetoing resolutions calling for Israel to end the attacks on the Palestinian territory it occupies.

    “The conflict in Gaza has lasted for half a year and caused a rare humanitarian tragedy in the 21st century,” Wang told the media at the same press conference, according to the Associated Press.

    “The United Nations Security Council responded to the call of the international community and continued to review the resolution draft on the cease-fire in Gaza, but it was repeatedly vetoed by the United States.”

    The conflict in the Middle East offered a strategic opportunity for China to further expand its influence in Southeast Asia, said Muhamad Arif, a lecturer in international relations at the University of Indonesia.

    “China is trying to strengthen its position as a key player in the region,” Arief told BenarNews.

    China could present an alternative approach to the conflict in Gaza, he said, which may find approval in Southeast Asia’s largest country, Indonesia, and other Mulism-majority states in the region, such as Malaysia and Brunei.

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tria Dianti and Ismira Lutfia Tisnadibrata for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Report: China is exporting digital control methods

    China’s government has turned the country’s tech companies like Huawei and ZTE into its “proxies” and uses their dominant market share in developing countries around the Indo-Pacific region to export its authoritarian model of the internet, according to a new report.

    In countries such as Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand, the dominance of the Chinese companies in building digital infrastructure has meant Beijing’s controlled version of the internet is expanding, leading to a fragmentation with the West’s open web, it says.

    The report is titled The Digital Silk Road: China and the Rise of Digital Repression in the Indo-Pacific and was released Wednesday by Article 19, a London-based internet-freedom advocacy organization.

    The group says the cut-price internet infrastructure being offered by companies beholden to the Chinese Communist Party “has benefited” countries that otherwise would be stuck with outdated infrastructure. 

    But that assistance comes with a catch, it says.

    “China has packaged its model as the prevailing best practice, often masked as support for innovation centers, exchanges or broader digital diplomacy initiatives, especially on issues relating to cybersecurity,” the report says, adding that the result is further “digital repression.”

    “This is intended to tip the scales in global adoption to influence more states to employ Chinese norms, accelerating internet fragmentation.”

    Cambodia’s ‘Great Firewall’

    The report points to Cambodia, where it says “China is present at virtually every layer of the digital ecosystem,” which it says has been marked by a “shift towards China-style digital authoritarianism.”

    Firms like Huawei and ZTE have played “a leading role” in laying out infrastructure, it says, to the point where Cambodian telecoms companies only offer the two companies’ internet routers. 

    ENG_CHN_InternetReport_04172024.2.jpg
    Hip-hop artist Kea Sokun listens to one of his songs online at a cafe in Phnom Penh, Cambodia January 29, 2022. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP)

    Huawei is also Cambodia’s only authorized cloud service provider and is responsible for much of the country’s 5G network, it notes, as well as its terrestrial and submarine internet lines and data centers.

    But it says China’s influence extends beyond infrastructure.

    “Alongside infrastructure-level cooperation, the shadow influence of China’s internet governance model has loomed large over Cambodia’s embrace of digital authoritarianism,” the report says, terming China’s influence on internet norms a form of “digital diplomacy.”

    In some areas, that has improved network engineering, the report says, but it also includes provision of “the technical knowhow for Cambodia to better emulate China’s digital authoritarian model.”

    The report blames such digital diplomacy for Cambodia’s National Internet Gateway, a system akin to China’s “Great Firewall” that allows the government to monitor and control all internet traffic.

    Phnom Penh has not said who is building the system, “but experts in Cambodian civil society believe it is Huawei or ZTE,” the report says.

    China alternatives

    The report recommends Western governments seek to work further with Taiwan and its technology sector to develop the self-ruling island further as a “counterweight” to China’s digital influence.

    ENG_CHN_InternetReport_04172024.3.jpg
    A technician stands at the entrance to a Huawei 5G data server center at the Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital in Guangzhou, in southern China’s Guangdong province on Sept. 26, 2021. (Ng Han Guan/AP)

    Taiwanese companies could help export infrastructure more friendly to the open web, it says, and countries like the United States could provide “greater financial resources” to civil society groups in the affected countries to push back against digital authoritarianism. 

    But it warns against casting too wide of a net in searching for alternatives to Chinese-built infrastructure and internet norms.

    Specifically, “while greater regional cooperation is necessary,” it says, “uncritically embracing countries with their own records of digital dictatorship, such as Vietnam, will ultimately be counterproductive.”

    Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘The right person’: What did Solomon Islanders vote for?

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Honiara

    After a relatively well organised and peaceful day of voting in Solomon Islands yesterday, the electoral commission is working with donor partners to safely transport ballot boxes from polling stations all over the country to centrally located counting venues.

    It is a massive exercise with more than 200 New Zealand Defence Force personnel providing logistical support across the 29,000 sq km sprawling island chain to ensure that those who want to vote have an opportunity to do so.

    Chief Electoral Officer Jasper Anisi said there were some preliminary processes to be completed once all ballot boxes were accounted for but he expected counting to begin today.

    “Mostly it will be verification of ballot boxes and ballot papers from the polling stations. But once verification is done then counting will automatically start,” Anisi said.

    Solomon Islanders queuing up to cast their ballots in Honiara. 17 April 2024
    Solomon Islanders queuing up to cast their ballots in Honiara yesterday. Image: RNZ Pacific/Koroi Hawkins

    The big issues
    So what were the big election issues for Solomon Islanders at the polls yesterday?

    A lack of government services, poor infrastructure development and the establishment of diplomatic ties with China are some of the things voters in the capital Honiara told RNZ Pacific they cared about.

    Timothy Vai said he was unhappy with the former government’s decision to cut ties with Taiwan in 2019 so it could establish ties with China.

    “I want to see a change. My aim in voting now is for a new government. Because we are a democratic country but we shifted [diplomatic ties] to a communist country,” Vai said.

    Another voter, Minnie Kasi, wanted leaders to do more for herself and her community.

    “My voting experience was good. I came to vote for the right person,” she said.

    “Over the past four years I did not see anything delivered by the person I voted for last time which is why I am voting for the person I voted for today.”

    Lack of government services
    While Ethel Manera felt there was a lack of development and basic government services in her constitutency.

    “Some infrastructure and sanitation [projects] they have not developed and they are still yet to develop and that is what I see should be developed in our country,” Manera said.

    This is the first time the country has conducted simultaneous voting for national and provincial election candidates.

    Anisi has said they would start by tallying the provincial results.

    “The provincial results we count in wards,” he said.

    “So wards have smaller numbers compared to the constituencies so you need to count all the wards in order to get the constituency number.”

    Some visiting political experts and local commentators in Honiara think delaying the announcement of the national election results might pose a security risk if it takes too long and voters grow impatient.

    But others say it is a good strategy because historically supporters of national candidates who win hold noisy public celebrations and if this is done first it could disrupt the counting of provincial results.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Does China import zero soybeans from Paraguay?

    Paraguay is the only South American country that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan – which means it doesn’t have diplomatic ties with mainland China. But President Santiago Peña Palacios stated in March that this has not affected its commercial ties with China, citing its soybean exports as an example.

    However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian denied these claims, saying on March 25 that official statistics prove China had not imported any soybeans from Paraguay in recent years. 

    Later that same day, Paraguayan presidential spokesperson Paula Carro reiterated Peña’s original claim at a press conference, saying: “China is one of Paraguay’s major importers, and our food products are often exported there through middlemen.”

    Both statements are true.

    While China has indeed not imported any soybeans directly from Paraguay, large numbers of soybeans originally grown in Paraguay and then shipped to ports in neighboring Uruguay or Argentina have then been exported to China.

    Paraguay is a major soybean producer – the world’s sixth-largest producer of soybeans and soybean oil. 

    China, meanwhile, is the largest world’s largest importer of soybeans, which are used to make tofu and a wide variety of food in Chinese cuisine.

    However, as one of only two landlocked countries in South America (the other being neighboring Bolivia), Paraguay must first ship its products by river to coastal ports — typically in Argentina or Uruguay — before shipping them abroad.

    Intermediary Trade Stops

    According to Chinese customs data, the top three source countries for the country’s imported 99.4 million tons of soybeans in 2023 were Brazil, the United States and Argentina. 

    1.jpg

    While China and Paraguay do engage in minimal trade (a little over $250 million total in 2023), statistics from Chinese customs and the Common Market of the South, or MERCOSUR — a South American trade bloc currently composed of full member states Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay – shows that China does not directly import any soybeans from Paraguay. 

    However, previous Paraguayan officials have made statements similar to those of Peña which clarify the roundabout trade route these beans take. 

    Former Paraguayan Minister of Industry and Commerce Gustavo Leite pointed out in a 2018 interview that Chinese agricultural firms import Paraguayan soybeans from ports in Argentina or Uruguay.

    Statistics on the MERCOSUR database show that soybeans account for more than 80% of Paraguay’s exports to Argentina, totaling about 6 million tons in 2023.

    Because of its location near both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Argentina plays an important role as a transit point for South American soybeans leaving the continent.

    Leite explained that while not technically counted as direct trade between China and Paraguay, these exports still make up a substantial portion of Paraguay’s total soybean exports.

    State owned enterprises

    Argentina exported 16.05 million tons of soybeans to China in 2023. Although no publicly available data shows exactly what percentage of those exported beans originated in Paraguay, a report from the agricultural trade data platform Trace that the state-owned China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation, or COFCO, was the fourth-largest exporter of soybeans from Paraguay in 2019, with more than 70% of those beans shipped to Argentina.

    2.jpg

    Of the Chinese agricultural companies operating in Paraguay, COFCO alone comprised nearly 10% of Paraguay’s soybean production following its acquisition of the agricultural division of the Hong Kong-based commodity trading company Noble Group in 2014, an enterprise that had been a long term key buyer and processor of Paraguayan soybeans.

    Accounting for nearly 12% of China’s domestic soybean market, COFCO’s official website states that it sources products directly from South American farmers and notes that it has barge facilities in Paraguay as well as ports in Argentina and Brazil. Exports from these ports have direct access to the Chinese market.

    Paraguay’s diplomatic dance

    China requires any country wishing to establish diplomatic relations with it to drop recognition of Taiwan as a separate country since Beijing claims it as its own – even though it doesn’t control the self-governing island. 

    While not completely shutting off trade with countries recognizing Taiwan, Beijing attempts to minimize such economic ties as a means to its end of diplomatically isolating Taiwan.  

    Paraguay’s diplomatic ties with Taiwan – and whether the country should recognize China to boost its economic prospects – is a hot topic at every election. 

    Peña, inaugurated as president in September 2023, has repeatedly said that Paraguay will maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but is open to strengthening trade with China.

    According to the Argentine media outlet La Politica Online, Peña met with senior Chinese telecom executives from Huawei during a visit to Spain in February 2024. 

    Translated and edited by Shen Ke. Additional editing by Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster.

    Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Rita Cheng in Washington.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • America’s Now Evident Plan to Use AUKUS to Spark War With China

    There was much concern, in international circles, about the the U.S. Government’s recent efforts to open a NATO office in Tokyo so as to extend its military alliance against Russia to become also a military alliance against China. When that initiative scared some other NATO members, it was stopped, and the fear temporarily subsided. But then suddenly, on April 8, it was announced that (despite some hurdles that would first need to be overcome) America’s new (2021) anti-China military alliance, AUKUS, is “considering” (meaning here intending) to, in effect, bring into that alliance Japan (which has 79 U.S. military bases). On April 10, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met at the White House to plan how this would be done. The next day, Defense News bannered “AUKUS allies float path for Japan to join tech sharing pact”. So, the U.S., which has 900 foreign military bases and actually spends around half of the entire planet’s military expenses, and therefore has no actual need for any military ‘allies’, but instead brings them in to serve as proxies for itself and to be able to say (for propaganda-purposes) “we” when referring to itself, so as to ‘justify’ its numerous invasions and to prevent any of its ‘allied’ (or colonial) countries from criticizing it, is now effectively displaying the reality to anyone who worries about such matters. This reality is: Yes, the U.S. Government is demanding to, and will, control China, too. The U.S. already has military bases against China in Australia, Guam, Japan, South Korea, Marshall Islands, Mariana Islands, Palau, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, and Thailand; so, it can invade China almost instantly from plenty of bases to China’s south and east.

    Even some Australians (though hardly yet any Brits to my knowledge) are raising alarms at this accession of Japan into AUKUS. For example, the Australian commentator John Menadue, a former Cabinet Minister, published at his blog on April 16th, “Lest We Forget: Japan joining AUKUS a stark reminder of China’s Century of Humiliation”, by  Robert Macklin, which opened:

    With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    It was Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles who first suggested that the inclusion of Japan in the AUKUS group was a natural ‘evolution’ of the pact. As such it was risible, if understandable; Marles is not the sharpest knife in the Cabinet drawer.

    But when it was adopted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – and then the American president Joe Biden – there is cause for concern. With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    Japan’s membership could hardly be more provocative to a country that suffered the indignity of Japanese control of its Taiwan province for 50 years from 1895 and its invasion of the mainland throughout the second world war.

    The notorious Massacre of Nanking – where the atrocities included 200,000 murders and 20,000 rapes of the civilian population – was but one of hundreds of outrages visited upon the Chinese people. …

    When he referred there to America’s having created AUKUS as “a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future,” he was referring to the shady excuses that it gave at the time for creating AUKUS, and which entailed an open affront to France — including coercion forcing France to cancel a lucrative contract France had with Australia’s Government, which affront France promised to (but never did) retaliate against the U.S. for. But, now, this bringing of the first non-Anglo member into America’s (initially pure-Anglo) military alliance against China, proves that its real target, and the real aim of AUKUS, is to conquer China — nothing less than that (just as NATO demands to win its war against Russia in the battlefield of Ukraine on Russia’s border).

    On April 15, Lin Congyi, of China’s Defense Ministry, headlined “AUKUS makes more mistakes by roping in Japan”, and he commented:

    Recently, the US, the UK, and Australia announced that Japan would join AUKUS, causing great concern among the international community. This is the first time that the three countries have announced a partner since the organization was established in September 2021. Japanese officials responded by saying that Japan “recognizes” the importance of AUKUS. Many Japanese citizens criticized AUKUS for promoting membership expansion regardless of concerns from all walks of life, which will intensify camp confrontation and the risks of nuclear proliferation, and undermine peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

    AUKUS is short for the Trilateral Security Partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, which has two main pillars. Pillar I focuses on the deployment of nuclear submarines in Australia and the joint research, development and construction of the next-generation nuclear submarines by the three countries. Cooperation in this area is “limited to the US, UK and Australia”. Pillar II focuses on the joint development and deployment of new technologies to enhance advanced combat capabilities.

    Why did they choose Japan in the first place? Analysts believe that there are two reasons. From a technical perspective, the US, the UK and Australia have their respective shortcomings in the field of high technology, while Japan, with advantages in the fields of hypersonic weapons, quantum technology, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence, can play a greater role in defense technology. On the part of Japan, it hopes to improve its defense capabilities and increase its military influence in the Asia-Pacific region by sharing sensitive military technologies with the US, the UK, Australia, and other countries.

    Strategically, these countries also have their own calculations. The US sees AUKUS as a key part of the implementation of the so-called “Indo-Pacific Strategy” and wants to attract more allies to join in order to achieve the goal of containing China. The UK is pushing ahead with the “Global Britain” strategy, and its security cooperation with Japan is becoming deeper. It hopes, in a bid to become more involved in Asia-Pacific affairs with the aid of Japan and expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

    Australia, on the other hand, put high expectations on Pillar II due to the sluggish progress of Pillar I and thus supported the inclusion of Japan. As for Japan, it wants to use AUKUS as a new tool to carry out its military agenda in the Asia-Pacific region and contain China. …

    The U.S. Government, and its UK partner, are going for broke, in order to win an all-inclusive U.S.-UK empire — a U.S./UK global dictatorship that includes all of the world’s nations as its colonies (INCLUDING Russia and China). The idea here is nothing less than to terminate national sovereignty and replace it with an international global dictatorship by the U.S./UK partnership: all sovereignty being based in Washington and London, no longer under the internal control of any other individual nation. This is the contemporary U.S./UK vision for their Brave New World. Never has that vision been more clear than it now is: indisputable. (The links here document it.) If this effort to bring Japan into AUKUS succeeds, it will be a virtual declaration of war against China.

    As regards China’s alleged imperial ambitions, an April 16 article in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post headlined “China was never an imperialist state” and pointed out that “it could be highly problematic to map directly the Western experience of empire, such as when we talk about the Spanish, Portuguese, British, or even the American empires” because “The Chinese empire, through different dynasties, often functioned more like the opposite of an empire, and the oft-cited tribute system frequently worked in reverse,” meaning that what some Westerners have alleged to be or to have been ‘imperialism’ by China was actually dynastic feuds within China. China’s invasions were internal — as contrasted to the Western experience, which explored, exploited, and invaded, far away from the homeland, in order to conquer, control, and extract from, a distant culture. What America is now trying to do to China (make it become yet another U.S. colony), has no parallel to anything that China has ever done. It is pure foreign aggression — which since 1945 has been the U.S. specialty.

    The post America’s Now Evident Plan to Use AUKUS to Spark War With China first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • US says China is funding America’s fentanyl crisis

    China is funding the United States’ fentanyl crisis by using tax rebates to subsidize the manufacture and export of raw materials for the drug, a U.S. congressional report found.

    The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party report on Tuesday pointed to China as “the ultimate geographic source of the fentanyl crisis,” where Chinese companies “produce nearly all of illicit fentanyl precursors, the key ingredients that drive the global illicit fentanyl trade.”

    The CCP also holds interests in several of the Chinese companies, the report added.

    The accusation comes as both countries have pledged to co-operate to fight the global trafficking of fentanyl. The U.S. also alleged that China, despite its vast control over the internet, has failed to regulate its online sales of the materials via e-commerce and social media.

    At present, fentanyl kills an average of more than 200 Americans every day, and more than 97% of fentanyl raw materials come from China. 

    “As long as China does not manufacture and export fentanyl and its raw materials, there will be no fentanyl crisis in the United States,” said former U.S. Attorney General William Barr at the congressional hearing.

    “Fentanyl is often distributed in the form of prescription drugs that make people think they are taking the painkiller Percocet, the anti-anxiety Xanax or the stimulant Adderall. These medications are immediately available on social media and online, and even if they are used as opioids, victims are unaware they may contain lethal doses of fentanyl,” Barr said.

    The report pointed out that since 2018, the value-added tax refund implemented by Beijing is equivalent to a subsidy, which has resulted in a significant increase in the export of fentanyl raw materials. These exports involved many state-owned enterprises, such as Gaosheng Biotechnology in Shanghai and Yafeng Biological Technology in Shijiazhuang, Hebei. 

    Earlier this year, the committee found that more than 30,000 Chinese companies were selling illegal drugs on seven e-commerce websites. In addition to guaranteeing consumers that the sales will not be inspected by customs, these Chinese companies also accept cryptocurrencies as payment.

    Ray Donovan, former operations chief at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said at Tuesday’s hearing that the findings “regarding Chinese chemical manufacturers, any intermediaries supported by the Chinese Communist Party, and the Chinese government are true, reliable and have conclusive evidence.” 

    He said Mexican transnational drug trafficking groups have always been U.S.’s key target. In the past decade or so, more and more laboratories there have used Chinese raw materials to synthesize drugs, and at the same time, an increased number of Chinese laboratories have emerged. 

    The leaders of the U.S. and China reached a consensus on combating fentanyl in November last year. But several former U.S. officials at Tuesday’s hearing said China has taken no effective action since then.

    David Luckey, a researcher at the RAND Corporation, a US think tank, pointed out that strengthening the review of sea and air containers and goods from China, as well as detecting related chemicals and drug advertisements on the Internet, can effectively disrupt the fentanyl supply chain.

    In this regard, former U.S. Attorney General Barr believes that facts have proven that the United States cannot count on the will or goodwill of the Chinese government. Therefore, the issue of fentanyl must also start from economic and trade policies and introduce punishment and accountability mechanisms.

    Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Qiao Qinen for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China axes hundreds of TV dramas depicting family tensions

    China’s internet censors have deleted hundreds of online TV dramas for portraying the negative aspects of family life amid an attempt by the ruling Communist Party to get more people to start families and rescue plummeting birth rates.

    Censors at video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou deleted more than 700 videos of TV micro-dramas portraying in-fighting between in-laws because of the “extreme emotions” they evoked, the government’s “Rumor-refuting platform” on Weibo reported.

    “Many micro-dramas on this theme deliberately amplify and exaggerate conflicts between husband and wife, conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and intergenerational conflicts through eye-catching stereotypes and abnormal and bizarre relationships,” the post said.

    The move comes as President Xi Jinping tries to promote marriage and family life as a way of boosting flagging birth rates.

    The number of Chinese couples tying the knot for the first time has plummeted by nearly 56% over the past nine years, with such marriages numbering less than 11 million in 2022.

    A November 2023 poll on the social media platform Weibo found that while most of the 44,000 respondents said 25 to 28 are the best ages to marry, nearly 60% said they were delaying marriage due to work pressures, education or the need to buy property.

    ENG_CHN_FamilyDramasCensored_04162024.2.jpg
    The logo of Chinese video sharing company Kuaishou is seen at its company in Hangzhou, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province on February 5, 2021. (AFP)

    Birth rates have fallen from 17.86 million in 2016 to just 9.02 million in 2023, despite a change in policy allowing couples to have up to three children in 2021. 

    In October, Xi called on women to focus on raising families, and the National People’s Congress this month started looking at ways to boost birth rates and kick-start the shrinking population, including flexible working policies, coverage for fertility treatment and extended maternity leave.

    Changing priorities

    But young women in today’s China are increasingly choosing not to marry or have kids, citing huge inequalities and patriarchal attitudes that still run through family life, not to mention the sheer economic cost of raising a family.

    A recent study of Mandarin pop songs aimed at a female audience focused far less on romantic love and more on personal freedom and economic independence.

    It appears the authorities want to avoid having women put off taking the plunge into family life by clamping down on mother-in-law gags and other depictions of family tensions.

    ENG_CHN_FamilyDramasCensored_04162024.3.jpg
    A screen shows a military parade at a booth of Chinese video-streaming startup Kuaishou, at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing, September 4, 2020. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

    “Douyin and Kuaishou have recently removed from the shelves a number of illegal micro-short dramas that deliberately choreographed “mother-in-law and daughter-in-law battles” to exaggerate extreme emotions.”

    The deleted shows “promoted unhealthy and non-mainstream views on family, marriage and love, and deliberately amplified and exaggerated conflicts between husband and wife, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, etc,” the Weibo “rumor-refuting” post said.

    The censored titles included shows called “My Husband is a Mommy’s Boy,” “In the Doghouse with Mother-in-law,” and “Rich Lady Strikes Back,” and were removed to promote the “healthy development” of the online video market, it said, adding that Kuaishou had deleted more than 700 such shows.

    China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has also issued new rules requiring platforms to apply for a license to distribute online TV shows, starting June 1.

    ‘Positive energy’

    Current affairs commentator Chang Guantao said many online TV producers like to use social injustice as a talking point to get more viewers, which he said was “embarrassing” to the government, which wants anything posted on China’s tightly controlled internet to exude “positive energy” for the future of the country.

    “More and more micro-dramas are vying with each other to directly address society’s sore points, and those marginalized by government policy,” Chang said. 

    “This is likely something that news regulators and public opinion control agencies don’t want to see, so they have to regulate and control them, and limit their development in various ways,” he said.

    ENG_CHN_FamilyDramasCensored_04162024.4.jpg
    The logo of Chinese video-streaming startup Kuaishou is seen in Beijing, China May 10, 2017. (Stringer/Reuters)

    Current affairs commentator Bi Xin said micro-dramas have been much more lightly regulated than regular TV shows — until now.

    “It doesn’t cost too much to make a micro-drama, around 300,000 yuan (US$41,000), but they have a wider reach,” Bi said. “The authorities need to suppress and manage them by forcing them to get licensed, because their content isn’t always in line with the main theme [of government propaganda].”

    The news website Caixin quoted micro-drama producers as saying that there will now be a classification and hierarchical review system for the shows, which will be divided according to their production budget.

    Higher budget shows will be directly regulated by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, while lower budget productions will be managed by the same authorities at the provincial level.

    The lowest-budget shows will be left to video-sharing platforms to censor, the report said.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China continues to unlawfully persecute family of dissidents, finds report

    Authorities continuing ‘intimidation’ including separating children from their parents, despite pledge to end collective punishment

    China continues to unlawfully target the families of activists and dissidents, despite a pledge to end the practice of collective punishment, a Chinese human rights group has said in a new report.

    The persecution, which includes intimidation and harassment, forced evictions, travel bans, criminal proceedings against family members and preventing children from attending school, have affected people across China and the diaspora community for decades, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group said in a report on Monday. Acts of collective punishment are prohibited in international human rights law.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Ships in the night – final day of election campaigning in Solomon Islands

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor

    It is the final day of election campaigning in Solomon Islands and there is a palpable sense of anticipation in the country, which is holding national and provincial elections simultaneously for the first time this year.

    There is also significant international interest this year in the outcome of the National Election, as it is the first to be held since 2019 when Taiwan cut its decades-long diplomatic ties with the country — leaving Honiara in the lurch as it moved to formally establish diplomatic relations with Beijing.

    The elections this week were officially scheduled to take place last year but were postponed, somewhat controversially, so that the country could host the Pacific Games.

    Most of the voters RNZ Pacific has spoken to in Honiara so far seem both excited and determined to exercise their democratic right.

    In and around the capital, stages are being erected for final campaign rallies and all manner of vehicles are being decked out for colourful and noisy float parades.

    Overnight, down at the main Point Cruz wharf, hundreds of voters were still boarding ferries paid for by election candidates trying to shore up their numbers.

    Many of the ships are not actually designed for passengers — they are converted fishing or cargo vessels purchased through Special Shipping Grants given to MPs to help meet transportation needs for their constituents.

    Voter ferries
    One such vessel is the MV Avaikimaine run by Renbel Shipping for the Rennell and Bellona constituency.

    Standing room only - Voters aboard the MV Avaikimaine in Honiara before departing for Rennell and Bellona Province. 14 April 2024
    Standing room only . . . voters aboard the MV Avaikimaine in Honiara before departing for Rennell and Bellona Province yesterday. Image: RNZ Pacific/Koroi Hawkins

    The man in charge of boarding last night, Derek Pongi, said voters for all election candidates were allowed to travel on the vessel.

    Pongi said some people had their fares paid for by the candidates they support, while others meet their own travel costs.

    He said the vessel had completed four trips carrying 400 or more passengers each time.

    “It’s important because people from Rennell and Bellona can go back and participate in these elections and exercise their right to vote for their member of Parliament and the members of the Provincial Assembly,” Pongi said.

    But not all vessels have such an open policy — some of the wealthier candidates in larger constituencies either charter or call in favours to get potential voters to the polls.

    A couple of jetties over from the Avaikimaine was the bright neon green-coloured Uta Princess II.

    Her logistics officer, Tony Laugwaro, explained the vessel was heading to the Baegu Asifola constituency and that most of the people on board were supporters of the incumbent MP John Maneniaru.

    Three trips
    He said they had made three trips already, but had to be wary of remaining within the campaign expenses’ maximum expenditure limit.

    “It’s only around SBD$500,000 (US$58,999) for each candidate to do logistics, so we have to work within that amount for transporting and accommodating voters,” Tony Laugwaro said.

    According to Solomon Islands electoral laws, candidates are also only allowed to accept donations of up to SBD$50,000 (US$5900) for campaigning.

    As each ship pulls away from the jetty and disappears into the night, another appears like a white ghost out of the darkness and begins the process of loading more passengers.

    The official campaign period ends at midnight today, followed immediately by a 24-hour campaign blackout.

    Polls open on Wednesday at 7am and close at 4pm. Counting is expected to continue through until the weekend.

    Depending on the official results, which will be announced by the Governor-General, lobbying to form the national and provincial governments could last anywhere from a few days to several weeks.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • China relocates Tibetan monastery


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Civil society view of the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council

    At the 55th Human Rights Council session, 22 civil society organisations share reflections on key outcomes and highlight gaps in addressing crucial issues and situations [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/02/26/human-rights-defenders-issues-at-the-55th-session-of-the-human-rights-council/]:

    The failure of States to pay their membership dues to the United Nations in full and in time, and the practice of conditioning funding on unilateral political goals is causing a financial liquidity crisis for the organisation, the impacts of which are felt by victims and survivors of human rights violations and abuses. … Without the resources needed, the outcomes of this session can’t be implemented. The credibility of HRC is at stake. 

    We welcome the adoption of three resolutions calling for the implementation of effective accountability measures to ensure justice for atrocity crimes committed in the context of Israel‘s decades long colonial apartheid imposed over the Palestinian people, and for the realisation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. Special Procedures expressed their profound concern about “the support of certain governments for Israel’s strategy of warfare against the besieged population of Gaza, and the failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide” and called on States to implement an “arms embargo on Israel, heightened by the International Court of Justice’s ruling […] that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza […].”   This session, the Special Rapporteur on the OPT concluded that the actions of Israel in Gaza meet the legal qualifications of genocide. 

    We deplore the double standards in applying international law and the failure of certain States to vote in favor of ending impunity. This undermines the integrity of the UN human rights framework, the legitimacy of this institution, and the credibility of those States. From Palestine, to Ukraine, to Myanmar, to Sudan, to Sri Lanka, resolving grave human rights violations requires States to address root causes, applying human rights norms in a principled and consistent way. The Council has a prevention mandate and UN Member States have a legal and moral duty to prevent and ensure accountability and non-recurrence for atrocity crimes, wherever they occur.

    We want to highlight and specifically welcome the adoption of the first ever resolution on combating discrimination, violence and harmful practices intersex persons. The resolution builds on growing support in the Council on this topic and responds to several calls by the global coalition of intersex-led organisations. The resolution takes important steps in recognising that discrimination, violence and harmful practices based on innate variations of sex characteristics, such as medically unnecessary interventions, takes place in all regions of the world. We welcome that the resolution calls for States to take measures to protect the human rights of this population and calls for an OHCHR report and a panel discussion to address challenges and discuss good practices in protecting the human rights of intersex persons.

    We welcome the renewal of the mandate of the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism. As attested by human rights defenders with albinism, the mandate played an invaluable role by shedding light on human rights violations against persons with albinism through ground breaking research, country visits, and human rights training, and ensuring that defenders with albinism are consulted and take part in the decision-making. The organisations also welcomed the inclusion of language reflecting the important role played by “organizations of persons with albinism and their families”, and the reference to the role of States in collaboration with the World Health Organization, “to take effective measures to address the health-related effects of climate change on persons with albinism with a view to realizing their right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, particularly regarding the alarming incidence of skin cancer in this population, and to implement the recommendations of the report of the Independent Expert in this regard”.

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. We also welcome the update of the title of the mandate acknowledging the recognition of this right by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 48/13 on 8 October 2021 and the General Assembly resolution 76/300 on 28 July 2022. We also welcome the inclusion of gender-specific language in the text, and we call on the Special Rapporteur to devote a careful attention to the protection of environmental human rights defenders for their strong contribution to the realisation of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, as called for by several States. We also welcome that the Council appointed for the first time a woman from the global south to fulfill this mandate, and we welcome the nomination of another woman as Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change. 

    We welcome the resolution on countering disinformation, which addresses new issues whilst once again rejecting censorship and reaffirming the ‘essential role’ that the right to freedom of expression plays in countering disinformation. We welcome the specific focus on girls – besides women – as well as risks associated with artificial intelligence, gender-based violence, and electoral processes. We urge States to follow the approach of the resolution and to combat disinformation through holistic, positive measures, including by ensuring a diverse, free and independent media environment, protecting journalists and media workers, and implementing comprehensive right to information laws. Importantly, we also urge States to ensure that they do not conduct their own disinformation campaigns. At the same time, social media companies have an essential role to play and should take heed of the resolution by reforming their business models which allow disinformation to flourish on their platforms. The resolution also mandates the Advisory Committee to produce a new report on disinformation, and it is absolutely essential that this report mirrors and reinforces existing standards on this topic, especially the various reports of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression.

    Whilst we welcome the technical renewal of the resolution on freedom of religion or belief, we regret that the parallel resolution on combating intolerance (widely known by its original name Resolution 16/18) was not tabled at the session. Since 2011, these duel resolutions have been renewed each year, representing a consensual and universal framework to address the root causes of hate based on religion or belief in law, policy, and practice. We call on the OIC to once again renew Resolution 16/18 in a future session, while ensuring no substantive changes are made to this consensual framework. We also urge all States to reaffirm their commitment to Resolution 16/18 and the Rabat Plan of Action and adopt comprehensive and evidence-based national implementation plans, with the full and effective participation of diverse stakeholders.

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on prevention of genocide and its focus on impunity, risks and early warnings, as well as the paragraph reaffirming that starvation of civilians as a method to combat is prohibited under international humanitarian law; however, we regret that the resolution fails to adequately reflect and address serious concerns relating to current political contexts and related risks of genocide. 

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on the rights of the child: realising the rights of the child and inclusive social protection, strengthening the implementation of child rights-compliant inclusive social protection systems that benefit all children. We also welcome the addition of a new section on child rights mainstreaming, enhancing the capacity of OHCHR to advance child rights mainstreaming, particularly in areas such as meaningful and ethical child participation and child safeguarding.  We remain concerned by persisted attempts to weaken the text, especially to shift the focus away from children as individual right-holders, to curtail child participation and remove the inclusion of a gender perspective.

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which addresses effective national legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture. We welcome the new paragraph urging States concerned to comply with binding orders of the International Court of Justice related to their obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

    We welcome the adoption of a new resolution on the human rights situation in Belarus. The Belarusian authorities continue their widespread and systematic politically-motivated repression, targeting not only dissent inside the country, but also Belarusians outside the country who were forced to flee for fear of persecution. Today, almost 1,500 prisoners jailed following politically-motivated charges in Belarus face discriminatory treatment, severe restriction of their rights, and ill-treatment including torture. The resolution rightly creates a new standalone independent investigative mechanism, that will inherit the work of the OHCHR Examination, to collect and preserve evidence of potential international crimes beyond the 2020 elections period, with a view to advancing accountability. It also ensures the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur who remains an essential ‘lifeline’ to Belarusian civil society.

    We welcome the resolution on technical assistance and capacity building in regard to the human rights situation in Haiti and emphasis on the role civil society plays in the promotion and protection of human rights and the importance of creating and maintaining an enabling environment in which civil society can operate independently and free from insecurity. We similarly welcome the call on the Haitian authorities to step up their efforts to support national human rights institutions and to pursue an inclusive dialogue between all Haitian actors concerned in order to find a lasting solution to the multidimensional crisis, which severely impacts civil society. We welcome the renewal of the mandate of the designated expert and reference to women and children in regard to the monitoring of human rights situation and abuses developments, as well as encouragement of progress on the question of the establishment of an office of the Office of the High Commissioner in Haiti. We nonetheless regret that the resolution does not address the multifaceted challenges civil society faces amidst escalating violence, fails to further address the link between the circulation of firearms and the human rights violations and abuses, and does not identify concrete avenues for the protection of civilians and solidarity action to ensure the safety, dignity and rights of civilians are upheld.

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on Iran, renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran and extending for another year the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. The continuation of these two distinct and complementary mandates is essential for the Council to fulfill its mandate of promotion and protection of human rights in Iran. However, given the severity of the human rights crisis in the country, we regret that this important resolution remains purely procedural and fails to reflect the dire situation of human rights in Iran, including the sharp spike in executions, often following grossly unfair trials. It also fails to address the increased levels of police and judicial harassment against women and girls appearing in public without compulsory headscarves, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists and families of victims seeking truth and justice, and the continued pervasive discrimination and violence faced by women and girls, LGBTI+ persons and persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities in the country.  

    We welcome the adoption by consensus of the resolution on Myanmar, which is a clear indication of the global concern for the deepening human rights and humanitarian crisis in the country as a result of the military’s over three-year long brutal war against the people resisting its attempted coup. We further welcome the Council’s unreserved support for Myanmar peoples’ aspirations for human rights, democracy, and justice as well as the recognition of serious human rights implications of the continuing sale of arms and jet fuel to Myanmar.

    We welcome the resolution on the situation of human rights in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression. The latest report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) reveals disturbing evidence of war crimes, including civilian targeting, torture, sexual violence, and the unlawful transfer of children. These findings underscore the conflict’s brutality, particularly highlighted by the siege of Mariupol, where indiscriminate attacks led to massive civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction. The report also details the widespread and systematic torture and sexual violence against both civilians and prisoners of war. Moreover, the illegal deportation of children emerges as a significant issue, as part of a broader strategy of terror and cultural erasure. The COI’s mandate extension is crucial for ongoing investigations and ensuring justice for victims. 

    By adopting a resolution entitled ‘advancing human rights in South Sudan,’ the Council ensured that international scrutiny of South Sudan’s human rights situation will cover the country’s first-ever national elections, which are set to take place in De­cember 2024. With this resolution, the UN’s top human rights body extended the mandate of its Com­mis­sion on Human Rights in South Sudan.

    We welcome the resolution on the human rights situation in Syria and the extension of the mandate of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which will continue to report on violations from all sides of the conflict in an impartial and victim-centered manner. Syria continues to commit systematic and widespread attacks against civilians, in detention centers through torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance and through indiscriminate attacks against the population in Idlib. We welcome that the resolution supports the mandate of the Independent Institution of the Missing People and calls for compliance with the recent order on Provisional Measures by the ICJ – both initiatives can play a significant role in fulfilling victims’ rights to truth and justice and should receive support by all UN Member States. In a context of ongoing normalisation, the CoI’s mandate to investigate and report on human rights abuses occurring in Syria is of paramount importance.

    We continue to deplore this Council’s exceptionalism towards serious human rights violations committed by the Chinese government. At a time when double-standards are enabling ongoing atrocity crimes to be committed in Palestine, sustained failure by Council Members, in particular OIC countries, to promote accountability for crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and Muslim peoples in China severely undermines the Council’s integrity, and its ability to prevent and put an end to atrocity crimes globally. Findings by the OHCHR, the UN Treaty Bodies, the ILO and over 100 letters by UN Special Procedures since 2018 have provided overwhelming evidence pointing to systematic and widespread human rights violations across the People’s Republic of China. We reiterate our pressing call for all Council Members to support the adoption of a resolution establishing a UN mandate to monitor and report on the human rights situation in China, as repeatedly urged by UN Special Procedures. We further echo Special Procedures’ call for prompt and impartial investigations into the unlawful death of Cao Shunli, and all cases of reprisals for cooperation with the UN.

    We regret the Council’s silence on the situation in India despite the clear and compounding early warning signs of further deterioration that necessitate preventive action by the Council based on the objective criteria. The latest of these early warning signals include the recent notification of rules to implement the highly discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government just weeks before the election, along with recent intercommunal violence in Manipur and ongoing violence against Muslims in various parts of India amid increasing restrictions on civic space, criminalisation of dissent and erosion of the rule of law with political interference.

    We further regret that this Council is increasingly failing to protect victims of human rights violations throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. The people of Yemen and Libya continue to endure massive ‘man-made’ humanitarian catastrophes caused in large part by ongoing impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other grave violations of international law. In Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and in other MENA countries, citizens are routinely subjected to brutal, wide-spread human rights violations intended to silence dissent, eradicate independent civil society and quash democratic social movements. Countless citizens from the MENA region continue to hope and strive for a more dignified life – often at the cost of their own lives and freedom. We call on this Council and UN member States to rise above narrow political agendas and begin to take steps to address the increasing selectivity that frequently characterises this Council’s approach to human rights protection and promotion. 

    We regret that once more, civil society representatives faced numerous obstacles to accessing the Palais and engaging in discussions, both in person and remotely, during this session. The UN human rights system in Geneva has always and continues to rely on the smooth and unhindered access of civil society to carry out its mandate. We remind UN Member States, as well as UNOG, that the Council’s mandate, as set out in HRC Res 5/1, requires that arrangements be made, and practices observed to ensure ‘the most effective contribution’ of NGOs. Undermining civil society access and engagement not only undermines the capacities and effectiveness of civil society but also of the UN itself.

    Signatories:

    1. All Human Rights for All in Iran
    2. Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
    3. Association Arc pour la defense des droits de l’homme et des revendication democratique/culturelles du peuple Azerbaidjanais Iran -”ArcDH”
    4. Balochistan Human Rights Group
    5. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
    6. Child Rights Connect (CRCnt)
    7. CIVICUS
    8. Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)
    9. Egyptian initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
    10. Ensemble contre la Peine de Mort
    11. Franciscans International
    12. Gulf Center for Human Rights
    13. Impact Iran
    14. International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI)
    15. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
    16. International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)
    17. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
    18. Kurdistan Human Rights Network
    19. Kurdpa Human Rights Organization
    20. PEN America
    21. The Syrian Legal Development Programme (SLDP)
    22. United 4 Iran

    see also: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/un-geneva/eu-human-rights-council_en

    https://www.fidh.org/en/international-advocacy/united-nations/human-rights-council/55th-human-rights-council-session-israel-palestine-belarus-iran

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • US-Philippines-Japan Summit to Contain China Described as a “Council of War”

    President Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the White House on Thursday, the first meeting of its kind, which comes as the U.S. moves to expand its military presence in the South China Sea to counter China. The Philippines has deepened military ties with both the United States and Japan in recent years as maritime confrontations…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Pacific states could help ‘help prevent’ nuclear war, says advocate

    By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    Pacific nations and smaller states are being urged to unite to avoid being caught in the crossfire of a possible nuclear conflict between China and the US.

    On the cusp of a new missile age in the Indo-Pacific, a nuclear policy specialist suggests countries at the centre of the brewing geopolitical storm must rely on diplomacy to hold the superpowers accountable.

    Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Ankit Panda said it was crucial smaller states and Pacific nations concerned about potential nuclear conflict “engage in meaningful risk reduction, arms control and broader diplomacy to reduce the possibility of war.”

    “States [which] are not formally aligned with the United States or China were more powerful united,” and this “may create greater incentives for China and the United States to engage in these talks,” the think tank’s nuclear policy program Stanton senior fellow said.

    North Korea and the United States have been increasing their inventories of short- to intermediate-range missile systems, he said.

    “The stakes are potentially nuclear conflict between two major superpowers with existential consequences for humanity at large.”

    The US military’s newest long-range hypersonic missile system, called the ‘Dark Eagle’, could soon be deployed to Guam, he said.

    Caught in crossfire
    A report issued by the Congressional Budget Office last year suggested the missile could potentially reach Taiwan, parts of mainland China, and the North Korean capital of Pyongyang if deployed to Guam, he said.

    “Asia and Pacific countries need to put this on the agenda in the way that many European states that were caught in the crossfire between the United States and the Soviet Union were willing to do during the Cold War,” Panda said.

    In 2022, North Korea confirmed it had test-launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of reaching Guam.

    Guam is a US Pacific territory with a population of at least 170,000 people and home to US military bases.

    Guam’s unique position
    Panda said it could be argued that Guam’s unique position and military use by the US as a nuclear weapons base makes it even more of a target to North Korea.

    He said North Korea will likely intensify its run of missile tests ahead of America’s presidential election in November.

    “If [President] Biden is re-elected, they will continue to engage with China in good faith on arms control.

    “But if [Donald] Trump gets elected then we can expect the opposite. We’ll see an increase in militarism and a race-to-arms conflict in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • In China, drones, social media monitor foreign journalists: report

    Chinese authorities use drones to monitor and follow foreign journalists as they report from the country, as well as detaining, harassing and threatening them with non-renewal of their work permits if they report on topics deemed sensitive by the government, according to a new report on journalists’ working conditions.

    Four out of five members who responded to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China annual working conditions survey said they had experienced “interference, harassment or violence” while trying to do their jobs in China during the past year, the FCCC report found.

    Local governments are increasingly using technology to keep track of foreign media workers, the report found.

    “During a trip to Poyang Lake, where we were reporting on the status of the Yangtze River dolphin, we were followed by multiple cars with plainclothes individuals inside,” the report quoted a journalist with a European media organization as saying. 

    “At one point, the plainclothes individuals appeared to use a drone when a blocked sandy road prevented them from getting closer by car,” they said.

    ENG_CHN_ForeignMedia_04102024.2.JPG
    A cameraman from Hong Kong Cable TV is restrained from photographing the crowd waiting to buy tickets for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, July 25, 2008, in Beijing, China. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)

    Another European journalist reported similar high-tech surveillance when on a reporting trip to two provinces affected by extreme weather events linked to climate change.

    “We were followed by multiple carloads of plain clothes officers,” the report quoted them as saying. “Drones were sent out to follow and observe us when we got out of our vehicle to film/collect interviews. When we moved on foot to a spot, the drones would follow us.”

    Respondents also told the FCCC they had reason to believe the authorities had “possibly or definitely” compromised their WeChat (81%), their phone (72%), and/or placed audio recording bugs in their office or homes, the report found.

    ‘Endless cat-and-mouse game’

    Another journalist with a European newspaper described reporting in China as “an endless cat-and-mouse game.”

    “Whatever strategy you try, the Chinese surveillance and security system adapts and closes the gap,” the report quoted them as saying. “Whatever strategies you use, the space for reporting keeps getting smaller and smaller.”

    A foreign reporter of many years’ experience in China who gave only the surname Lok for fear of reprisals told RFA Cantonese that she expects her communications apps to be monitored at all times.

    “I was talking about an issue with a friend here [in mainland China] … and may have mentioned it on WeChat,” Lok said. “Later, he was called in by the police to ‘drink tea’” – a euphemism for being called in for questioning.

    ENG_CHN_ForeignMedia_04102024.3.JPG
    Journalists crowd a National People’s Congress press conference a day before the opening of the annual session of China’s parliament, in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on March 4, 2019. (Greg Baker/AFP)

    “It turned out that the problem wasn’t him, but the conversation he had with me,” she said. “We have to be careful, because a lot of trouble has come from talking to people on WeChat.”

    A second Hong Kong journalist who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said it used to be easier for journalists to evade official surveillance than it is now.

    “The Chinese government’s digital surveillance methods are comprehensive,” Wong said. “You could describe them as a dragnet, in which every move the target makes is visible to them.”

    Online surveillance

    Huang Chao-nien, an assistant professor at the National Development Institute of Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, agreed, adding that the government has used online surveillance to target journalists for years.

    The government has long used an internet development model that intervenes in the market to control tech companies … forcing them to cooperate with the government in carrying out political surveillance and controls on public speech, he said.

    More than half of the journalists who took part in the FCCC annual survey said they had been “obstructed” at least once by police or other officials, while 45% encountered obstruction by unidentified persons, the report said.

    Some had been warned not to join the club as it was deemed an “illegal organization,” while others were threatened with non-renewal of their visas and work permits if they didn’t toe the line, the report said.

    Areas deemed particularly sensitive by Chinese officials were even harder to work in, it said, adding that 85% of journalists who tried to report from the far western region of Xinjiang in 2023 experienced problems. 

    “In Xinjiang we were followed the entire time,” the report quoted a European journalist as saying. “It was particularly unpleasant in Hotan, where we counted about half a dozen plainclothes following us by car or on foot.”

    “In Korla, we at some point had six cars following us. When we did a U-turn and then a detour over an abandoned construction site and dust road, they all faithfully followed us,” the journalist said.

    ENG_CHN_ForeignMedia_04102024.4.JPG
    Chinese policemen manhandle a photographer, center, as he photographs a news event near the No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, in Beijing Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. (Andy Wong/AP)

    And the definition of “sensitive” areas appears to be expanding.

    “An increasing number of journalists encountered issues in regions bordering Russia (79%), Southeast Asian nations (43%) or in ethnically diverse regions like Inner Mongolia (68%),” the report said.

    More than 80% said potential sources and interviewees had declined to be interviewed because they didn’t have prior permission from their superiors to speak to foreign media. Fear of reprisals is even being felt among experts, pundits and commentators, the report said.

    “Academic sources, think tank employees and analysts either decline interviews, request anonymity, or don’t respond at all,” it quoted respondents as saying.

    Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Heung Yeung and Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China blocks popular Tibetan-language blog

    The Chinese government has shut down a popular Tibetan-language blog, angering residents of Tibet and members of the Tibetan exile community who rely on it for access to Tibetan content. 

    In a statement issued on April 2, the administrator of Luktsang Palyon, or “Tibet Sheep” in English, said the website and its related WeChat blog had been blocked by authorities for alleged copyright infringement and that he has filed a formal appeal for authorities to restore it.

    “The government has completely blocked access to Luktsang Palyon,” said the administrator, who did not want to be named for safety reasons. 

    Over the past few years, Chinese authorities have ramped up efforts to restrict the use of the Tibetan language, with clampdowns on related blogs, schools, websites, social media platforms, and apps, as Beijing pushes ahead with assimilation policies in Tibet. 

    Collage of logos of the popular online Tibetan-language blog Luktsang Palyon and a screenshot of its April 2, 2024, statement announcing its closure by Chinese authorities and its subsequent appeal for restoration of the blog. (Citizen journalist)
    Collage of logos of the popular online Tibetan-language blog Luktsang Palyon and a screenshot of its April 2, 2024, statement announcing its closure by Chinese authorities and its subsequent appeal for restoration of the blog. (Citizen journalist)

    Even though the administrator has formally requested that authorities reverse the order, there’s little hope that the situation will change, said a person inside Tibet who is familiar with the matter and who also declined to be named.

    If restored, Luktsang Palyon will ensure the rights of writers are upheld, but if the request is declined, it will “fully comply with the decision of the government,” the administrator said in a statement. 

    The platform also emphasized the importance of copyright protection and the authenticity of the content published on its blog.

    Established in March 2013, Luktsang Palyon has focused on topics related to Tibetan language and culture, and has built up a loyal community of readers as a source for writings by Tibetans both inside and outside Tibet. 

    It has published about 10,000 pieces of educational content, Tibetan articles and stories, music lyrics, Tibetan-Chinese translations and audio content.

    The Tibetan-language platform Luktsang Palyon served as a vital hub for content from Tibetans inside and outside Tibet. (Citizen journalist)
    The Tibetan-language platform Luktsang Palyon served as a vital hub for content from Tibetans inside and outside Tibet. (Citizen journalist)

    “Shutting down this platform is a matter of significant loss and concern for the Tibetan scholarly community as it has been a constant source to access content,” said Beri Jigme Wangyal, a literature professor and author at the Central University of Tibetan Studies in Varanasi, India.

    Authorities have blocked other Tibetan-language online platforms in recent years.

    In 2022, the China-based language learning app Talkmate and video-streaming service Bilibili  removed the Tibetan and Uyghur languages from their sites following a directive issued by Chinese authorities. 

    Later that same year, the creators of a popular Tibetan-language short video-sharing app called GangYang shut it down, citing financial reasons.

    Rights groups, however, said the move was likely prompted by a Chinese government order to close the app as authorities ratcheted up efforts to restrict Tibetans from using their own language. 

    Translated by Tenzin Palmo for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Pelbar for RFA Tibetan.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Show of force in South China Sea before White House summit


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Philippines, US and allies join show of force in South China Sea | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

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  • Former Taiwan president ‘to meet with Xi Jinping’ during China trip

    Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who is currently on a controversial tour of China in a bid to ease tensions across the Taiwan Strait, could meet with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping this week, according to a person familiar with the situation.

    A meeting had been scheduled for Monday, but has now been pushed back to Wednesday, coinciding with the U.S.-Japan-Philippines leaders’ summit in Washington, a person familiar with the negotiations told RFA Mandarin. A Taiwanese political analyst said the date also marks the anniversary of the signing of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which Beijing opposed at the time.

    Ma, whose Kuomintang party once ruled China, fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists in 1949 and ruled as an authoritarian dictatorship for several decades before being voted out in democratic elections in 2016. He arrived in China on April 1 for an 11-day visit aimed at promoting peace.

    “The meeting between Ma and Xi is at China’s invitation; it was Xi Jinping who decided they would meet,” a person familiar with the situation said. 

    ENG_CHN_MaXiMeeting_04082024.2.jpg
    Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, left, meets with Song Tao, director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, in Shenzhen, China, April 1, 2024. (Ma Ying-jeou Foundation via AP)

    The meeting comes as China seeks to improve relations with key diplomatic partners and ease its growing international isolation, the person said.

    “By meeting with Ma Ying-jeou, Beijing is creating the impression that dialogue between Beijing and Taiwan is still possible,” they said.

    Taiwan has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China, and most of its 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life to be ruled by China, according to multiple public opinion polls in recent years.

    Neither Ma nor Chinese officials have confirmed that he will meet with Xi.

    Beijing has slammed Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, as “dangerous separatists” and refused the government-to-government talks stipulated by the Tsai administration as a precondition for cross-Straits negotiations.

    Trips criticized

    Meanwhile, Ma’s repeated trips to China have been criticized by Tsai and her officials as undermining the island’s government, because his insistence on a “Chinese” identity for Taiwan shores up Beijing’s territorial claims.

    In a process that began with inviting Taiwanese politicians to visit China last year, on the condition that they don’t reject Beijing’s territorial claim on the island, Beijing wants to counter the impression made by its “wolf-warrior” diplomacy of recent years, the person said.

    Ma on Monday visited the historic Marco Polo Bridge, where the first shots were fired in the Japanese invasion, and spoke of wanting to weep when considering the heroism of the Chinese people who resisted it.

    “There are no winners in war, and there are no losers in peace,” he told reporters at the site. “Mistakes in war may be forgiven, but historical truth can’t be forgotten.” 

    ENG_CHN_MaXiMeeting_04082024.3.jpg
    Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou attends a ceremony at the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi, April 4, 2024. (Ma Ying-jeou’s office)

    Ma last met Xi in Singapore in late 2015 at a landmark summit, shortly before incumbent Tsai won a landslide victory in the presidential election of 2016.

    He remains a senior member of the Kuomintang, or KMT, which lost the presidency to the DPP for the third time in a row in January, but holds no official position in Taiwanese politics.

    Ma’s visit this month coincides with the Qing Ming grave-sweeping festival, and the former democratically elected president used a visit to the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in the northern province of Shaanxi to call on the island’s young people to “remember their Chinese roots,” sparking criticism back home in Taiwan.

    He is also visiting a number of sites linked to the fight against Japan during World War II, in which the Kuomintang government and Mao Zedong’s forces formed an uneasy alliance that descended into civil war after Japan surrendered in 1945.

    “You don’t grieve Taiwan’s earthquake disaster … instead you are a thousand miles away crying over the Japanese invasion in World War II 80 years ago,” DPP lawmaker Wang Ting-yu commented in an April 4 Facebook post.

    “[Yet you] ignore the fact that the Chinese Communist Party to this day hasn’t renounced the use of force against Taiwan,” Wang wrote, accusing Ma, who served two terms as president from 2008-2016, of “echoing” Beijing’s propaganda.

    ‘Anniversary politics’

    Soong Kuo-cheng, a researcher at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said the date for Wednesday’s meeting had likely been carefully chosen.

    “It’s not just about disregarding the U.S.-Japan summit in Washington, but also, this date marks the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act,” said Soong, referring to the 1979 Act that requires the U.S. government to take steps to defend Taiwan against aggression, including allowing arms sales.

    “For 45 years, China has regarded the Taiwan Relations Act as an anti-China law aimed at protecting Taiwan,” he said. “Moving the date for the Ma-Xi meeting to April 10 is anniversary politics.”

    The Act has been described as the U.S. Congress’ “gift to Taipei” after the United States broke off diplomatic ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan and switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing.

    ENG_CHN_MaXiMeeting_04082024.4.jpg
    Protesters wearing masks of former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping perform outside of Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan, April 1, 2024. (Chiang Ying-ying/AP)

    It was passed “to help maintain peace, security, and stability in the Western Pacific and to promote the foreign policy of the United States by authorizing the continuation of commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan” following the ending of formal diplomatic ties.

    It also defines any threat to Taiwan as a threat to the interests of the United States.

    Beijing saw the law as a betrayal of U.S. commitments to its “one China” policy.

    Soong said Ma’s repeated message to Taiwan’s people that they share common ancestry with people in China is highly Sinocentric.

    “Ma Ying-jeou is foolish to say that blood is thicker than water,” Soong said. “At a time when the rest of the world sees the Chinese Communist Party as an enemy, and Biden refers to Xi Jinping as a dictator, Ma is the only one crazy enough to think that not only can we trust them, but to thank them too.”

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hwang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Philippines, US and allies join show of force in South China Sea

    Ships and aircraft from the Philippines, the United States, Japan and Australia conducted a large-scale joint exercise in the South China Sea on Sunday, just a few days ahead of an unprecedented summit in Washington D.C.

    On April 11, U.S. President Joe Biden, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will hold their first trilateral meeting at the White House to discuss security cooperation.

    The armed forces of the three countries and Australia “successfully conducted the first Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity (MMCA) in the West Philippine Sea on Sunday, April 7,” said a statement from the Philippine military, referring to the area within Manila’s exclusive economic zone.

    Six naval ships and four aircraft “performed communication exercise, division tactics or Officer of the Watch maneuver, and a photo exercise.”

    “These activities were designed to enhance the different forces’ abilities to work together effectively in maritime scenarios,” the statement said.

    Manila has recently accused Chinese coast guard vessels of blocking and harassing its resupply missions at the Second Thomas Shoal where it maintains an old warship as a military outpost.

    The Japanese Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara, meanwhile, said that the joint activity demonstrated “our collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

    Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the U.S. “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight, and respect for maritime rights under international law…” Kihara said in a joint statement. 

    “Every country should be free to conduct lawful air and maritime operations,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin added.

    The spokesperson for the Philippine Armed Forces, Col. Xerxes Trinidad, told reporters in Manila that there were “no untoward incidents” during the joint drills.

    Beijing’s response

    The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced on the same day that it also conducted a “joint naval and air combat exercise” in the South China Sea. 

    “All military activities that disrupt the South China Sea and create hotspots are under control,” the PLA Southern Theater Command said in a statement on the microblogging site Weibo. 

    Beijing has accused Washington of using its allies as “pawns” to destabilize the region and threaten China’s surrounding security.

    Recently the Southern Theater Command, whose primary area of responsibility is the South China Sea, has also conducted a real combat training exercise in the South China Sea.

    Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China promotes ‘no decoupling’ message amid US criticism

    Beijing says the United States has reiterated that both sides do not “seek to decouple” even as the Biden administration intensified criticism of the Chinese for flooding markets with renewable energy products under a policy to stimulate flagging growth.

    China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, on an official visit to China, said the U.S. “appreciates the progress made in U.S.-China economic dialogue and cooperation, does not seek ‘decoupling’ from China.”

    Xinhua reported that the remarks were made during Yellen’s “candid” meeting with the Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. It did not mention any reciprocal comment from Li regarding decoupling.

    Yellen’s meeting with Li is also the highest level of contact between the world’s two biggest and rivaling economies since  the phone call between the U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last week. 

    The two leaders discussed China’s “destabilizing actions” against U.S. ally the Philippines in the South China Sea, its support for Russia in the war in Ukraine, a new security law in Hong Kong and Taiwan’s upcoming presidential inauguration, a U.S. official had said.

    The phone call came ahead of Yellen’s visit and a pending trip by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken “in the coming weeks,” according to the official.

    Prior to her China trip where her first leg began in the southern city of Guangzhou, Yellen had raised concerns of China’s excess manufacturing capacity, accusing Beijing of “flooding” markets by heavily subsidizing products like electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar panels to revive economic and export growth.

    But during her meeting with Li in Beijing, the Chinese premier pushed back on Yellen’s assertion, according to Xinhua which quoted him as saying the U.S. should “refrain from turning economic and trade issues into political or security issues, and view the issue of production capacity objectively and dialectically from a market-oriented and global perspective.”

    Li stressed that the development of China’s new energy industry will make important contributions to the global green and low-carbon transition. China hopes the two countries, whose economic interests are deeply intertwined, will be partners rather than adversaries for a win-win cooperation, he added.

    According to a U.S. Treasury Department readout Sunday, the meeting between Yellen and Li was “frank and productive,” where she raised issues of concern, including industrial overcapacity in China and the impact that could have on American workers and firms. She also emphasized the importance of working together on global challenges, including debt distress in low-income and emerging economies.

    This year is an election year in the United States, and the Chinese economy is facing a series of severe challenges involving pillar industries such as real estate and exports, as well as debt and employment.

    Sunday’s meeting was Yellen’s second face-to-face meeting with Chinese officials in nine months to discuss thorny U.S.-China trade issues.

    According to international media reports, Yellen told Li that bilateral relations are now more stable because the two sides can have “difficult” discussions. But she stressed, “That doesn’t mean ignoring our differences or avoiding difficult conversations. It means understanding that we can only make progress if we communicate with each other directly and openly.”

    Reuters quoted a senior U.S. Treasury Department official as saying after the meeting that the two sides discussed in detail China’s industrial overcapacity problem and the government support that contributes to the problem. Li has shown a willingness to let the U.S. and Chinese economic teams explore the issue further.

    Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By He Ping for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Indra Simulator Trains Pilots of Hong Kong’s Air Rescue Service (GFS)

    Indra’s H175 helicopter simulator is now training the pilots of the Hong Kong Government Flying Service, which carries out search and rescue, medical evacuation and firefighting missions. Indra’s system has the highest rating from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department (CAD). GFS highlights the quality of the visual […]

    The post Indra Simulator Trains Pilots of Hong Kong’s Air Rescue Service (GFS) appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Unprecedented US War Drills and Naval Deployments Raise Fear of War in Korea

    South Korea’s general election will be held on April 10, as candidates compete for the 300 seats in the country’s unicameral National Assembly. The latest polls show a neck-and-neck race between President Yoon Suk-yeol’s right-wing ruling People Power Party (PPP) and the main opposition “liberal” Democratic Party which currently holds a majority. This election will serve as a referendum on Yoon’s…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Aukusing for War: The Real Target Is China

    The occasional burst of candour from US diplomats provides a striking, air clearing difference to their Australian and British counterparts.  Official statements about the AUKUS security pact between Washington, London and Canberra, rarely mention the target in so many words, except on the gossiping fringes.  Commentators and think tankers are essentially given free rein to speculate, masticating over such streaky and light terms as “new strategic environment”, “great power competition”, “rules-based order”.

    On the occasion of his April 3 visit to Washington’s Center for a New American Security (CNAS), US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell was refreshingly frank.  His presence as an emissary of US power in the Pacific has been notable since the AUKUS announcement in September 2021.

    In March last year, Campbell, as Deputy Assistant to the US President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific National Security Council, was unfurling the US flag before various Pacific states, adamant that US policy was being reoriented from one of neglect to one of greater attentiveness.  The Solomon Islands, given its newly minted security pact with Beijing, was of special concern.  “We realise that we have to overcome in certain areas some amounts of distrust and uncertainty about follow through,” he explained to reporters in Wellington, New Zealand.  “We’re seeking to gain that trust and confidence as we go forward.”

    In Honiara, Campbell conceded that the US had not done “enough before” and had to be “big enough to admit that we need to do more, and we need to do better.”  This entailed, in no small part, cornering the Solomon Islands Premier Manasseh Sogavare into affirming that Beijing would not be permitted to establish a military facility capable of supporting “power projection capabilities”.

    In his discussion with the CNAS Chief Executive Officer, Richard Fontaine, Campbell did the usual runup, doffing the cap to the stock principles.  Banal generalities were discussed, for instance, as to whether the US should be the sole show in projecting power or seek support from like-minded sorts.  “I would argue that as the United States and other nations confront a challenging security environment, that the best way to maintain peace and security is to work constructively and deeply with allies and partners.”  A less than stealthy rebuke was reserved for those who think “that the best that the United States can do is to act alone and to husband its resources and think about unilateral, individual steps it might take.”

    The latter view has always been scorned by those calling themselves multilateralists, a cloaking term for waging war arm-in-arm with satellite states and vassals while ascribing to it peace keeping purposes in the name of stability.  Campbell is unsurprising in arguing “that working closely with other nations, not just diplomatically, but in defensive avenues [emphasis added], has the consequence of strengthening peace and stability more generally.”  The virtue with the unilateralists is the possibility that war should be resorted to sparingly.  If one is taking up arms alone, a sense of caution can moderate the bloodlust.

    Campbell revealingly envisages “a number of areas of conflict and in a number of scenarios that countries acting together” in the Indo-Pacific, including Japan, Australia, South Korea and India.  “I think that balance, the additional capacity will help strengthen deterrence more general [sic].”  The candid admission on the role played by the AUKUS submarines follows, with the boats having “the potential to have submarines from a number of countries operating in close coordination that could deliver conventional ordinance from long distances.  Those have enormous implications in a variety of scenarios, including in cross-strait circumstances”.  And so, we have the prospect of submarines associated with the AUKUS compact being engaged in a potential war with China over Taiwan.

    When asked on what to do about the slow production rate of submarines on the part of the US Navy necessary to keep AUKUS afloat, Campbell acknowledged the constraints – the Covid pandemic, supply chain issues, the number of submarines in dry dock requiring or requiring servicing.  But like Don Quixote taking the reins of Rosinante to charge the windmills, he is undeterred in his optimism, insisting that “the urgent security demands in Europe and the Indo-Pacific require much more rapid ability to deliver both ordinance and other capabilities.”

    To do so, the military industrial complex needs to be broadened (good news for the defence industry, terrible for the peacemakers).  “I think probably there is going to be a need over time for a larger number of vendors, both in the United States in Australia and Great Britain, involved in both AUKUS and other endeavours.”

    There was also little by way of peace talk in Campbell’s confidence about the April 11 trilateral Washington summit between the US, Japan and the Philippines, following a bilateral summit to be held between President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.  When terms such as “modernize” and “update” are bandied about in the context of an alliance, notably with an eye towards a rival power’s ambitions, the warring instincts must surely be stirred.  In the language of true encirclement, Campbell envisages a cooperative framework that will “help link the Indo-Pacific more effectively to Europe” while underscoring “our commitment to the region as a whole.”

    A remarkably perverse reality is in the offing regarding AUKUS.  In terms of submarines, it will lag, possibly even sink, leaving the US and, to a lesser extent the UK, operating their fleets as Australians foot the bill and provide the refreshments.  Campbell may well mention Australia and the UK in the context of nuclear-powered submarines, but it remains clear where his focus is: the US program “which I would regard as the jewel in the crown of our defense industrial capacity.”  Not only is Australia effectively promising to finance and service that particular capacity, it will also do so in the service of a potentially catastrophic conflict which will see its automatic commitment.  A truly high price to pay for an abdication of sovereignty for the fiction of regional stability.

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  • China Blasts Israel at the UN

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  • Nuclear Energy Everywhere Costs an Arm and a Leg

    It crackles like a Geiger counter in a uranium mine: in 2023, Emmanuel Macron announced plans for six additional EPR [European Pressurized Reactor] nuclear power plants. Hang on, no, perhaps fourteen in the long term.

    In reviving nuclear in the name of the struggle against global warming, the European Union has followed suit. Japan is promising new developments on the nuclear front. The US is experimenting with miniature reactors. China is building with gusto … All these ‘ionizing’ projects seem to indicate that fission-based nuclear power is in full swing.

    In fact, it is to the contrary. A report of experts published in December 2023, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023 [549 p!], using data supplied by the International Atomic Energy Agency and national states, provides the evidence. The part of electricity generation due to nuclear power is the lowest in 30 years (9.2 percent), compared to near double that figure in the 1990s.

    Over twenty years, the cost of a nuclear kilowatt hour has increased slightly, whereas the cost of solar and wind has plummeted (‘melted’), these days coming in at roughly half that of nuclear. In 2022, the report highlights, €35 billion has been invested in nuclear globally, compared to … €455 billion in renewables.

    France is still trying to recover from an annus horribilis in 2022. In addition to higher costs associated with the war in Ukraine, reactor shutdowns have multiplied. In August 2023, 60 % of France’s 56 reactors were dysfunctional. During 2023, production has augmented, but it has stayed at the level of … 1995.

    Showcases of French savoir-faire, the EPR reactors are not ‘making sparks’, accumulating shutdowns, delays (twelve years for Flamanville, on the English Channel, and thirteen years for Olkiluoto, in Finland) as well as cost blowouts (the bill multiplied by 1.7 [for now] at Hinkley Point, in Great Britain, by 3 at Olkiluoto and by 6 at Flamanville!).

    During this time, plutonium (for which every gram is of fearsome toxicity), an essential fuel for these ‘toys’, piles up. The accumulated stock for France has reached an unprecedented level of 92 tonnes.

    Small problem: how can EDF [Électricité de France], which has acquired a debt of €65 billion, finance the announced projects? This question doesn’t stop Brussels from supporting them – in spite of the industrial disaster on course. No matter that, for several years, within the EU, renewable energy (hydraulic, wind and solar) has generated the most electricity, ahead of nuclear, followed by gas and coal.

    South Korea was formerly one of the principal international competitors of EDF for conquering foreign markets. These days South Korea shows itself more reluctant, especially after a calamitous 2022. Kepco, the national electrician, has lost more than €22 billion, adding to a debt of €131 billion – a record. Nuclear contributes 29.6 % to production, currently less than coal. But the promises – within ten years coal’s contribution is supposed to be cut in half and that of renewables tripled. As for nuclear, it will grow by … 5 %.

    Japan only starts to pick up with the atom after the closure of several reactors following Fukushima. To the subsequent shortage of electricity add the financial dimension of the catastrophe: in 2021, the government estimated it at more than €200 billion. Thirteen years after the event, the Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, wants to rekindle nuclear (‘accelerate the particles’) but furnishes no details on new reactors.

    Last year, production in Japan was at its lowest level (equivalent to that of the 1970s), and only 6 % of electricity was of nuclear origin. In spite of announcements, distrust persists, especially since the discovery of misrepresentations (modification of results of chemical analyses, falsification of measures of resistance of materials) of Japan Steel Works, manufacturer of components for reactors, selling them worldwide and notably to France.

    China is the country most committed to the atom. Of 58 reactors currently under construction globally, 23 (40 %) are in the Middle Kingdom. However, if nuclear trots, renewables gallop flat out. Nuclear represents 5 % of electricity, whereas wind and solar furnish 15 %, progressing more quickly than coal, which remains far and away the main ‘source of the juice’. Another vexation: Beijing exports little of its savoir-faire. This is because the US, among others, have blacklisted Chinese enterprises, accused them of having siphoned American technology for its military ambitions. Slanderous!

    The United States remains the champion of nuclear energy but its brainpower has not kept pace (‘their neutrons are not very quick’). In 2022, the contribution of nuclear to electricity generation has fallen to 18.2 % – the lowest rate since 1987 – less than coal and renewables, the latter passed for the first time to pole position. American reactors are on average the oldest in the world (42 years), and only two reactors have been brought into service in the last twenty-five years.

    And what a debut! The AP1000 (variation of the EPR) of Vogtle (Georgia) began operation in March 2023, eight years later than planned and at an estimated cost of €28.5 billion — more than double the initial estimate. [The French business newspaper] Les Echos (25/1/22) has cheekily described the feat as a local ‘Flamanville’. This financial debacle has much contributed to the failure of Westinghouse, a giant of nuclear reactor manufacturing. The event has also provoked the shutdown of the construction site (nine years of work) and of two other AP1000s in South Carolina. Living fossils!

    As a consequence, the US is paying more attention to mini reactors, or SMR [small modular reactors]. Save that NuScale, the champion of the type, last November, cancelled a vast construction program of six of these miniatures, for which the budget had almost tripled …

    Russia is the veritable world champion of the ‘civil atom’. That said, however, it produces only 20 % of the country’s electricity. Rosatom, the Russian EDF, foreshadows a small increase to 25 %, but in … 2045. It is overseas where business is booming. Russia, a nation at war, is building reactors in countries as peaceful as Iran, Egypt, India and Türkiye. Without forgetting China, one of Russia’s best customers.

    Russia’s commercial secret? Its discounted prices, its turnkey packages and, above all, its control of the indispensable enriched uranium. Russia furnishes much of the latter to Europe but also to the US, 31 % of its supplies coming from Russia. All this while imposing sanctions on Putin’s country, which toys with the nuclear threat, going so far as to bomb the vicinity of Ukraine’s nuclear reactor at Zaporizhzhia [Why would Russia bomb a nuclear power plant that it has been in control of since 2022? Also: “Jeffrey Sachs: Biden Needs to Tell Ukraine to Stop Bombing the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant or Face Real Armageddon” — DV ed] – the largest such in Europe.

    Business is business.

    • This article appeared in the French weekly Le Canard enchaîné, 24 January 2024, under the title “Partout dans le monde, l‘énergie nucléaire coûte un pognon de dingue!” It has been translated by Evan Jones and is reproduced with permission.

     

    The post Nuclear Energy Everywhere Costs an Arm and a Leg first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Netflix’s take on ‘Three-Body Problem’ gets mixed reviews in China

    A Netflix adaptation of Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem” has sparked mixed reactions in China, with some complaining of a lack of nuance, that much of the action takes place outside of China and that key characters are played by non-Chinese actors.

    But others praised it as a well-made adaptation for Western audiences and had made improvements in female characters.

    The show, which premiered on March 21 just as a man was sentenced to death for fatally poisoning one of its producers, billionaire Lin Qi, was Netflix’s most-watched English TV show from March 25-31.

    It features scenes of a political “struggle session” from the Cultural Revolution under the rule of late supreme leader Mao Zedong, in which physicist Ye Zhetai is beaten to death by Red Guards after being denounced by his own wife, for teaching the Big Bang theory and therefore failing to deny the existence of God.

    The scenes — omitted from a homegrown adaptation of Liu’s books produced by Tencent — are likely one of the reasons that the show is officially blocked in China.

    But viewers in China still discussed it widely after using circumvention tools to get around the “Great Firewall” of government censorship.

    Violence under Mao

    Reports emerged on social media in January that the show would likely be blocked on the orders of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department.

    While RFA was unable to confirm those reports independently, the political violence of the Mao era remains a highly sensitive topic for the government today, and has gotten other films and TV shows banned before.

    ENG_CHN_ThreeBodyREAX_04042024.2.JPG
    Publicity still for the Tencent adaptation “Three Body.” (Baidupedia)

    Nonetheless, enough people were able to see the show to discuss and search for “Three Body beating/hanging scene” on the Weibo social media platform, according to trending searches spotted by RFA this week.

    The hashtag #3BodyProblem# garnered billions of views on Weibo, according to The Guardian newspaper, and notched up a 6.9/10 score on Douban’s review site, compared with an 8.7 score for Tencent’s Chinese-made version of the show, which premiered in January.

    Mixed reviews

    Some appear to have been underwhelmed by the show, which transplants a good deal of the action to the United Kingdom, and changes the genders, ethnicities and names of several major Chinese characters in the book.

    One post complained that all of the best Chinese male leads had been given to non-Chinese actors. The show’s producers have said they wanted the whole world to be depicted.

    Douban user Victor’s Catzz described the Netflix version as “quite good,” adding that it improves considerably on Liu Cixin’s writing of female characters and foreigners, which he thought was “a mess anyway.”

    “What’s wrong with Netflix making reasonable adaptations for English-speaking audiences?” the user wrote in a post titled “A minority opinion.”

    @Rick Ro$$ from Shaanxi disagreed, commenting: “Netflix has switched up a lot of the ideas in the original work. Those ideas were precisely the essence of The Three-Body Problem.”

    One comment thought pro-Beijing “little pinks” had hijacked the show’s rating on public review sites, while others argued over whether the characters were more two-dimensional in the Chinese-made TV show or in the Netflix version.

    @engauge commented from Guangdong that the “melodrama” in the Netflix version had glossed over the “global vision and apocalyptic background to the political and social turmoil in the original work.”

    Sichuan user @Drunken_and_dreamed_98147 wanted to know why, if the show’s setting had been transplanted elsewhere, the writers had kept the Cultural Revolution scenes.

    “Why not change that era to show discrimination against black people in America?” the user wanted to know. “Wouldn’t that satisfy foreign requirements for political correctness even more?”

    Cultural Revolution

    Alexander Woo, executive producer of Netflix’s version of “The Three-Body Problem,” told The New York Times in a recent interview that scenes of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution held a special meaning for him as his family lived through that era, as did the family of the episode’s director Derek Tsang.

    “We give a lot of credit to him for bringing that to life,” Woo told the paper. “He took enormous pains to have every detail of it depicted as real as it could be. I showed it to my mother, and you could see a chill coming over her, and she said, ‘That’s real. This is what really happened.’”

    ENG_CHN_ThreeBodyREAX_04042024.3.jpg
    Publicity still from Netflix’s “The Three-Body Problem” (Netflix)

    Tsang told RFA’s Cantonese service in an interview in January that he felt the depiction of the Cultural Revolution was a key part of the show.

    “It is becoming increasingly difficult to depict that period in any way [in China],” he said. “But it is a very important part of history.”

    “If we are honest, we can all learn from it if we face up to it and take it seriously. It’s important to show everyone how ridiculous that period was,” Tsang said.

    U.K.-based writer Ma Jian said one of the reasons that the Cultural Revolution is still so sensitive in today’s China is that President Xi Jinping is drawing on Mao Zedong’s playbook even now, prompting fears that he is going to drag the country back to that era.

    “Xi Jinping wants a return to the Cultural Revolution, and to imitate Mao Zedong,” Ma said. “[But] the whole world has seen through the horror of totalitarianism.”

    Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lucie Lo and Wang Yun for RFA Mandarin, Yitong Wu and Chingman for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Janet Yellen to China: You’re producing too much of everything | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • US Treasury secretary in China amid ‘overcapacity’ dispute

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived in the Chinese city of Guangzhou on Thursday for a five-day visit that comes amid a growing dispute over a program to stimulate China’s flagging economy that American officials say could hinder U.S. growth.

    Yellen last week accused China of “flooding” markets for renewable energy production by heavily subsidizing things like electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar panels as Beijing seeks to turn around economic woes by boosting production of export goods.

    American officials say the cut-price Chinese exports threaten to kill competing industries in other countries before they get off the ground, but China’s government has dismissed those concerns as protectionist and accused the United States of using similar subsidies itself.

    During the trip, Yellen, who was also chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2010 to 2014, will travel to Beijing to meet Chinese Central Bank Governor Pan Gongsheng, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and former Vice Premier Liu He, a key economic advisor to President Xi Jinping.

    ENG_CHN_TripsAbroad_04042024.2.JPG
    Chinese workers inspect a solar panel at the Tianxiang Solar Energy Equipment Factory in Huaibei, east China’s Anhui province March 21, 2012. (AFP)

    Yellen plans to “make clear the global economic consequences of Chinese industrial overcapacity undercutting manufacturers in the U.S. and firms around the world,” a Treasury official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity according to pre-set rules.

    But it’s unclear how receptive Chinese officials will be. 

    Beijing has already largely dismissed the concerns raised by Yellen as hypocritical, pointing to the Biden administration’s tax-breaks tied to electric cars, which exclude many Chinese-made vehicles.

    Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Wednesday that China welcomed Yellen’s trip as a chance to “properly handle differences” and “build up consensus.” But he also rejected complaints about China’s subsidization of emerging and green-energy industries.

    Speaking at a daily press briefing, Wang questioned “whether it is ‘excess production capacity’ that the U.S. is truly concerned about,” or if the United States was just upset its businesses were losing out in competition to China due to the “international division of labor.” 

    “As for who is engaged in non-market practices, the fact is there for all to see,” he said. “The U.S. side has adopted a string of measures to suppress China’s trade and technology development. This is not ‘de-risking,’ but creating risks. These are typical non-market practices.”

    Mushroom for improvement

    It’s Yellen’s second trip to China in a year, with the U.S. Treasury secretary having traveled there in July last year amid the early days of the rapprochement between China and the United States.

    ENG_CHN_TripsAbroad_04042024.3.JPG
    Chinese Vice Premier Liu He listens as former President Donald Trump speaks before signing a trade agreement at the White House in Washington, Jan. 15, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP)

    During that visit, Yellen told CNN after returning, she mistakenly ate hallucinogenic mushrooms, which she called “delicious,” at a chain restaurant in Yunnan province called Yi Zuo Yi Wang, or “In and Out.”

    “If the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were at this very good restaurant … they have no impact,” Yellen, who is 77, said. “None of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them.”

    Potential psychedelics are less likely to feature on the visit this time, but after nearly a year of warmer ties between Washington and Beijing, the trip does come as cracks are starting to reappear in the relationship between the world’s two biggest economies. 

    Beijing, for instance, has raised its strong concerns about a White House-backed bill currently before Congress that would allow the U.S. president to ban popular social media platform TikTok in America if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell the app.

    ENG_CHN_TripsAbroad_04042024.5.JPG
    U.S. flag and TikTok logo are seen through broken glass in this illustration taken March 20, 2024.(Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

    Xi even directly raised his concerns about the bill during a rare phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday, according to John Kirby, spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council.

    “Xi raised the issue and President Biden responded,” Kirby said when asked how TikTok came up during the call between the leaders.

    Biden told Xi, he said, that “this was not about a ban on TikTok [but] … about divestiture – that this was about preserving the data security of the American people and our own national security interest.”

    Diplomacy

    Yellen’s visit to China also comes ahead of next Thursday’s high-profile visit to the United States by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which is being billed by the White House as the first trilateral meeting of the three countries.

    The trio this week announced joint naval drills in the South China Sea amid an ongoing dispute between the Philippines and China over the sea’s Second Thomas Shoal, which belongs to the Philippines under international law but is part of a vast territorial claim by Beijing.

    A delegation of U.S. lawmakers led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, also recently arrived back from a trip to meet officials in the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea.

    Shaheen said on Thursday the trip allowed the lawmakers to see first-hand the “threats” from China to other countries with claims to the South China Sea, as Chinese coast guard vessels fired water cannons at Philippine vessels trying to resupply a naval station.

    “The threatening maneuvers [and] the militarization of the islands in the South China Sea are all motivators to continue the cooperation that we have with the countries in the region,” Shaheen said, summarizing the take-aways of the seven lawmakers after the trip.

    “It has significant impacts on not just the potential for mistakes, militarily, that could be misinterpreted and set off a conflict,” she said, “but also in terms of trade and commerce, and the ability to safely navigate those waters and allow trade to move around the world.”

    Also on the trip was Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat from New York, Democratic senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Republican senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Roger Marshall of Kansas.

    Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Fleet Force Protection

    The increasing range and potency of A2AD defence, particularly the anti-ship missile threat, is leading navies to reconsider how individual ships as well as the battle group can be better defended. The expansion of Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) zones at sea with the deployment of longer-range surveillance systems; air- ship- and land- based anti-ship missiles; […]

    The post Fleet Force Protection appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.