Month: July 2024

With uncertainty across the Atlantic, Europe worries about its own security

Posted on by SeeEU

LONDON — When Donald Trump suggested during the 2016 presidential campaign that he might not honor a U.S. commitment to defend other NATO countries if they were attacked, it triggered alarm throughout the trans-Atlantic alliance.

With Trump’s “America First” rhetoric drawing cheers from fervent supporters, the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is once again on the agenda. But this time, European leaders acknowledge the alliance must evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century and say they are ready to shoulder more responsibility for their own defense.

A lot has changed in eight years.

First, Trump’s presidency forced Europe to recognize that U.S. military support was no longer guaranteed, then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscored the threat on its eastern border. Meanwhile, the U.S. has increasingly focused on China’s expansion in the Asia-Pacific, as well as Iran and North Korea.

“Confronted with powers such as Russia and China, and a United States whose pivot to Asia seems inevitable, no matter who wins the next election, we Europeans need to do more to ensure our own security,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, wrote last weekend in The Times of London.

After relying on U.S. leadership of NATO to protect them with overwhelming nuclear and conventional capability for the past 75 years, European nations must take on a larger role in funding and leading the 32-nation alliance because their interests are increasingly diverging from those of the United States.

“We are talking about a NATO which the United States is still part of, but which the United States is no longer the indispensable leader (of),” said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank focused on defense and security. “I mean, that is what JD Vance and Donald Trump are talking about. They’re talking about a NATO that is transformed and one in which the Europeans take the greatest share of the burden.”

NATO grew out of secret talks among U.S. officials after World War II about how to supply military equipment to Western Europe and ensure a coordinated response to any attack by the Soviet Union. The 12 founding members signed the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949.

NATO’s military structure is headed by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who is also the commander-in-chief of American forces in Europe. The U.S. is expected to spend almost twice as much on its military this year as all the other alliance members combined, according to NATO statistics.

Trump’s skepticism about NATO was underlined last week when he named Vance as his running mate. Vance has opposed U.S. support for Ukraine, has criticized European nations for slashing defense spending since the Cold War, and said it’s time for “Europe to stand on its own feet.”

Europe got another wakeup call on Sunday when President Joe Biden, whose strong support for NATO was cemented during standoffs with the Soviet Union in the 1970s, said he would not seek reelection. Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has backed the administration’s position on NATO and aid to Ukraine, but she entered politics long after the Cold War and is better known for her work on domestic issues.

“The question is whether she will have that same strong trans-Atlantic view that’s kind of part of her blood in the way that Biden had it,” said Armida van Rij, an expert on European security policy at the Chatham House think tank in London.

Trump’s threat to renege on NATO’s collective security guarantee, a cornerstone of the alliance, is based on his belief that member states aren’t living up to their funding commitments, forcing U.S. taxpayers to subsidize Europe’s defense.

That argument has weakened since 2016.

Twenty-three of the alliance’s 31 non-U.S. members will meet or exceed their commitment to spend at least 2% of economic output on defense this year, up from just three 10 years ago, according to figures compiled by NATO. Overall, the non-U.S. members now spend 2.02% of gross domestic product on defense, compared with 3.4% by the U.S.

Besides that, the European Union has ambitious plans to boost its defense industry in response to the threat posed by Russia’s war on Ukraine. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has urged European nations to seek more independence on airspace defense and relocate production to the continent rather than purchasing material off the shelf from American arms merchants.

The EU plans center on streamlining arms procurement and to increasingly produce them within the 27-state bloc in a multibillion-dollar pivot away from the United States.

The risks for Europe, as well as the United States, are evolving. It’s not just about Russian tanks on Europe’s borders. NATO, as a defensive alliance, must also consider the threats posed by Iran, China and North Korea and be prepared for cyber warfare and foreign interference in elections, as well as conventional military attacks, van Rij said.

That means European nations need to increase troop numbers, upgrade equipment such as tanks, fighter planes and transport aircraft, and improve their ability to counter technological threats, she said. “We need to look at this not as Trump-proofing, but as future-proofing European security and the NATO alliance as a whole,” van Rij said. “Because yes, while there are concerns about U.S. engagements in Europe … — and the JD Vance appointment as Trump’s running mate has only accelerated concerns — there is a bipartisan focus on China, which in the medium- to longer-term could mean that we see resources being reallocated elsewhere.”

One model may be NATO’s newest members, Finland and Sweden, which joined the alliance to bolster their security in the face of Russian aggression.

As historically non-aligned nations, they were forced to develop strategies to fight off any Russian incursion largely on their own, equipping their militaries with a full range of capabilities sometimes missing in NATO countries that are used to relying on the U.S. for commanders and battle plans. Both have military service, important weapons industries and large standing armies.

“The Finnish defense people would say … we planned up to now to fight Russia by ourselves, now NATO is definitely a bonus…,” Chalmers said. “NATO countries have the opposite problem. They’re so used to thinking about fighting with others and particularly fighting with the Americans, they sometimes get out of the habit of thinking about fighting for themselves.”

The risks of over-reliance on the U.S. were highlighted this year when the House of Representatives blocked $61 billion of military aid for Ukraine for months while conservative Republicans argued the government should focus on domestic border security and the nation’s rising debt.

While the funding was eventually approved, the delay left Ukraine short of ammunition and hardware as Russia launched a brutal spring offensive.

A second Trump presidency would bring that mindset to the White House.

“Today … we peer apprehensively across the Atlantic at a worst case in which an erratic, ignorant, self-obsessed prospective U.S. president might cut us loose,” historian Max Hastings wrote in The Times. “Trump is right about one big thing: behind an American shield, since the 1950s Europeans have enjoyed an almost free ride. This is now over, and Vladimir Putin is licking his lips.”
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Italy’s prime minister heads to China to repair rift

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Helsinki, Finland — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will visit China from Friday to Tuesday for a trip that analysts say aims to repair the rift caused by Rome’s withdrawal last year from China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global infrastructure and transportation plan sometimes called the New Silk Road.

China’s foreign ministry said Thursday that during her trip, Meloni would hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and Chairman of China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee Zhao Leji.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella plans to visit China in October. Analysts say the trips show that Rome hopes to repair relations damaged when Italy became the first country to pull out of the BRI since it was launched in 2013. 

Meloni has long been critical of the partnership, calling the decision to join the BRI a “serious mistake” that had not delivered promised economic benefits to Italy.

Italy is China’s fourth-largest trading partner in the European Union, and China is Italy’s largest trading partner in Asia, with bilateral trade at $80 billion, mostly Chinese exports to Italy.

Italian data show exports to China reached nearly $18 billion in 2022 from $14 billion in 2019, while Chinese exports to Italy nearly doubled during that same period from more than $34 billion to more than $62 billion.

Despite Meloni’s criticism of the BRI, China’s state media Global Times on Thursday suggested that the withdrawal from BRI did not reflect her own views.

It quoted Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of European Studies researcher Zhao Junjie saying: “This visit once again demonstrates that Italy’s withdrawal from the BRI was not due to a reluctance to cooperate with China or Meloni’s own political beliefs, but rather due to the huge pressure from the US and other major Western powers at the time.”

Under some pressure from the European Union and the United States, Meloni’s new government in December made a low-key exit from the BRI, which was seen as a major blow to Xi’s global ambitions and the failure of the BRI in Europe. The Chinese side also kept a low profile and didn’t publicly criticize Italy’s withdrawal.

Francesco Galietti, adjunct professor of political risk analysis at Rome’s Luiss University and co-founder and CEO of consulting agency Policy Sonar, told VOA, “It’s unclear whether she’s taken note of this and thought about her own ‘hedging’ strategy. She should have. For while Italy is world famous for geopolitical yo-yoing, she’s the current G7 chair. Moreover, it’s only been a few months since Italy opted out of China’s BRI, so by all accounts, relations should be delicate right now. And yet, reading the tea leaves is all but simple.”

Emanuele Scimia, an Italian foreign affairs journalist and analyst and contributing foreign policy writer for the South China Morning Post, says the visit is more an attempt to balance the Meloni administration’s concerns about China’s market distortions and support for Russia’s war against Ukraine with Italy’s need to attract Chinese investments, especially in new technologies such as electric vehicles.

“Italy is a trade-oriented country and does not want an economic and geopolitical confrontation with China,” Scimia told VOA. “They see China as a key export market but at the same time are worried by the flow of Chinese-dumped and -subsidized goods.

“The majority of Italy’s companies are small- and medium-sized, which are less equipped to resist Chinese unfair competition. And the signing of the BRI MoU [memorandum of understanding] in 2019 has not substantially improved Italy’s trade deficit with China,” Scimia said. “The reality is that the BRI agreement only benefited Beijing in political terms, creating friction between Rome and Washington.”

The visit underscores the fact that China remains a key geopolitical actor, said Beatrice Nicolini, a history professor at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart in Milan.

“Despite exiting the BRI, Italy aims to keep an open dialogue with Beijing,” she told VOA. “Meloni is navigating a delicate balance, seeking to avoid aligning too closely with either the United States or China. This strategy of ‘equidistance’ reflects Italy’s geographical position at the heart of the Mediterranean.”

But Beijing’s increasingly close relations with Moscow after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine have made improving ties with China trickier for EU nations like Italy, which are supporting Kyiv and its defense, said Christopher Lamont, a professor of international relations at Tokyo International University.

“It is also important to keep in mind that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to complicate China’s relationships with European capitals, and Meloni’s visit could also be seen from Beijing as an opportunity to foster greater influence in this context,” he told VOA.

Earlier this month, NATO, of which Italy is a founding member, accused China of being a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

China has consistently denied supplying weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine and says it has strict controls on dual-use technology that could be put to military purposes.

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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Blinken arrives in Japan for 2+2 security talks, Quad

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Tokyo — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Japan on Sunday as part of an Asia-Pacific tour aimed at shoring up alliances in the face of an increasingly assertive China.

The visit comes three months after President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced what they called a new era in Japanese-U.S. relations at a summit at the White House.

Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are due to hold 2+2 talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defense Minister Minoru Kihara.

Then on Monday Blinken and Kamikawa will meet Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and Australia’s Penny Wong, their counterparts in the Quad, an alliance seen as a bulwark against Beijing.

Prompted by unease about China and alarm about North Korea, Japan has in recent years been shedding its strict pacifist stance, ramping up defense spending and moving to obtain counterstrike capabilities.

This month Japan and the Philippines — Blinken and Austin’s next stop — signed a defense pact that will allow the deployment of troops on each other’s territory.

This followed the first trilateral summit in April between the leaders of Japan, the Philippines and the United States in Washington.

As with Manila, Japan and South Korea have also moved to bury the hatchet over World War II, with Biden hosting both countries’ leaders at Camp David last August.

Scheduled to join the talks in Tokyo this weekend was Shin Won-sik, the first South Korean defense minister to visit Japan in 15 years.

As part of the April announcement, Washington and Tokyo plan to upgrade their command structures — at present the 54,000 U.S. troops in Japan report back to Hawaii — and improve the interoperability of their militaries to “deter and defend against threats.”

On Sunday Austin will announce that the U.S. will upgrade the current U.S. Forces Japan headquarters, which is largely an administrative office, to an all-service or Joint Force headquarters led by a three-star commander, The Washington Post reported.

Sunday’s talks were also set to cover enhancing Washington’s “extended deterrence” commitment to use its military capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to protect Japan.

China’s military modernization, North Korea’s nuclear and missile work and nuclear saber-rattling in the Ukraine war have unsettled Japan, said Naoko Aoki, political scientist at the RAND think-tank.

“(It) is important for the United States to reassure Japan of its commitment and signal to potential adversaries that the alliance remains strong and that the United States is committed to using nuclear weapons if necessary to defend Japan,” she told AFP.
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Olympics: Australia takes early lead against US; Day 1 of swimming

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paris — Australia took the lead in its swimming showdown against the United States at the Paris Olympics by claiming two of three gold medals on the first full day of competition. 

Ariarne Titmus turned one of the most anticipated races of the Games into a blowout when she left Katie Ledecky in her wake at La Defense Arena. Titmus led from start to finish in the 400-meter freestyle Saturday night. 

The Australian star known as “The Terminator” handed Ledecky a second straight Olympic defeat in an event the American won at Rio de Janeiro in 2016. 

Titmus faced her stiffest challenge from 17-year-old Canadian phenom Summer McIntosh, but she won comfortably as McIntosh claimed the silver. Ledecky settled for bronze. 

Australia then made it 2 for 2 against the Americans in the women’s 4×100 freestyle relay, claiming its fourth straight Olympic title in that event. 

The quartet of Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon and Meg Harris set an Olympic record with a winning time of 3 minutes, 28.92 seconds. 

The Americans — Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh, Torri Huske and Simone Manuel — rallied to take silver. China took bronze. 

The U.S. finally got its first gold in the men’s 4×100 freestyle relay. The Americans were anchored by Caeleb Dressel, who won the eighth gold medal of his career. 

Australia took the silver. 

China takes first gold of games 

The first gold medal of the Paris Olympics went to China when Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao beat South Korea’s Keum Jihyeon and Park Hajun in the final of the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event Saturday morning. 

Shortly before that, Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev became the first medalists of the games when they beat Germany’s Anna Janssen and Maximilian Ulbrich 17-5 for the bronze. 

Wemby’s debut 

Victor Wembanyama did not disappoint in his Olympic debut. The NBA Rookie of the Year had 19 points, nine rebounds, four steals and three blocked shots for host France in a 78-66 win over Brazil. 

The game was played in front of a sold-out crowd in support of last year’s top pick in the NBA draft. 

France’s first medals 

Luka Mkheidze and Shirine Boukli won France’s first two medals of the Olympics when Mkheidze claimed silver and Boukli earned bronze in judo. 

Mkheidze lost 1-0 to Yeldos Smetov of Kazakhstan in the final of the men’s 60-kilogram division — a disappointing result for the raucous crowd at Champ-de-Mars Arena. About 30 minutes before Mkheidze’s loss, Boukli claimed France’s first medal of its home Olympics with a victory over Spain’s Laura Martinez in a bronze-medal match. 

Canada soccer scandal 

FIFA deducted six points from Canada in the Olympics women’s soccer tournament and banned three coaches for one year each for a drone spying scandal. 

Two assistant coaches were caught using drones to spy on New Zealand’s practices before their opening game last Wednesday. Head coach Bev Priestman, who led Canada to the Olympic title in Tokyo in 2021, already was suspended by the national soccer federation and then removed from the Olympic tournament. She is now banned from all soccer for one year. 

Tennis controversy 

Novak Djokovic was perplexed by the Olympics rules after his 6-0, 6-1 rout in less than an hour against an overmatched Matthew Ebden, a 36-year-old doubles player from Australia who hadn’t competed in a tour-level, main-draw singles match since June 2022. 

Djokovic felt other singles players deserved a spot at the Olympics instead of Ebden. 

Ebden was in Paris to compete in men’s doubles, where he’s been as high as No. 1 and currently is No. 3 and has won two major championships. That made him available for the singles competition when 16th-ranked Holger Rune of Denmark pulled out because of a wrist injury. 

10-time Olympian 

Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze made history as the first woman to compete at 10 Olympic Games in a career that began representing the Soviet Union. She has competed at every Summer Olympics since 1988, when she won gold as a 19-year-old Soviet prodigy. 

She set her latest record when she stepped into the shooting range for qualification in the women’s 10-meter air pistol. Salukvadze placed 38th and didn’t advance to Sunday’s eight-shooter final. She gets another shot at a medal Friday in qualification for the 25-meter pistol event. 

She has represented her home country of Georgia following its independence for the last eight Olympics. 

China’s diving quest 

China has ruled diving for decades and came to Paris seeking to sweep all eight gold medals. The nation got off to a perfect start Saturday when the team of Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen won gold in the women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard with 337.68 points on five dives. 

Three years ago in Tokyo, China won seven of eight gold medals. It has never pulled off the elusive gold sweep. 

Hungarian fencer loses 

An era-defining streak in Olympic fencing was snapped by an upset when Hungarian fencer Aron Szilagyi lost his opening bout while chasing a fourth consecutive gold medal. 

Szilagyi won gold medals in men’s individual saber in 2012, 2016 and 2021 and was trying to become the only fencer in history to win a fourth. 

Instead, the streak ended in Szilagyi’s first bout of the Paris Games as he was beaten 15-8 by the 27th-seeded Canadian Fares Arfa in one of the biggest upsets so far at the 2024 Olympics. 
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Mali army, Russian allies suffer heavy losses in country’s north, sources say

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Dakar, Senegal — Mali’s army and its Russian allies suffered a major setback and significant losses on Saturday while fighting separatists in the country’s north, a spokesman for the rebels told AFP. 

The West African nation’s military leaders, who took power in a 2020 coup, have made it a priority to retake all of the country from separatist and jihadi forces, particularly in Kidal, a pro-independence northern bastion. 

“Azawad fighters are in control in Tinzaouaten and further south in the Kidal region,” said Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesman for an alliance of predominantly Tuareg separatist armed groups called CSP-DPA. 

“Russian mercenaries and Malian armed forces have fled,” he added. “Others have surrendered.” 

He also shared videos of numerous corpses of soldiers and their allies. 

“The Malian army has retreated,” a local politician told AFP, citing at least 17 dead in a provisional toll. 

“The CSP people are still in Tinzaouaten. The army and Wagner are no longer there,” he said, referring to the Russian mercenary group.  

Fighting also took place further south toward Abeibara, the politician said.  

A former United Nations mission worker in Kidal said: “At least 15 Wagner fighters were killed and arrested after three days of fighting” adding that “the CSP rebels have taken the lead in what happened in Tinzaouaten.”  

Mossa Ag Inzoma, a member of the separatist movement, claimed that “dozens and dozens” of Wagner fighters and soldiers had been killed and taken prisoner. 

Fighting on a scale not seen in months broke out Thursday between the army and separatists in the town of Tinzaouaten, near the border with Algeria, after the army announced it had taken control of In-Afarak, a commercial crossroads in Kidal.  

Mali has been unsettled by violence by jihadi and criminal groups since 2012. 

A junta led by Colonel Assimi Goita took power in 2022 and broke the country’s traditional alliance with France, in favor of Russia. 
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22 dead in shelling of Sudan’s besieged El Fasher

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Port Sudan, Sudan — Besieging Sudanese paramilitary forces pounded El Fasher on Saturday, witnesses said, killing 22 people in Darfur’s last city outside their control, according to a hospital source. 

El Fasher has become a key battleground in the 15-month-long war pitting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against the regular Sudanese army. 

The battle for the North Darfur state capital, seen as crucial for humanitarian aid in a region on the brink of famine, has raged for more than two months. El Fasher is the only capital RSF doesn’t hold. 

Witnesses said El Fasher had come under heavy artillery bombardment by the RSF on Saturday. 

“Some houses were destroyed by the shelling,” one witness said. 

A doctor at the city’s Saudi Hospital told AFP on the condition of anonymity that the “bombardment of the livestock market and the Redeyef neighborhood killed 22 people and wounded 17.” 

A pro-democracy activist group said it had counted 22 bodies and the casualty toll was expected to rise. 

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has in the past denied shelling civilian targets. 

Over 300,000 people have fled their homes in El Fasher due to the fighting which started in April, the United Nations said. 

Saturday’s attack was the deadliest reported bombardment since the start of the month, when 15 civilians were killed in the shelling of another city market. 

Intense fighting for El Fasher erupted on May 10, prompting a siege by the RSF that has trapped hundreds of thousands of civilians. 

Last month, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution demanding an end to the siege. 

U.S. mediators are expected to make a new attempt in Switzerland next month to broker an end to the fighting. The talks are due to start on August 14. 

Previous negotiations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, have failed to put an end to the fighting which has displaced millions, sparked warnings of famine and left swathes of the capital Khartoum in ruins. 
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Russian warships make routine visit to Cuba

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HAVANA — Havana residents watched from shore on Saturday as Russian warships arrived for the second time in as many months in a visit that Cuba called routine. 

Cuban authorities fired shots into the air to signal their welcome, while curious fishermen watched from Havana’s waterside promenade as the ships advanced up the bay. Russian residents were also among the few up early to see the fleet’s arrival. 

The patrol ship Neustrahimiy, training vessel Smolniy and support vessels, all from the Baltic Fleet, are scheduled to depart on Tuesday. 

A brief statement by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces described their arrival as routine. 

A Russian nuclear submarine, frigate and support ships in June also flexed Moscow’s muscles in the port of Havana, less than 160 kilometers (99.4 miles) from Florida. 

“Russia’s deployments in the Atlantic pose no direct threat or concern to the United States,” a U.S. Northern Command spokesperson said, adding the command monitored all approaches to North America. 

Tensions between the United States and Russia have increased since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Russian naval activity — though routine in the Atlantic — has ratcheted up because of U.S. support for Ukraine, U.S. officials say. 

Simultaneously, relations between Cold War allies Russia and Cuba have markedly improved as the Communist-run country battles an economic crisis it charges is due mainly to U.S. sanctions. 

High-level contacts between the countries have increased to a level not seen since the fall of Cuba’s former benefactor, the Soviet Union, with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visiting Moscow four times. 

Russia has sent oil, flour and increasing numbers of tourists to the Caribbean nation, which is short of cash and goods. Citizens suffer through daily power outages and other travails, resulting in scattered protests and record migration. 

Ana Garces, a 78-year-old retiree, told Reuters she remembered the Soviet Union was the only country to help Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, the peak of tensions with Washington, when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. 

“We are very grateful,” she said. “Why should we not receive it with open arms? This is friendship. All kinds of ships have entered here.” 

“It shows how other countries do support us and takes away a little of the world’s mentality about our country,” said her husband, 71-year-old retiree Rolando Perez. 
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Philippine forces go to disputed shoal without incident, a first since China deal

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MANILA, Philippines — Philippine government personnel transported food and other supplies Saturday to a shoal occupied by a Filipino navy contingent but closely guarded by Beijing’s forces in the South China Sea. No confrontations were reported, Philippine officials said. 

It was the first Philippine government supply trip to the Second Thomas Shoal, which has been the scene of increasingly violent confrontations between Chinese and Philippine forces since the Philippines and China reached a deal a week ago to prevent clashes, the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said in a statement. 

“The lawful and routine rotation and resupply mission within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone is a credit to the professionalism of the men and women of the Philippine navy and the Philippine coast guard and the close coordination among the National Security Council, Department of National Defense and the Department of Foreign Affairs,” the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department said, without providing other details. 

A top Philippine security official told The Associated Press that the Chinese and Philippine coast guards communicated for coordination Saturday, and their ships did not issue two-way radio challenges like in the past to demand that each other’s ships leave the shoal immediately. 

Also, for the first time at the shoal, Chinese coast guard ships did not shadow or block the Philippine vessels as they had repeatedly done in the past, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to discuss the issue publicly. 

Delivery followed deal

China’s coast guard said the Philippine ship delivered daily necessities “in accordance with a temporary arrangement reached between China and the Philippines.” 

“The China Coast Guard confirmed it, supervised and managed the entire process,” spokesperson Gan Yu said in a statement posted online. 

The deal was reached by the Philippines and China after a series of meetings between the two country’s diplomats in Manila and exchanges of diplomatic notes aimed to establish a mutually acceptable arrangement at the shoal — which Filipinos call Ayungin and the Chinese call Ren’ai Jiao — without conceding either side’s territorial claims, Philippine officials said. 

The deal has not been made public by either side. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the news that the resupply mission was completed without a confrontation. 

“We applaud that and hope and expect to see that it continues going forward,” said Blinken, who was in Laos for a meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a group that includes the Philippines. 

Water cannons, blocking manuevers

China’s coast guard and other forces have used powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers to prevent food and other supplies from reaching Filipino navy personnel at Manila’s outpost at the shoal, on a long-grounded and rusting warship, the BRP Sierra Madre. 

In the worst confrontation, Chinese forces on motorboats repeatedly rammed and then boarded two Philippine navy boats on June 17 to prevent Filipino personnel from transferring food and other supplies, including firearms, to the ship outpost in the shallows of the shoal, according to the Philippine government.

The Chinese seized the Philippine navy boats and damaged them with machetes and improvised spears. They also seized seven M4 rifles, which were packed in cases, and other supplies. The violent faceoff wounded several Filipino navy personnel, including one who lost his thumb, in a chaotic skirmish that was captured in video and photos that were later made public by Philippine officials. 

China and the Philippines blamed each other for the confrontation and each asserted their own sovereign rights over the shoal. 

Allies call for freedom of navigation

The United States and its key Asian and Western allies, including Japan and Australia, condemned the Chinese acts at the shoal and called for the rule of law and freedom of navigation to be upheld in the South China Sea, a key global trade route with rich fishing areas and undersea gas deposits. 

In addition to China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have been locked in separate but increasingly tense territorial disputes in the waterway, which is regarded as a potential flashpoint and a delicate fault line in the U.S.-China regional rivalry. The U.S. military has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets for decades in what it calls freedom of navigation and overflight patrols, which China has opposed and regards as a threat to regional stability. 

Washington has no territorial claims in the disputed waters but has repeatedly warned that it is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea. 
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Blinken pays respects in Vietnam after death of Communist Party leader

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HANOI, Vietnam — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Vietnam on Saturday to pay his respects following the death of Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, underlining warmer ties between the countries a half-century since they fought a brutal war.

Blinken arrived in Hanoi late Saturday after attending a regional summit in Laos and visited the family home of Trong, a Marxist-Leninist ideologue who as party chief was Vietnam’s most powerful figure for 13 years and who died last week at 80.

Trong’s “bamboo diplomacy” trod a delicate balancing act between rival superpowers the United States and Communist neighbor China, helping to elevate Vietnam’s ties with both of its two biggest trade partners.

Blinken greeted Trong’s family before lighting an incense stick in front of a shrine displaying the general secretary’s photo. He then stood for a moment with his hands clasped in a show of respect.

He wrote a page-long message in a condolence book and, during conversations with Trong’s family, conveyed the condolences of President Joe Biden.

Trong’s two-day state funeral, which ended Friday, drew more than 250,000 Vietnamese mourners in ceremonies in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and his home in Dong Anh on the outskirts of the capital, state media reported.

Blinken’s brief visit comes at a sensitive time for U.S.-Vietnam relations, which have improved of late given shared concerns about China’s growing regional clout and interest from U.S. investors in a country with an economy that grew an average 5.8% annually during Trong’s time in office.

During a visit by Biden to Hanoi last year, the U.S. and Vietnam upgraded ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has promoted Vietnam as a “friend-shoring” destination to shift U.S. supply chains away from China.

On Friday, the U.S. Commerce Department is set to announce whether to upgrade Vietnam to market economy status, something Hanoi has long sought.

The upgrade is opposed by U.S. steelmakers, Gulf Coast shrimpers, honey farmers and members of the U.S. Congress representing them, but backed by retailers and some other business groups.

After visiting Trong’s home, Blinken also met Vietnam’s president, To Lam, the former internal security agency chief who has assumed Trong’s duties, and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

Blinken told Lam Trong was a “visionary leader” who built a lasting bridge between the two countries and showed the world they could move forward despite their difficult past.

In his meeting with the prime minister, Blinken said one of the highlights of the Biden administration was its elevation of its strategic ties with Hanoi.
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Southeast Asia’s top diplomats condemn Myanmar violence

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VIENTIANE, Laos — Southeast Asia’s top diplomats on Saturday condemned violence in Myanmar’s ongoing civil war and urged for “practical” means to defuse rising tensions in the South China Sea during the last of the three-day regional talks with allies that included the United States, Russia and China.

Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith of Laos, which currently chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, hailed dialogue partners for “frank, candid and constructive exchanges” on key issues revolving around regional security.

The weekend talks in the Laotian capital were dominated by the increasingly violent and destabilizing civil war in ASEAN-member Myanmar as well as maritime disputes of some of the bloc members with China, which have led to direct confrontations that many worry could lead to broader conflict.

In a joint statement issued at the end of the talks, the bloc said there’s an urgent need to address the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar and called for “all relevant parties in Myanmar to ensure the safe and transparent delivery of humanitarian assistance, to the people in Myanmar without discrimination.”

“We strongly condemned the continued acts of violence against civilians and public facilities and called for immediate cessation, and urged all parties involved to take concrete action to immediately halt indiscriminate violence,” it said.

The army in Myanmar ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule, leading to increasing violence and a humanitarian crisis.

Thailand, which shares long borders with Myanmar, said it was given ASEAN backing to play a wider role there, including in providing humanitarian assistance, in which it’s already heavily involved. It also said more peace talks have been proposed to include additional stakeholders, especially Myanmar’s neighbors Thailand, China and India.

More than 5,400 people have been killed in the fighting in Myanmar and the military government has arrested more than 27,000 since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. There are now more than 3 million displaced people in the country, with the numbers growing daily as fighting intensifies between the military and Myanmar’s multiple ethnic militias as well as the so-called people’s defense forces of military opponents.

ASEAN has been pushing a “five-point consensus” for peace, but the military leadership in Myanmar has so far ignored the plan, raising questions about the bloc’s efficiency and credibility. The peace plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.

South China Sea

The meetings also served to highlight rivalries in the region as the U.S. and China look to expand their influence there. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Vientiane on Saturday after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held direct talks with Wang on Thursday. Washington’s two biggest rivals, Moscow and Beijing, have grown closer over the past two years, prompting deep concerns about their combined global influence.

Regarding tensions in the South China Sea, ASEAN said it maintains its position on the freedom of navigation over the sea and urged a full implementation of a South China Sea code of conduct, which the bloc has been working on with China for some time.

ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have conflicts with China over its claim of sovereignty over virtually all of the South China Sea, one of the world’s most crucial waterways for shipping. Indonesia has also expressed concern about what it sees as Beijing’s encroachment on its exclusive economic zone.

ASEAN foreign ministers also welcomed “practical measures that could reduce tensions and the risk of accidents, misunderstandings, and miscalculation,” in an apparent reference to a rare deal between the Philippines and China that aims to end their confrontations, establish a mutually acceptable arrangement for the disputed area without conceding each other’s territorial claims.

Prior to the deal, tensions between the Philippines and China escalated for months, with China’s coast guard and other forces using powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers to prevent food and other supplies from reaching Filipino navy personnel.

On Saturday, the Philippines said it was able to make a supply trip to the disputed area without having to confront Beijing’s forces, the first such trip since the deal was reached a week ago. Blinken applauded it as a success in his opening remarks at the meeting with ASEAN foreign ministers, while calling China’s past actions against the Philippines — a U.S. treaty partner — “escalatory and unlawful.”

The United States and its allies have regularly conducted military exercises and patrols in the area to assert their “free and open Indo-Pacific” policy — including the right to navigate in international waters — which has drawn criticism from China.

Wang said in his meeting with Philippines Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo on Friday that the deployment of a U.S. intermediate-range missile system in the Philippines would create regional tension and trigger an arms race, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
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Blinken chides China’s ‘escalating actions’ at sea, around Taiwan

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VIENTIANE, LAOS — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized Beijing’s “escalating and unlawful actions” in the South China Sea at a summit on Saturday, where his Russian counterpart said Washington has stoked anxiety in its plan for a nuclear deterrence with ally Seoul for the Korean peninsula.

Blinken singled out China over its coast guard’s hostile actions against U.S. defense treaty ally the Philippines in the South China Sea, but he also lauded the two countries for their diplomacy after Manila completed a resupply mission earlier on Saturday to troops at a disputed shoal, unimpeded by China.

Blinken was attending the security-focused ASEAN Regional Forum on Saturday alongside diplomats of major powers that included Russia, India, China, Australia, Japan and the European Union, which included discussions on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and tension in the South China Sea.

The Philippines’ small troop presence on a grounded former U.S. navy ship at the Second Thomas Shoal has for years angered China, which has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines over its resupply missions, causing regional concern about an escalation that could potentially lead to U.S. intervention.

The two sides this week reached an arrangement over how to conduct those missions.

“We are pleased to take note of the successful resupply today of the Second Thomas Shoal,” Blinken told foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, the host of the meetings in Laos.

“We applaud that and hope and expect to see that it continues going forward.”

Blinken held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the gathering, in their sixth meeting since June 2023, when Blinken’s visit to Beijing marked an improvement in strained ties between the world’s two biggest economies.

Blinken discussed Taiwan with Wang and concerns about Beijing’s recent “provocative actions,” included a simulated blockade during the inauguration of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, a senior U.S. State Department official said.

They agreed to continue progress on military-to-military ties, the official said, adding Blinken also discussed Beijing’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base and warned of further U.S. action against Chinese firms, but received no commitment from Wang.

China’s foreign ministry had no immediate statement on the meeting.

Korean peninsula

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the forum said guidelines on the operation of U.S. nuclear assets on the Korean peninsula, officially aimed at establishing an integrated deterrence to North Korean threats, were adding to regional security concerns.

“So far we can’t even get an explanation of what this means, but there is no doubt that it causes additional anxiety,” Russia’s state-run RIA news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.

“They are actively inflaming the atmosphere around the Korean peninsula, militarizing their presence there and conducting exercises that are frankly aimed at being ready for military action,” he said, according to Interfax.

War in Gaza

Blinken said earlier the United States was “working intensely every single day” to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza and find a path to more enduring peace and security.

His remarks followed those of Retno Marsudi, the foreign minister of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, who said the need for sustainable peace was urgent.

Retno also said international law should be applied to all, a veiled reference to recent decisions by two international courts over Israeli’s Gaza offensives.

“We cannot continue closing our eyes to see the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza,” Retno said.

The fighting has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in Gaza since Israel launched its incursion, according to Palestinian health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and noncombatants.

Israeli officials estimate that 14,000 fighters from militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have been killed or captured, out of an estimated force of more than 25,000 at the start of the war, which began when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.

Myanmar fighting

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged Myanmar’s military rulers to take a different path and end an intensifying civil war, pressing the generals to abide by their commitment to follow ASEAN’s peace plan.

The conflict pits Myanmar’s well-equipped military against a loose alliance of ethnic minority rebel groups and an armed resistance movement that has been gaining ground and testing the generals’ ability to govern.

The junta largely ignored the peace effort, and ASEAN has hit a wall as all sides refuse to enter dialogue.

“We see the instability, the insecurity, the deaths, the pain that is being caused by the conflict,” Wong told reporters. “My message from Australia to the regime is, this is not sustainable for you or for your people.”

An estimated 2.6 million people have been displaced by fighting. The junta has been condemned for its air strikes on civilian areas and accused of atrocities, which it has dismissed as Western disinformation.

ASEAN issued a communique on Saturday stressing it was united behind its peace plan and condemned violence against civilians, urging all sides in Myanmar to end hostilities and start dialogue.

ASEAN also welcomed unspecified practical measures to reduce tension in the South China Sea and prevent accidents and miscalculations, while urging all parties to halt actions that could complicate and escalate disputes.
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Does a US president have the power to destroy democracy?

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In the U.S. presidential campaign, Democrats say former President Donald Trump will destroy democratic institutions if he’s reelected in November. But Trump’s Republican Party says it is Democrats who are thwarting democracy by pressuring President Joe Biden to quit the race after party primary elections were over. VOA’s Dora Mekouar explores whether any one president really has the power to destroy democracy.
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Hungary’s Orban: Russia stands to gain as ‘irrational’ West loses power

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BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that Russia’s leadership was “hyper rational” and that Ukraine would never be able to fulfill its hopes of becoming a member of the European Union or NATO.

Orban, a nationalist in power since 2010, made the comments during a speech in which he forecast a shift in global power away from the “irrational” West toward Asia and Russia.

“In the next long decades, maybe centuries, Asia will be the dominant center of the world,” Orban said, mentioning China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as the world’s future big powers.

“And we Westerners pushed the Russians into this bloc as well,” he said in the televised speech before ethnic Hungarians at a festival in the town of Baile Tusnad in neighboring Romania.

Orban, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, has sharply differed from the rest of the bloc by seeking warmer ties with Beijing and Moscow, and he angered some EU leaders when he went on surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing this month for talks on the war in Ukraine.

He said that in contrast to the “weakness” of the West, Russia’s position in world affairs was rational and predictable, saying the country had shown economic flexibility in adapting to Western sanctions since it invaded Crimea in 2014.

Orban, whose own government has passed several anti-LGBT measures, said Russia had gained clout in many parts of the world by severely restricting LGBTQ+ rights.

“The strongest international appeal of Russian soft power is its opposition to LGBTQ,” he said.

He added that Ukraine would never become a member of the EU or NATO because “we Europeans do not have enough money for that.”

“The EU needs to give up its identity as a political project and become an economic and defense project,” Orban said.

The EU opened membership talks with Ukraine late last month, although a long and tough road lies ahead of the country before it can join the bloc.

A declaration at the end of the NATO summit this month said the alliance will support Ukraine on “its irreversible path” toward membership.
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7 out of 10 French high-speed trains to run Saturday after sabotage

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Paris — Seven out of 10 French high-speed trains will run Saturday on three key routes, a day after saboteurs paralyzed much of the train network as the Olympic Games started in Paris.

No immediate claim of responsibility was made for the coordinated overnight arson attacks on cabling boxes at junctions strategically picked out north, southwest and east of the French capital where the Olympics opening ceremony was staged on Friday night.

Rail workers thwarted an attempt to destroy safety equipment on a fourth line in what the SNCF rail company called a “massive attack.”

“On the North, Brittany and South-West high-speed lines, seven out of 10 trains on average will run with delays of one to two hours,” SNCF said in a statement.

It said SNCF agents worked all night under difficult conditions in the rain to improve traffic on high-speed lines affected by the acts of sabotage.

“At this stage, traffic will remain disrupted on Sunday on the North axis and should improve on the Atlantic axis for weekend returns,” it said.

“Customers will be contacted by text message and email to confirm the running of their trains.”

SNCF estimated that about 250,000 passengers were affected Friday. Junior transport minister Patrice Vergriete said 800,000 could face the fallout over the three days.

The coordinated attacks were staged at 4 a.m. (0200 GMT) early Friday.
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Blinken criticizes China’s ‘escalating actions’ at sea ahead of Wang meeting

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VIENTIANE, Laos — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, shortly before meeting his Chinese counterpart on Saturday, urged Southeast Asian countries to help address challenges including Beijing’s “escalating and unlawful actions” in the South China Sea.

Blinken also called the civil war in Myanmar “heartbreaking” and stressed to foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) the need to work together to tackle issues like the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, North Korea’s missile programs.

Though Blinken singled out China’s over its actions against U.S. defense ally the Philippines in the South China Sea, he lauded both countries for their diplomacy hours after Manila completed a resupply mission to troops in an area also claimed by Beijing.

The troop presence has for years angered China, which has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines over Manila’s missions to troops on a navy ship grounded at the Second Thomas Shoal, causing regional concern about an escalation.

The two sides this week reached an arrangement over how to conduct those missions.

“We are pleased to take note of the successful resupply today of the Second Thomas shoal, which is the product of an agreement reached between the Philippines and China,” Blinken told ASEAN counterparts.

“We applaud that and hope and expect to see that it continues going forward.”

Gaza situation ‘dire’

Blinken will hold talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi after Saturday’s security-focused ASEAN Regional Forum in Laos, which will be attended by top diplomats of major powers including Russia, Australia, Japan, the European, Britain and others.

Blinken also said the United States was “working intensely every single day” to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza and find a path to more enduring peace and security.

His remarks follow those of Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, who said the need for sustainable peace was urgent. “We cannot continue closing our eyes to see the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza,” she said.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged Myanmar’s military rulers to take a different path and end an intensifying civil war, pressing the generals to abide by their commitment to follow ASEAN’s five-point consensus peace plan.

The conflict pits Myanmar’s well-equipped military against a loose alliance of ethnic minority rebel groups and an armed resistance movement that has been gaining ground and testing the generals’ ability to govern.

The junta has largely ignored the ASEAN-promoted peace effort, and the 10-member bloc, of which Myanmar is a member, has hit a wall as all sides refuse to enter into dialogue.

“We see the instability, the insecurity, the deaths, the pain that is being caused by the conflict,” Wong told reporters.

“Fundamentally, my message from Australia to the regime is, this is not sustainable for you or for your people. And we would urge them to take a different path and to reflect the five-point consensus that ASEAN has put in place.”

An estimated 2.6 million people have been displaced by fighting. The junta has been condemned for excessive force in its air strikes on civilian areas and accused of atrocities, which it has dismissed as Western disinformation.
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Job losses, protests present difficulties for Chinese Communist Party

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Auckland, New Zealand — Job losses and wage cuts from China’s economic downturn are hitting key industries, according to the South China Morning Post, and analysts say the situation could lead to political difficulties for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Rights groups say the situation has triggered a sharp increase in protests and strikes around the country – not enough to threaten the rule of the CCP or President Xi Jinping, but enough that an analyst sees a “hidden danger” for Chinese authorities unless they can rejuvenate the economy.

Mr. Wang, in his early 40s, lives in Bao’an District, Shenzhen, in southern China. He was formerly employed at a well-known business travel platform but was laid off earlier this year. He prefers not to disclose his full name or the company’s name due to the matter’s sensitivity.

Wang tells VOA, “In the area of business travel software, our company is at the forefront of China in terms of R&D and sales, and it is also one of the top 500 private enterprises in China.  But now many companies have run out of money, our sales have plummeted, and the layoffs finally fell on our group of old employees.”

He compares China’s economic slowdown to a high-speed train suddenly hitting the brakes, and everyone on the train hitting the ground, even those better-off, like himself.

China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate has been dropping since hitting 10.6% in 2010, well before the COVID pandemic, which cut growth to 2.2% in 2020, according to the World Bank.

The global lender says growth bounced back to 8.4% in 2021 but then fell to 3% in 2022 before a moderate recovery to 5.2% in 2023.  The World Bank expects China’s growth rate to drop back below 5% this year.

Several Chinese workers VOA talked with said they were unprepared for the economy to slow so quickly.

Two large IT companies laid off Mr. Liu in Guangzhou in the past two years, and his life has turned gloomy.  He also prefers not to disclose his full name due to the matter’s sensitivity. Still struggling to find a job, Liu has a second child, and his wife was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.

“When I was laid off for the first time, I got decent severance pay because I had worked there for a long time,” says Liu. “Later, when I came to a large company, I was laid off again, and I felt that I was quite unlucky.  Fortunately, we don’t have too much debt.”

According to South Morning China Post’s (SCMP) July analysis of the annual reports of 23 top Chinese companies, 14 of them carried out large layoffs in 2023, with technology and real estate companies among the worst hit amid a glut of empty buildings.

The online newspaper reports that one company, Poly Real Estate, laid off 16.3% of its workforce in the past year, or 11,000 people; Greenland Holdings, a Shanghai-based real estate company, also saw a 14.5% drop in the number of its employees.

The SCMP reports online retail giant Alibaba cut 12.8% of its workforce, or about 20,000 jobs, in the 2023 fiscal year, while technology conglomerate Tencent’s headcount fell 2.8% in 2023 to about 3,000, and in the first quarter of 2024, the company laid off another 630 people.

In addition, Chinese internet tech firms ByteDance, JD.com, Kuaishou, Didi Chuxing, Bilibili and Weibo have all conducted layoffs this year.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is painting a rosier picture this month, calling employment and the national economy “generally stable” and citing “steady progress.”  In June, it showed only a 0.2% drop in urban jobs compared with the same period last year.

The NBS also claimed China’s lowest youth unemployment rate this year, 13.2%, after it removed students from the calculation.  The new methodology was introduced after China hit a record high 21.3% youth unemployment in June 2023, prompting authorities to suspend publication of the statistic.

Chen Yingxuan, a policy analyst at the Taiwan Institute of National Defense and Security Studies who specializes in Chinese unemployment, tells VOA that Beijing’s job worries have shifted from fresh graduates and the working class to middle class and senior managers.

She says many have faced salary cuts or layoffs to reduce costs and increase efficiency as China struggles with a weak housing market, sluggish consumption, high government debt, foreign investment withdrawals, and trade barriers.

Even people with relatively stable incomes, such as workers at state-owned enterprises, are feeling the pinch.

Ms. Zhang, who works for a state-owned commercial bank in Guangzhou and prefers not to disclose her full name due to the matter’s sensitivity, says many bank employees are seeing paychecks shrink.

“State owned banks such as China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China, or joint-stock banks, are now cutting salaries, let alone urban commercial banks in many places,” she tells VOA.  “Salary cuts already started last year, and it seems to be worse this year.” 

She projects the cuts will be 20% to 30% by the end of the year.

In July, China’s 31 provincial-level administrative regions issued regulations calling for party and government organs to “live a tight life,” focusing on budget cuts and reductions in public spending.

Analysts say further job and wage cuts could lead to intensified protests and strikes, leading to greater instability.

Rights group China Labor Bulletin (CLB) in 2023 counted 1,794 strike incidents in China, more than double the number in 2022.

In the past six months alone, the group documented about 1,200 incidents in protest of the wage cuts, unpaid wages, unforeseen layoffs, and unfair compensation, a more than 50% increase from the same period in 2023.

CLB estimates “only 5% to 10% of all collective actions of workers have been recorded,” suggesting many more protests are taking place.

But Chen of the Taiwan Institute of National Defense and Security Studies says the wage cuts and unemployment have not yet been severe enough to spark large-scale protests that threaten the power of the ruling party or President Xi.

“Although there has been an increase in protests, they are still relatively sporadic. There are no large-scale incidents, and local governments can easily quell them,” she says.  “So, for the legitimacy of the CCP and Xi’s third term, it is more of a hidden danger than an imminent crisis.”

While protests in China are usually by working class people, Wang notes the economic pain is spreading to other, more influential groups.

“Whether for blue-collar, white-collar, or even gold-collar workers, the economic losses are now very large,” says Wang.  “The worse the economy and the more emergencies there are, the more the CCP will suppress it with high pressure. It’s a vicious circle, where people suffer more, and stability is more costly.”

Meanwhile, analysts say Chinese authorities are struggling to come up with a plan to reverse the unemployment and wage cutting trend.

The communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, released on July 18, mentioned employment only once, saying “it is necessary to improve the income distribution system and the employment priority policy.”
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Puerto Rico bans discrimination against those who wear Afros, other styles

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s governor on Wednesday signed a law that prohibits discrimination against people wearing Afros, curls, locs, twists, braids and other hairstyles in the racially diverse U.S. territory.

The move was celebrated by those who had long demanded explicit protection related to work, housing, education and public services.

“It’s a victory for generations to come,” Welmo Romero Joseph, a community facilitator with the nonprofit Taller Salud, said in an interview.

The organization is one of several that had been pushing for the law, with Romero noting it sends a strong message that “you can reach positions of power without having to change your identity.”

While Puerto Rico’s laws and constitution protect against discrimination, along with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a precedent was set in 2016 when a U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed a discrimination lawsuit and ruled that an employer’s no-dreadlock policy in Alabama did not violate Title VII.

Earlier this year, legislators in the U.S. territory held a public hearing on the issue, with several Puerto Ricans sharing examples of how they were discriminated against, including job offers conditional on haircuts.

It’s a familiar story to Romero, who recalled how a high school principal ordered him to cut his flat top.

“It was a source of pride,” he said of that hairstyle. “I was a 4.0 student. What did that have to do with my hair?”

With a population of 3.2 million, Puerto Rico has more than 1.6 million people who identify as being of two or more races, with nearly 230,000 identifying solely as Black, according to the U.S. Census.

“Unfortunately, people identified as black or Afro descendant in Puerto Rico still face derogatory treatment, deprivation of opportunities, marginalization, exclusion and all kinds of discrimination,” the law signed Wednesday states.

While Romero praised the law, he warned that measures are needed to ensure it’s followed.

On the U.S. mainland, at least two dozen states have approved versions of the CROWN Act, which aims to ban race-based hair discrimination and stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.”

Among those states is Texas, where a Black high school student was suspended after school officials said his dreadlocks fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes, violating the dress code.

A March report from the Economic Policy Institute found that not all states have amended their education codes to protect public and private high school students, and that some states have allowed certain exceptions to the CROWN Act.

A federal version was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, but it failed in the Senate. In May, Democratic lawmakers reintroduced the legislation.
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Mysterious bones could hold evidence of Japanese war crimes, activists say 

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TOKYO — Depending on whom you ask, the bones that have been sitting in a Tokyo repository for decades could be either leftovers from early 20th-century anatomy classes, or the unburied and unidentified victims of one of the country’s most notorious war crimes. 

Activists, historians and other experts who want the government to investigate links to wartime human germ warfare experiments met last weekend to mark the 35th anniversary of their discovery and renew a call for an independent panel to examine the evidence. 

Japan’s government has long avoided discussing wartime atrocities, including the sexual abuse of Asian women known as “comfort women” and Korean forced laborers at Japanese mines and factories, often on grounds of lack of documentary proof. Japan has apologized for its aggression in Asia, but since the 2010s it has been repeatedly criticized in South Korea and China for backpedaling. 

Around a dozen skulls, many with cuts, and other parts of skeletons were unearthed on July 22, 1989, during construction of a Health Ministry research institute at the site of the wartime Army Medical School. The school’s close ties to a germ and biological warfare unit led many to suspect that they could be the remains of a dark history that the Japanese government has never officially acknowledged. 

Headquartered in then-Japanese-controlled northeast China, Unit 731 and several related units injected prisoners of war with typhus, cholera and other diseases, according to historians and former unit members. They also say the unit performed unnecessary amputations and organ removals on living people to practice surgery and froze prisoners to death in endurance tests. Japan’s government has acknowledged only that Unit 731 existed. 

No trials for leaders

Top Unit 731 officials were not tried in postwar tribunals as the U.S. sought to get hold of chemical warfare data, historians say, although lower-ranked officials were tried by Soviet tribunals. Some of the unit’s leaders became medical professors and pharmaceutical executives after the war. 

A previous Health Ministry investigation said the bones couldn’t be linked to the unit, and concluded that the remains were most likely from bodies used in medical education or brought back from war zones for analysis, in a 2001 report based on questioning 290 people associated with the school. 

It acknowledged that some interviewees drew connections to Unit 731. One said he saw a head in a barrel shipped from Manchuria, northern China, where the unit was based. Two others noted hearing about specimens from the unit being stored in a school building, but had not actually seen them. Others denied the link, saying the specimens could include those from the prewar era. 

A 1992 anthropological analysis found that the bones came from at least 62 and possibly more than 100 different bodies, mostly adults from parts of Asia outside Japan. The holes and cuts found on some skulls were made after death, it said, but it did not find evidence linking the bones to Unit 731. 

But activists say that the government could do more to uncover the truth, including publishing full accounts of its interviews and conducting DNA testing. 

Kazuyuki Kawamura, a former Shinjuku district assembly member who has devoted most of his career to resolving the bone mystery, recently obtained 400 pages of research materials from the 2001 report using freedom of information requests, and said it shows that the government “tactfully excluded” key information from witness accounts. 

Vivid descriptions

The newly published material doesn’t contain a smoking gun, but it includes vivid descriptions — the man who described seeing a head in a barrel also described helping to handle it and then running off to vomit — and comments from several witnesses who suggested that more forensic investigation might show a link to Unit 731. 

“Our goal is to identify the bones and send them back to their families,” said Kawamura. The bones are virtually the only proof of what happened, he said. “We just want to find the truth.” 

Health Ministry official Atsushi Akiyama said that witness accounts had already been analyzed and factored into the 2001 report, and the government’s position remains unchanged. A key missing link is documentary evidence, such as a label on a specimen container or official records, he said. 

Documents, especially those involving Japan’s wartime atrocities, were carefully destroyed in the war’s closing days, and finding new evidence for a proof would be difficult. 

Akiyama added that a lack of information about the bones would make DNA analysis difficult. 

Disturbing memory

Hideo Shimizu, who was sent to Unit 731 in April 1945 at age 14 as lab technician and joined the meeting online from his home in Nagano, said he remembers seeing heads and body parts in formalin jars stored in a specimen room in the unit’s main building. One that struck him most was a dissected belly with a fetus inside. He was told they were “maruta” — logs — a term used for prisoners chosen for experiments. 

Days before Japan’s August 15, 1945, surrender, Shimizu was ordered to collect bones of prisoners’ bodies burned in a pit. He was then given a pistol and a packet of cyanide to kill himself if he was caught on his journey back to Japan. 

He was ordered never to tell anyone about his Unit 731 experience, never contact his colleagues, and never seek a government or medical job. 

Shimizu said that he could not tell if any specimen he saw at 731 could be among the Shinjuku bones by looking at their photos, but that what he saw in Harbin should never be repeated. When he sees his great-grandchildren, he said, they remind him of that fetus he saw and the lives lost. 

“I want younger people to understand the tragedy of war,” he said.
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Africa struggles to regulate climate cooling systems industry as demand expands

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ABUJA, Nigeria — As the sun blazes down in Abuja, Ahmed Bukar turns on his home air conditioner to a blast of hot air. The cooling gas that the appliance runs on is leaking from the charging valve on the unit. A technician had recently helped him refill the air conditioner with gas, but he didn’t test for possible leaks. 

In Abuja and across Nigeria, air conditioners sprout from the walls as the appliance turns from a middle-class luxury into a necessity in an increasingly hot climate. The industry is governed by regulations prohibiting the release of cooling gases into the air – for example, by conducting leak tests after an appliance is fixed. Still, routine release of gases into the atmosphere because of shoddy installations, unsafe disposal at the end of use, or the addition of gas without testing for leaks is a common problem in Nigeria, though unlawful. 

The cooling gases, or refrigerants, have hundreds to thousands of times the climate warming potency of carbon dioxide, and the worst of them also harm the ozone layer. Following global agreements that promised to limit these gases from being spewed into the air, like the Montreal Protocol and Kigali Amendments, Nigeria has enacted regulations guiding the use of these gases. But enforcement is a problem, threatening Nigeria’s commitments to slash emissions. 

“Those laws, those rules, nobody enforces them,” said Abiodun Ajeigbe, a manager for the air-conditioning business at Samsung in West Africa. “I have not seen any enforcement.” 

‘I was not taught’ 

The weak regulatory system for the cooling industry in Nigeria is evident in the rampant lack of proper training and awareness of environmental harm caused by refrigerants among technicians, according to Ajeigbe. And it is common to see. 

After uninstalling an air conditioner for a client who was moving to another neighborhood, Cyprian Braimoh, a technician in Abuja’s Karu district, casually frittered the gas from the unit into the air, preparing it to be refilled with fresh gas at the client’s new location. 

If he followed the country’s regulations, he would collect the gas into a canister, preventing or minimizing the gas’s environmental harm. Technicians like Braimoh and those who serviced Bukar’s appliance without testing for leaks are self-employed and unsupervised. But they often get customers because they offer cheaper services. 

“I was not taught that; I only release it into the air,” said Braimoh, who originally specialized in electrical wiring of buildings before fixing air conditioners to increase his income options. He received patchy training that did not include the required safety standards for handling refrigerants. And he still did not conduct a leak test after installing the air conditioning unit at his client’s new location, which is required by the country’s cooling industry regulations. 

Installations done by well-trained technicians who follow environmental regulations can be costlier for customers. It’s often the case in Nigeria, where hiring the services of companies like Daibau, who later helped Bukar fix his leaks, could result in higher costs. 

Manufacturers who offer direct refrigeration and air-conditioning installation services to big commercial customers have tried to self-regulate with safety training and certifications for their technicians, Ajeigbe said. 

Potent greenhouse gases 

According to industry professionals and public records, the most common air conditioners in Africa still use what’s known as R-22 gas. This refrigerant is less harmful to the ozone layer compared to the older, even more damaging coolants called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). CFCs have been largely eliminated, thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which was created to protect the ozone layer, the vital shield in the atmosphere that protects against cancer-causing ultraviolet rays. 

But R-22 is 1,810 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Just one pound of the coolant is nearly as potent as a ton of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, but while CO2 can stay in the atmosphere for over 200 years, R-22 stays in the atmosphere for around 12 years. R-22 air conditioners also have low energy efficiency and most of the electricity powering them in Africa is from fossil fuels. 

Nigeria plans to phase out the R-22 refrigerant by January 1, 2030. But with lax enforcement, meeting the phaseout target is in doubt, Ajeigbe said. 

Newer air conditioners that use a family of gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) don’t harm the ozone and consume less electricity. But HFCs are still potent greenhouse gases and account for around 2% of all human-caused warming in the atmosphere. 

One HFC, R-410A, which is still a common refrigerant in Europe and the United States, has a warming potential 2,088 times greater than that of carbon dioxide and lasts roughly 30 years in the atmosphere. Air conditioners running on it are the next most common in Africa. 

Another HFC, R-32, is 675 times more potent than CO2, lasts about five years in the atmosphere, and is more energy-efficient. But it is just “marginally” in the African market, Ajeigbe said. 

Air conditioners running on HFCs are more expensive, meaning they’re less popular than the more polluting ones, according to sellers and technicians in Abuja and Lagos. 

A wider problem 

It’s not just Nigeria. In Ghana, the cooling industry also struggles to get technicians to comply with environmental standards. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “poor servicing practices prevalent” in the country are largely driven by consumers, who choose low-trained technicians on price considerations and neglect recommended standards. 

In Kenya, the demand for cooling systems is growing as temperatures warm, the population grows and electricity access expands. Air conditioners running on R-22 are still very common in Kenya, but the National Environmental Management Authority told The Associated Press there have not been new imports since 2021, in line with 2020 regulations. 

The regulations require technicians handling refrigerants and cooling appliances to obtain a license, but that is not enforced, technicians told AP, leaving space for environmentally unsafe practices. 

“You just need to be well-trained and start installations. It’s a very simple industry for us who are making a living in it,” said Nairobi-based technician Jeremiah Musyoka. 

One cooling gas that’s energy-efficient and less harmful to the atmosphere, R-290, is slowly gaining traction as an alternative for refrigeration and air conditioning in developed markets like the European Union. The demand for efficient heat pumps is rapidly expanding in the EU, but adoption in Africa remains insignificant because of cost barriers and limited awareness. 

Countries like Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya have also identified R-290 as the product that will ultimately replace HFCs, but models using it are not commercially available. And they still have to worry about specialized training for technicians because of R-290’s high flammability. 

“It worries me there is not enough training and existing regulations are not enforced,” Ajeigbe, manager at Samsung, said. But he said enforcing the import ban on banned gases and the appliances that use them would make a difference. 

Anastasia Akhigbe, a senior regulatory official at Nigeria’s National Environmental Standards and Regulations Agency, added that increasing awareness among appliance importers, technicians and consumers about the environmental impacts of certain refrigerants would also help. 

“Enforcement is a known challenge, but we are moving gradually,” Akhigbe said.
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US promises $240 million to improve fish hatcheries, protect tribal rights

Posted on by SeeUS

BOISE, Idaho — The U.S. government will invest $240 million in salmon and steelhead hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest to boost declining fish populations and support the treaty-protected fishing rights of Native American tribes, officials announced Thursday.

The departments of Commerce and the Interior said there will be an initial $54 million for hatchery maintenance and modernization made available to 27 tribes in the region, which includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.

The hatcheries “produce the salmon that tribes need to live,” said Jennifer Quan, the regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. “We are talking about food for the tribes and supporting their culture and their spirituality.”

Some of the facilities are on the brink of failure, Quan said, with a backlog of deferred maintenance that has a cost estimated at more than $1 billion.

“For instance, the roof of the Makah Tribe’s Stony Creek facility is literally a tarp. The Lummi Nation Skookum Hatchery is the only hatchery that raises spring Chinook salmon native to the recovery of our Puget Sound Chinook Salmon,” and it is falling down, Quan said.

Lisa Wilson, secretary of the Lummi Indian Business Council, said salmon are as important as the air they breathe, their health and their way of life. She thanked everyone involved in securing “this historic funding.”

“Hatchery fish are Treaty fish and play a vital role in the survival of our natural-origin populations while also providing salmon for our subsistence and ceremonies,” she said in a statement. “If it weren’t for the hatcheries and the Tribes, nobody would be fishing.”

The Columbia River Basin was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Salmon are a key part of the ecosystem, and another endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, depend on Chinook salmon for food.

Salmon are born in rivers and migrate long distances downstream to the ocean, where they spend most of their adult lives. They then make the difficult trip back upstream to their birthplace to spawn and die.

Columbia Basin dams have played a major part in devastating the wild fish runs, cutting off access to upstream habitat, slowing the water and sometimes allowing it to warm to temperatures that are fatal for fish.

For decades, state, federal and tribal governments have tried to supplement declining fish populations by building hatcheries to breed and hatch salmon that are later released into the wild. But multiple studies have shown that hatchery programs frequently have negative impacts on wild fish, in part by reducing genetic diversity and by increasing competition for food.

Quan acknowledged the hatcheries “come with risks” but said they can be managed to produce additional fish for harvest and even to help restore populations while minimizing risks to wild fish.

“Hatcheries have been around for a long time, and we’ve seen the damage that they can do,” Quan said.

Still the programs have gone through a course correction in recent years, following genetic management plans and the principles established by scientific review groups, she said. “We are in a different place now.”

It will take habitat restoration, improved water quality, adjustments to harvest and other steps if salmon are going to recover, but so far society has not been willing to make the needed changes for that to happen, she said. Add in the impacts of climate change, and the calculus of bad and good hatchery impacts changes further.

“We need to start having a conversation about hatcheries and how they are going to be an important adaptation tool for us moving forward,” Quan said.

Greg Ruggerone, a salmon research scientist with Natural Resources Consultants Inc. in Seattle, said the key is to determine how to better harvest hatchery salmon from rivers without harming the wild salmon that are making the same trek to spawning grounds. Robust harvests of hatchery fish will help ensure that the federal government is meeting its treaty obligations to the tribes, while reducing competition for wild fish, Ruggerone said.

“A big purpose of the hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest is to provide for harvest — especially harvest for the tribes — so there is a big opportunity if we can figure out how to harvest without harming wild salmon,” Ruggerone said.

Every hatchery in the Columbia River basin was built to mitigate the effects of the hydropower dams built in the region, said Becky Johnson, the production division director for the Nez Perce Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resource Management.

Most were built in the 1960s, 1970s or earlier, she said.

“I’m super excited about this opportunity. Tribal and non-tribal people benefit from them — more salmon coming back to the basin means more salmon for everyone,” Johnson said. “It’s critical that we have fish and that the tribal people have food. Tribal members will tell you they’re fighting hard to continue to hang on to fish, and they’re never going to stop that fight.”
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Blinken arrives in Laos, set for talks with Chinese foreign minister

Posted on by SeeEA

Vientiane, Laos — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived early Saturday in Laos, where he will attend a regional meeting and hold talks with his Chinese counterpart, part of a multination Asia visit aimed at reinforcing ties with regional allies in the face of an increasingly assertive Beijing.

The top U.S. diplomat is due to meet China’s Wang Yi on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers meeting being held in Vientiane.

Blinken has prioritized promoting a “free and open” Asia-Pacific region – a thinly veiled criticism of China’s regional economic, strategic and territorial ambitions.

During a series of ASEAN meetings, “the secretary’s conversations will continue to build upon the unprecedented deepening and expansion of U.S.-ASEAN ties,” the State Department said in a statement shortly before Blinken touched down in Vientiane.

This is Blinken’s 18th visit to Asia since taking office more than three years ago, reflecting the fierce competition between Washington and Beijing in the region.

He notably arrived two days after the foreign ministers of China and Russia met with those from the 10-nation ASEAN bloc – and each other – on the sidelines of the summit.

Wang and Blinken would “exchange views on issues of common concern,” China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Friday.

Blinken is expected to “discuss the importance of adherence to international law in the South China Sea” at the ASEAN talks, according to the U.S. State Department.
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