TOKYO — Asia-Pacific business executives urged emerging economies in the region to issue climate bonds indexed to a basket of currencies, which would reduce the risk from foreign exchange fluctuation in raising funds for clean energy transition.

The group of business executives comprising ABAC, which is APEC’s Business Advisory Council, also proposed on Sunday launching a pilot program to develop a voluntary carbon market (VCM) for the Asia-Pacific region.

“What we’re trying to establish is an interoperable, or mutually tradeable, voluntary carbon credit network within the Asia-Pacific region that can accelerate the region’s transition to a low-carbon society,” Hiroshi Nakaso, head of ABAC’s finance and investment task force, told a news conference on Sunday.

Under the program, like-minded countries will conduct cross-border carbon credit transactions on a trial basis to identify problems and possible solutions, Nakaso said.

The Asia-Pacific region lacks cross-border standards or regulatory infrastructure for a voluntary carbon market, a mechanism that channels private financing into climate projects.

The proposals, compiled at a meeting in Tokyo on Aug. 1-4, underscore a growing awareness in Asia about the need for private and public sectors to cooperate in financing the huge cost of energy transition.

ABAC, an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) advisory council, will present its recommendations at the APEC leaders’ summit to be held in Lima in November. Peru is this year’s chair of APEC, a bloc that accounts for almost half of world trade.

In the list of proposals, ABAC called on governments in the region to issue 10-year bonds with interest and principal payments indexed to a basket of currencies.

Such bonds would give developing nations access to hard currency to buy solar farms and storage facilities, and mitigate risk from exchange-rate fluctuation for lenders, said Tom Harley, one of the task force’s project leaders from Australia.

Asia is among the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate-related natural disasters. It also consists of many economies reliant on fossil fuel or vulnerable to currency market swings, heightening challenges for energy transition.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to propose barring Chinese software in autonomous and connected vehicles in the coming weeks, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The Biden administration plans to issue a proposed rule that would bar Chinese software in vehicles in the United States with Level 3 automation and above, which would have the effect of also banning testing on U.S. roads of autonomous vehicles produced by Chinese companies.

The administration, in a previously unreported decision, also plans to propose barring vehicles with Chinese-developed advanced wireless communications abilities modules from U.S. roads, the sources added.

Under the proposal, automakers and suppliers would need to verify that none of their connected vehicle or advanced autonomous vehicle software was developed in a “foreign entity of concern” like China, the sources said.

The Commerce Department said last month it planned to issue proposed rules on connected vehicles in August and expected to impose limits on some software made in China and other countries deemed adversaries.

Asked for comment, a Commerce Department spokesperson said on Sunday that the department “is concerned about the national security risks associated with connected technologies in connected vehicles.”

The department’s Bureau of Industry and Security will issue a proposed rule that “will focus on specific systems of concern within the vehicle. Industry will also have a chance to review that proposed rule and submit comments.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment but the Chinese foreign ministry has previously urged the United States “to respect the laws of the market economy and principles of fair competition.” It argues Chinese cars are popular globally because they had emerged out of fierce market competition and are technologically innovative.

On Wednesday, the White House and State Department hosted a meeting with allies and industry leaders to “jointly address the national security risks associated with connected vehicles,” the department said. Sources said officials disclosed details of the administration’s planned rule.

The meeting included officials from the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom who “exchanged views on the data and cybersecurity risks associated with connected vehicles and certain components.”

Also known as conditional driving automation, Level 3 involves technology that allows drivers to engage in activities behind the wheel, such as watching movies or using smartphones, but only under some limited conditions.

In November, a group of U.S. lawmakers raised alarm about Chinese companies collecting and handling sensitive data while testing autonomous vehicles in the United States and asked questions of 10 major companies including Baidu, Nio, WeRide, Didi Chuxing, Xpeng, Inceptio, Pony.ai, AutoX, Deeproute.ai and Qcraft.

The letters said in the 12 months ended November 2022 that Chinese AV companies test drove more than 450,000 miles in California. In July 2023, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his department had national security concerns about Chinese autonomous vehicle companies in the United States.

The administration is worried about connected vehicles using the driver monitoring system to listen or record occupants or take control of the vehicle itself.

“The national security risks are quite significant,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in May. “We decided to take action because this is really serious stuff.”
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washington — Venezuela’s recent presidential election results have sparked widespread protests domestically and drawn sharp criticism internationally. While the U.S. has thrown its support behind opposition challenger Edmundo Gonzalez, China and Russia swiftly endorsed the incumbent, Nicolas Maduro, who has held power for 12 years. 

On Monday, Venezuela’s electoral council declared that the president had secured 51% of the vote, compared to 44% for Gonzalez. These results starkly contradicted exit polls, which had shown Gonzalez leading by a significant margin. 

 

The Carter Center, which was invited to observe the election, issued a statement that the vote “did not meet international standards of electoral integrity” and declared the outcome “cannot be considered democratic. 

Most Latin American countries, with the exceptions of Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Cuba, have either rejected or expressed concern over the official election results. In contrast, China’s reaction has been markedly supportive: President Xi Jinping has fully endorsed Maduro, asserting that Beijing will “firmly support Venezuela’s efforts to safeguard national sovereignty, national dignity, and social stability.” 

“China prefers a stable Venezuela, and what they identify as [a] credible source of stability at the moment is Nicolas Maduro,” Antulio Rosales, an assistant professor of business and society at the York University, told VOA. 

 

“So, even though Maduro may stay in power via non-democratic means, it’s clear that China sees him as a more credible possibility for stability,” he noted. 

 

Evan Ellis, a research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College, said the mass investment from Beijing is also a factor. 

“China has a longstanding commercial and political relationship with the leftist regime of Hugo Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro since the early 2000s, including recognizing it as a strategic partner under Hugo Chavez, and upgrading that relationship to all around comprehensive strategic partner last year under Nicolas Maduro,” he told VOA. 

 

Maduro and Xi announced last September that their bilateral relationship had been upgraded to an “all-weather strategic partnership,” the highest level of cooperation between two nations.

China now holds a substantial loan portfolio with Venezuela, representing nearly half of all Chinese loans extended to Latin America and the Caribbean. It’s estimated that China has financed more than $60 billion worth of projects in Venezuela. 

In return, China has secured essential resources from the oil-rich country, including crude oil and minerals, through an oil-for-loan model. 

Strategic importance 

Maduro is also repaying China by staunchly supporting the country on the international stage. His administration has provided unconditional backing to China, including endorsing Beijing’s one-China principle by recognizing Taiwan as an inalienable part of China. Additionally, Maduro supports China’s national security law in Hong Kong, and upholds China’s claims in the contested South China Sea. 

Venezuela is also collaborating with China in expanding social control measures. The Maduro government has acquired the Homeland Card system from China, which includes a unique personalized QR code capable of tracking individual votes and social media usage. 

“Venezuela is important to the full range of China’s ambitions in the Americas, including access to resources, markets in strategic sectors, political strategic objectives, and military options if it ever must fight a war with the United States in the Indo-Pacific,” said Ellis from the U.S. Army War College. 

Antonio C. Hsiang, a research professor at Chile’s National Academy of Political and Strategic Studies, told VOA that Venezuela has become a significant battleground in the U.S.-China rivalry. 

Hsiang argued that Venezuela’s political resistance to the United States and its efforts to undermine U.S. influence within Inter-American institutions serve as a strategic distraction for the U.S. in its own hemisphere, ultimately benefiting China. 

 

Economic liability 

 

The Chinese business community, however, is not as happy with the Maduro government. 

 

Venezuela — once the wealthiest nation in Latin America because of its status as home to the world’s largest crude oil reserves — has seen its current government’s popularity wane significantly. The decline is attributed to an economic crisis driven by falling oil prices, corruption, and flawed policies. 

 

In 2013, a sharp decline in oil prices, a key export for Venezuela, triggered a severe economic and political crisis. The country’s GDP contracted by 75% between 2014 and 2021. Annual inflation surged to upwards of 130,000% in 2018, according to its central bank. These factors culminated in Venezuela’s suspension of loan repayments in 2020, including those to its largest creditor, China. 

“China is not particularly concerned with issues of transparency or corruption domestically [in Venezuela],” Rosales said. “Beijing is more focused on Caracas’ inability to execute some of the projects it has committed to.” He observed that Chinese businesses have stopped further investing into the country. 

It may take weeks or even months to determine whether China’s bet on Maduro will pay off. Rosales suggested that China’s concerns regarding Venezuela, though, are unlikely to shift — even if the opposition party comes to power. 

“China maintains good relations with countries like Chile, which has long been governed by pro-market regimes, as well as with Brazil, which has been led by center-left governments,” he pointed out. 

“It’s important to recognize that, regardless of who is in power, China’s primary concerns will remain the same: long-term stability, the ability to carry out projects, and the capacity to repay debt,” said Rosales. 
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of China’s state-run tabloid Global Times, has gone silent on social media for a week after his analysis of China’s economic policies triggered a backlash from Chinese state media and other prominent commentators.

Hu, a prominent nationalistic commentator known for his outspoken style on social media, has not shared anything on any of his social media accounts, including the microblogging site Weibo, Chinese messaging app WeChat and X, formerly known as Twitter, since July 27.

His silence comes after his July 22 WeChat opinion article pointing out that the Communist Party had left out a key phrase, “state sector is the mainstay of the Chinese economy,” from the resolution on reforming the Chinese economy adopted by China’s top leadership during the Third Plenum, a closed-door conclave that laid out key economic policies for the next five years.

He claimed that the move, which deviates from the Communist Party’s usual practice of reiterating the slogan in official documents, shows that China is hoping to “achieve true equality between the private and state-owned economy.”

Hu’s comments in the article, which has since been removed from WeChat, triggered widespread criticism on Chinese social media outlets, as some conservative commentators accused him of misinterpreting the resolution, which vowed to “consolidate and develop the state-owned economy.”

In addition to online criticism, China’s state-run People’s Daily also published an opinion article on July 30, reiterating that China’s fundamental position on the state and private sectors has not changed and will not change in the future.

The party “will be able to inject a surging impetus into the promotion of Chinese-style modernization by adhering to and perfecting the basic socialist economic system, promoting stronger and better state-owned capital and state-owned enterprises, and creating a favorable environment and providing more opportunities for the development of the nonstate sector of the economy,” the article said.

Bloomberg News reported that Hu has been banned from posting on social media, citing an anonymous source, but in a brief response to Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily, Hu refused to elaborate on his unusual silence.

“Personally, I don’t want to say anything. Just read what’s on the internet. Please understand,” he told Sing Tao Daily.

Some analysts say the incident reflects the Chinese government’s attempt to tighten control over discussions and narratives about China’s economy, which remains sluggish despite the government’s plan to roll out reform following the plenum.

“As the Chinese economy gets into a more precarious situation, the leadership in China becomes increasingly aware that it is a source of instability, so they decide to double down on control over economic and business information,” Dexter Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told VOA by phone.

Other experts say Hu’s silence, which departs from his usual outspoken style on social media, also shows that he has crossed the line by publicly contradicting party policy.

“His comments have crossed the red line set up by the Communist Party, and the severity of the punishment, which is an outright ban from posting on social media, sends a warning to the rest of China that authorities have zero tolerance for opinions that deviate from the official line,” said Hung Chin-fu, an expert of Chinese politics at National Cheng-Kung University in Taiwan.

In his view, while the resolution mentioned the goal of expanding China’s private sector, development of the private sector still needs to be guided by the party, which means that the state sector will still play a dominant role in that process.

“China’s top leadership will allow some discussions on the development of its private sector, but they don’t want those voices to overshadow the official narrative,” Hung told VOA by phone.

Some analysts say Hu’s silence on social media may be a result that is in line with existing laws in China. “The new Chinese Communist Party Disciplinary Regulations explicitly forbids people like Hu from jumping the gun like he did,” Wen-ti Sung, a political scientist at Australian National University, told VOA in a written response.

While Hu is unlikely to face a total ban on social media, Roberts said, he may become more careful when commenting on topics related to the Chinese government’s policies or sensitive domestic issues in the future.

“There is less and less tolerance for outspoken people like Hu in China these days, so I don’t think something like this [can] happen to him without there being longer-term repercussions,” he told VOA.

Sung said Hu’s case also shows the growing risks Chinese people, including those working for the Communist Party, face when commenting on sensitive issues.

“Hu’s episode probably speaks to how hard it is to know where the red line is for anyone engaging in public political discourse in China today — even for a real insider like Hu, who worked in the party’s propaganda system for 28 years,” he said.
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Manila, Philippines — A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of the southern Philippines on Saturday, the United States Geological Survey said, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage.

The shallow quake hit just before 6:30 a.m. (2230 GMT) about 20 kilometers from the village of Barcelona on the east of Mindanao island, the USGS said.

Many people would have been sleeping when the strong shaking jolted them from their beds.

It did not trigger a tsunami alert, according to the U.S. Tsunami Warning System and the Philippine seismological agency.

The local seismological agency also said no damage was expected from the earthquake, but it warned of aftershocks in the region.

In Lingig municipality, where Barcelona is located, local disaster officer Ian Onsing said he was awakened by the shaking.

“The shaking was quite strong. The things around here were moving. I guess, the shaking took around 10-15 seconds,” Onsing told AFP by telephone.

“I’m not expecting any more damages, but we will go around the area again around 8:00 am just to be sure,” he said.

“So far, there are no reported casualties or damages. We are now monitoring the shores for any rough movement.”

In the municipality of Hinatuan, about 25 kilometers north of Barcelona, local disaster officer Jerome Ramirez saw appliances “moving for around 30 seconds” from the strong shaking.

Ramirez said there had been no reports of injuries or damage in coastal communities in the area.

“Now we are just monitoring for possible aftershocks,” Ramirez told AFP by telephone.

Earthquakes regularly strike the Philippines, which sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of intense seismic and volcanic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Most are too weak to be felt by humans, but strong and destructive quakes come at random with no technology available to predict when and where they will happen.

In December, a 7.6 magnitude quake struck off Mindanao, briefly triggering a tsunami warning.

That sent residents along the east coast of the island fleeing buildings, evacuating a hospital and seeking higher ground.

At least three people died. 
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London — A British organization that focuses on bringing more transparency to ties between China and the United Kingdom says one of the country’s biggest China institutes at a top university, King’s College London, received almost all of its funds from one single donor — a wealthy Hong Kong businessman who has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

In a report released Sunday, UK-China Transparency said 99.9% of funding for the Lau China Institute, or LCI, came from Lau Ming-wai, who has served as an adviser to the Hong Kong government working on Hong Kong “integration” with China. He was also given a formal role at a body overseen by the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, the report said.

The United Front Work Department coordinates domestic and foreign influence campaigns for the Chinese Communist Party and is part of a broader effort known as “United Front” work that aims to co-opt individuals and silence opposition to the party.

Lau received his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees from King’s College London and donated at least $14.1 million to support the institute, according to the report.

UK-China Transparency said it has sought information from King’s College under the Freedom of Information Act about the details of Lau’s collaboration with the Institute and any terms or restrictions on Lau’s donation. It also asked whether Lau has any requirements for the appointment of the institute’s director.

The university confirmed Lau’s donations but declined to provide the other information.

UK-China Transparency then complained to the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office, which supported King’s College’s position. The organization has since appealed to a body known as the First-tier Tribunal to try to force the college to disclose more information.

A British government spokesperson told VOA that it is the responsibility of higher education providers to ensure “they have adequate governance and risk management procedures in place, including on the acceptance of donations.”

“We expect the sector to be alert to security risks when collaborating with international partners, conducting appropriate due diligence to comply with legislation and consider risks, including potential threats to freedom of speech and academic freedom,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement Thursday.

The LCI was established in 2011 as part of the School of Global Affairs at King’s College London. The institute has 76 members, including 30 doctoral students and 11 core members. Its projects include several topics that are considered sensitive by the Chinese Communist Party.

Kerry Brown, director of the LCI, received an award from a Chinese government-owned think tank in 2020 for “telling Chinese stories and spreading Chinese voices.”

Brown is a former British diplomat who previously worked for the China Section of his country’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as first secretary of the U.K. Embassy in Beijing. He is a frequent contributor to Chinese state media.

VOA contacted Brown for comment but did not receive a response at time of publication.

However, Brown said in an interview with VOA last year that while there were legitimate security reasons that made the U.K. have reservations about Chinese investment, the U.K.’s options would be greatly reduced if China was rejected altogether.

“You either accept that China poses problems and you try and deal with them, or you accept that you can’t deal with China and you don’t take any of the economic benefits that come from that,” he said. “It’s about the conversation. It’s about embracing how complex this could be.”

In a summary report released in 2020, the LCI thanked Lau for his continued support, noting that the institute works with several institutions around the world, including Transparency International, the World Bank, BHP Billiton and the G20. The LCI has become an important source of information for policymakers and the public to discuss China, the report said.

A spokesperson for King’s College London told VOA that as a matter of policy, all of its institutes operate independently from donors, who have no influence over the focus of any research undertaken by the institutes.

“We are proud of the work of our global institutes in bringing together leading academics to critically examine and deliver country-focused research and expertise that helps shape and inform global understanding,” the spokesperson said.

The close ties between U.K. universities and China have been under the spotlight in recent years, particularly in the economic and educational sectors.

A report by the U.K. Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee last year warned that “China has taken advantage of the policy of successive British governments to boost economic ties between the U.K. and China, which has enabled it to advance its commercial, science and technology, and industrial goals in order to gain a strategic advantage.”

In February, a British government spokesperson told VOA, “We continue to talk to the sector to ensure advice, and measures on tackling security risks in international collaboration remains relevant and proportionate.”

The spokesperson said China was added in May 2023 to a list of countries subject to export controls on certain items with potential military uses.

In April, Oliver Dowden, the U.K. deputy prime minister at the time, said the government would impose stricter oversight of higher education institutions, thereby strengthening protection for sensitive technology and reducing reliance on foreign funding. The move aims to prevent foreign interference in national security, especially from countries that “ignore the rules-based international order.”

Observers said the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act is an important tool for that purpose. However, the Labour Party’s education secretary announced this week that the bill’s implementation would be halted to ensure the “financial stability” of the higher education sector.

Brown said last year that his colleagues at King’s College London were well aware of the problems that arose in their interactions with Chinese students and were not naive. He believes it is important to understand and listen to the voices of Chinese students in the U.K., as they are an important part of the academic community.

At the same time, he stressed that cooperation with China is still necessary, especially in areas such as life sciences and medical research, as these are common global issues.

VOA’s Adrianna Zhang, Yu-wen Cheng and Daniel Schearf contributed to this report.
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washington — A rare visit by the head of the Food and Agricultural Organization to North Korea has drawn criticism from former U.S. officials and humanitarian experts, with some raising the possibility of the U.N. official, a former Chinese official, using his position to serve China’s political interests.

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, currently in his second term and who formerly served as China’s vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs, took a rare trip to Pyongyang, July 13-16, and praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for making “great achievement” in food security and agricultural development, according to a FAO statement.

Qu’s trip was the first by an aid organization since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.

For several decades, North Korea has suffered chronic food shortages exacerbated by recurring famine and floods damaging harvests. A FAO report released in July described North Korea’s food situation as “fragile.”

Hit again by heavy rains that flooded vast farmlands in Sinuiju and Uiju near the Chinese border, Kim “expressed deep concern” at an emergency meeting held to restore the damage after inspecting flood-hit areas, said state-run KCNA on Wednesday.

“The fact that North Korea has suffered periodic famines and for the head of the FAO to praise” the country’s food situation “is beyond ironic,” said Kevin Moley, former U.S. ambassador to the U.S. Mission to the U.N. in Geneva from 2001 to 2006.

“It’s nothing more or less than a political agenda between China and North Korea,” he added.

Other former U.S. officials and analysts said the visit seems to have been made to benefit bilateral interests of Beijing and Pyongyang.

“Qu’s comments were probably an attempt by the DPRK leadership to use the U.N. to tell the world everything is fine” at a time when “we have evidence there was a second famine from 2018 to 2023 that killed tens of thousands or more,” said Andrew Natsios, who served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to 2006.

“The Chinese government is worried of an increase in Russian influence in the DPRK and a decline in [its own] influence. The Russians are providing food to North Korea beginning last year in exchange for the DPRK providing them artillery shells, which the Russians are running out of in the Ukraine war,” added Natsios, the director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University.

North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

China has long been the primary food aid provider to North Korea, and deepening ties between Moscow and Pyongyang since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June is believed to make Beijing nervous about its own influence on North Korea.

VOA contacted the FAO for its comments on the criticism of Qu’s Pyongyang visit but did not receive a reply.

Max-Otto Baumann, a senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, said China might be interested in promoting agricultural productivity in North Korea through the FAO.

He said that could be done “with little transparency and accountability” such as through Qu’s signature Hand-in-Hand Initiative “seen by some FAO insiders and diplomats as a continuation of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.”  

 

The Hand-in-Hand Initiative is aimed at eradicating poverty and ending hunger and malnutrition through data-driven agricultural transformation.

Courtney Fung, a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute, said the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang “sends an implicit message” that China’s leadership role at the FAO can gain access to North Korea “when other leaders cannot or have not, while advancing ostensibly apolitical technical solutions for global governance problems.”

The Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang was the first to release a statement about Qu’s trip there ahead of the FAO.

Qu has been accused of using the FAO as a vehicle to spread China’s influence in countries the agency serves and to fulfill Beijing’s goals in the several occasions in the past.

On the other hand, Jerome Sauvage, the U.N. resident coordinator in North Korea from 2009 to 2013, said, “No FAO director-general has ever been completely protected from the influence of their country of origin.”

Qu’s “connection with China actually facilitates the reentry of one U.N. agency into DPRK,” he added.

Bradley Babson, a former World Bank adviser and a current advisory council member of the Korea Economic Institute of America, said Qu’s trip does not seem to be motivated by China’s political interest but rather by “trying to help North Korea find a better way to feed its people with U.N. support.”
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washington — As thousands of people in Venezuela protested the results of Sunday’s election, many in China were watching and commenting on social media platforms.

While social media are tightly censored in China and most comments echoed support for incumbent Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, videos of the protests spread widely, and some voiced support for the protesters. Others used the opportunity to subtly criticize China’s authoritarian system of government, pointing out the country’s lack of free and open elections.

In posts on Weibo, which is similar to X, the rebukes were not direct but veiled in sarcasm.

One poster said, “I never would have expected that they would hold elections.” To which, another responded, “There are only a handful of countries that don’t have a general election.”

Whole-process democracy

Another post on Weibo asked sarcastically, “Why do they still have elections? They definitely haven’t implemented the whole-process democracy” — a concept first proposed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2019.

In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has justified its rule by claiming that China’s “full-process democracy” is a more comprehensive democratic system than Western democracy.

According to the 2023 Global Democracy Index released by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Venezuela ranked 142nd out of nearly 170 countries and regions. China ranked 148th.

Many netizens also expressed their support for the protesters in Venezuela. 

“You need to fight for and protect your own rights,” said one Weibo comment.

“It’s only a matter of time. The people can’t keep being deceived,” said another.

In the wake of Sunday’s vote, Maduro and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, also known as Edmundo Gonzalez, have both claimed victory.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner with 51% support, awarding him a third six-year term. But Gonzalez said he won more than 70% of the vote. Independent polling agencies also called Maduro’s victory unreliable, and foreign observers have urged election authorities to release a full count.

Governments from Latin American countries, including Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, issued a similar call in a joint statement, saying a transparent vote count was the only way to ensure the results respected the will of Venezuelan voters.

Disinformation spreads

In addition to taking the opportunity to criticize the Chinese government, some on social media spread unsubstantiated allegations that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was secretly involved in the Venezuelan protests.

“Supporters of the US-backed opposition that lost the Venezuelan election are currently launching large-scale violent and vandalizing activities across the country,” one netizen said on Weibo.

Some, however, disagreed with the claim that the U.S. was secretly inciting the incident. 

One Weibo user reacted to the accusation with sarcasm.

“Of course, the CIA is behind this. The Venezuelan people, one or two, hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people, are all puppets. They have no independent will and are all manipulated by the United States,” said one post.

Victory and ‘grave concerns’ 

In addition to the divide over the results online, there was also a sharp contrast in how the United States and China and its state media responded to the election results.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed “grave concerns” about the results and has called for transparency in the vote count.

Xi, however, congratulated Maduro, saying, “China will, as always, firmly support Venezuela’s efforts to safeguard national sovereignty, national dignity and social stability, and firmly support Venezuela’s just cause of opposing external interference.” 

Venezuelans unhappy with Maduro’s victory have taken to the streets across the country, including near the presidential palace in the capital, Caracas. A local monitoring group, the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict, said Monday that it had recorded a total of 187 demonstrations in 20 of the country’s 23 states.

Chinese state media have not covered the protests significantly. The Global Times said Blinken was “changing his face” by going from calling for “respect for the democratic process” before the votes were counted to questioning Maduro’s victory and expressing “grave concern” about the results.

However, when contrasting Blinken’s views before and after the elections, the newspaper only quoted part of the remarks that Blinken made on July 28 before the results were announced. In those remarks and after the vote, his concern was the same.

“The Venezuelan people deserve an election that genuinely reflects their will, free from any manipulation,” Blinken told reporters in Japan. “The international community is going to be watching this very closely. We urge all parties to honor their commitments and to respect the democratic process.”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Tokyo — The United States this week moved to significantly strengthen its alliances in the Indo-Pacific amid a perceived security threat from China, including a major upgrade of the U.S. military command in Japan.

Washington and Tokyo insist the changes are purely defensive, but questions remain about the military readiness of the United States and its allies if conflict erupts.

The United States has around 55,000 troops stationed in Japan, with most of them deployed in the southern Okinawan islands. The Kadena Air Base outside the Okinawan capital, Naha, is America’s largest in the Pacific region.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held so-called “2+2” talks with their Japanese counterparts in Tokyo on Sunday and announced a major shift in defense relations.

“The United States will upgrade the U.S. Forces Japan to a joint force headquarters with expanded missions and operational responsibilities. This will be the most significant change to U.S. Forces Japan since its creation and one of the strongest improvements in our military ties with Japan in 70 years,” Austin told reporters.

“Our decision to move in this direction is not based upon any threat from China. It’s based on our desire and our ability to work closer together and to be more effective,” he said.

The upgraded military command is expected to be led by a three-star general, with the possibility of a four-star general in future leadership.

Analysts said it marked a profound change in the U.S. approach to its forces in Japan.

“That means the Americans are serious. The Americans are really serious about fighting a war [alongside] Japan. Against whom? I don’t know. Whoever wants to change the status quo by force, we may have to fight,” Kunihiko Miyake, president of the Tokyo-based Foreign Policy Institute, told VOA.

The move is designed to complement Japan’s new Joint Operations Command, which is due to launch in March 2025.

Grant Newsham, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, welcomed the change.

“It’s a good first step … toward getting the Americans and the Japanese in a position where they can actually fight together,” he told VOA. “But what remains to be seen — and this is important — is how much authority will it have? What units will be assigned to it? What responsibility will it have in the event of a contingency?”

The U.S. and Japan also agreed to numerous other defense measures, including joint missile development and the possible deployment of American troops alongside Japanese forces in outlying islands.

Discussions also focused on so-called U.S. “extended deterrence” — whether Washington would be willing to use its nuclear weapons to defend Japan.

Japanese capabilities

Tokyo last year announced plans to double its defense spending to 2% of its gross domestic product by 2027.

Newsham said the Japanese military needs huge investment in recruitment, weapons and logistics.

“So, there’s a number of practical things that Japan needs to do to be ready to fight a war. And then you ask yourself, ‘Well, how are you going to actually link up with the Americans to fight? Have you done the necessary planning and training so that you can just fall right in and deal with a real-world contingency?’” he said.

There are fears that such a contingency is dangerously close. The U.S. and Japan on Sunday labeled China the “greatest strategic challenge” facing the region, amid Beijing’s rapid military buildup in the disputed South China Sea and ongoing military exercises around Taiwan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to reunify the island with China, and there is speculation he is planning to do so by force.

‘Lattice’ of alliances

In such a volatile region, U.S. officials say Washington is seeking to interconnect its regional alliances with the United States and each other, creating a “lattice” framework to protect Indo-Pacific security.

There are limits to such cooperation, Miyake said.

“Of course, we cannot have a NATO-type collective alliance system, because we have a different historical background. But what we needed to have is multilayered security arrangements.”

The Philippines is emerging as a key U.S partner in the region. Visiting Manila Tuesday alongside Austin, Blinken announced a $500 million military aid package for Manila, describing it as a “once-in-a-generation investment to help modernize the Filipino armed forces and coast guard.”

The “Quad” grouping of the United States, Japan, India and Australia provides another layer of regional security. Foreign ministers of those nations met in Tokyo on Monday, a day after the U.S.-Japan bilateral meetings, and issued a joint statement calling for a “free and open” Pacific.

The AUKUS alliance between the U.S., Australia and the United Kingdom offers further scope for security coordination in the Indo-Pacific.

But effective military alliances require more than agreements on paper, Newsham said.

“For this so-called latticework of a range of alliances and agreements that the Americans have tried to put together — well, with whom can they do a real-world short notice operation? That means if you had to go out and really do something for real, like fight, who could they do it with? And that is a very, very short list. It’s pretty much got nobody on it, except for the United States Navy and the Japanese navy,” he said.

China checkmated?

Speaking to ABC News on July 6, U.S. President Joe Biden said the network of alliances Washington had built in the Indo-Pacific region were “checkmating” China. Newsham questioned that assertion.

“Look at Chinese operations around Taiwan. These are nonstop, almost every day, and they’re getting closer and closer to Taiwan. They’re surrounding Taiwan. And you might ask the Taiwanese if they think the Chinese are checkmated,” Newsham said.

“Additionally, the Chinese and the Russians are doing more together militarily than they ever have, circumnavigating Japan, getting close to Alaska with nuclear-capable bombers. Well, the Chinese aren’t showing any sign of having been checkmated. Their military buildup continues unabated,” he said.

But the value of U.S. regional alliances — especially that with Japan — shouldn’t be underestimated, said Miyake.

“Allies are the people or the countries who fight for you and bleed for you. Who wants to fight against the Americans for the Chinese? I don’t know. Even the Russians don’t want to do that,” Miyake said.

Beijing denies that it poses a threat to Indo-Pacific security. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson urged the U.S. and Japan to abandon what it called a “Cold War mentality,” adding that the $500 million of U.S. military aid for the Philippines would increase insecurity.

Russia on Wednesday said the U.S. and Japan appeared to be preparing “for a large-scale armed conflict in the Asia-Pacific region.” Russian Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Andrei Nastasin told reporters that Moscow was consulting with China and North Korea on how best to respond.
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New Delhi — As tensions between India and China persist with tens of thousands of soldiers confronting each other along their disputed Himalayan borders for a fifth year, analysts say they see few signs of a reduction in military tensions between the Asian rivals despite calls from both sides to stabilize ties. But trade between the two countries has surged.

“The ground reality is that the Chinese are focusing on building infrastructure in the Himalayas to enhance their conventional deterrence capabilities. They are building roads, bridges and other military-related construction. That is a huge concern for India,” Srikanth Kondapalli, dean of the School of International Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University told VOA.

Ties between the Asian rivals nosedived sharply following a clash in June 2020 between their soldiers. Backed by heavy artillery and fighter jets, an estimated 50,000 troops from each side still remain amassed at hotspots in the Himalayas, where they share a long, poorly demarcated border.

“I have to be honest, our relations with China are not doing very well,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyan Jaishankar told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo on Monday where he was attending a Quad meeting. “They are not good; they are not normal right now.”

Jaishankar’s remarks came days after he met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of a summit meeting of the ASEAN bloc in Laos last week where both sides emphasized the need to normalize ties.

In a statement after the meeting, Wang said that “it is in the interests of both sides to get China-India relations back on track.” Jaishankar spoke of the need to address their bilateral issues “with a sense of purpose and urgency.”

But analysts point out there are no signs of de-escalation along the borders. Although soldiers withdrew from several conflict areas between 2020 and 2022, there has been little progress in resolving their disputes at other friction points that are claimed by both sides.

“We have had 21 meetings between military commanders from the two countries since the clash four years ago to resolve the issue, but progress has been marginal,” Kondapalli pointed out.

Even as the Indian and Chinese Himalayan border continues to be volatile, India’s imports from China have grown steadily despite strict curbs that New Delhi imposed on economic ties with China following the 2020 clash.

India had stepped up scrutiny of Chinese investments, blocked virtually all Chinese visitors, halted major Chinese projects in the country and blocked Chinese apps like TikTok.

Despite those restrictions, Beijing emerged as New Delhi’s top trading partner last year. India’s imports from China stood at more than $100 billion last year. India’s exports to China on the other hand were only $16 billion.

“When India put these curbs in 2020, the government strategy was that we should reduce our import dependence on China,” said Biswajit Dhar, trade analyst and Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development in New Delhi. “But that has not happened, so that strategy has come to grief and now there is a realization that there is no running away from the fact that it is difficult to decouple from China, which remains the world’s largest manufacturer.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has led a push to make India an alternative manufacturing hub to China and companies like Apple have set up production facilities in the country in recent years. But several industries, including new factories coming up in the country remain reliant on imports from China, including machinery needed in manufacturing.

Industry groups have called on the government to relax strict visa curbs on Chinese nationals as they say they need Chinese engineers and technicians to install equipment and train Indian workers. New Delhi is considering speeding up visas for Chinese workers, according to media reports.

However, the government said it will not relax its curbs on Chinese investments after its Economic Survey, which highlights policy initiatives, argued in favor of attracting Chinese funds to address India’s growing trade deficit.

“To boost Indian manufacturing and plug India into the global supply chain, it is inevitable that India plugs itself into China’s supply chain. Whether we do so by relying solely on imports or partially through Chinese investments is a choice that India has to make,” the Economic Survey, released last week, stated.

India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal however told reporters that there will be no rethink on Chinese investments.

While China says the two countries should resume normal exchanges even as they continue discussions on their territorial disputes, India maintains that putting ties back on track will be contingent on resolving the border standoff.

Analysts say New Delhi faces a dilemma. “The question is will India stick to its stand of not normalizing ties until the border issues are settled or whether they will modify their strict economic policy toward China,” according to Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research foundation in New Delhi told VOA. “But there is a growing feeling that we are boxed into a situation which is not comfortable for us.”
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