Taipei, Taiwan — Forty-nine lawmakers from 24 countries gathered in Taiwan on Tuesday to discuss how China is raising tensions with the democratically ruled island and to assess the economic impact a potential conflict could have on the international community.  

The two-day summit was organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, a group that includes hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries who are concerned about how democracies deal with China. The conference brought the largest-ever foreign parliamentary delegation to Taiwan.  

In a keynote speech Tuesday, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said China’s threat to any country is a threat to the world.  

“Taiwan will do everything in its power to support the ‘democracy umbrella’ with its democratic partners, so as to protect them from the threat of authoritarian expansion,” he told attending lawmakers.  

The rare meeting that has brought so many lawmakers from across the globe to Taiwan is part of a trend of foreign visits that has surged since former U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in August almost two years ago.  

Despite having its own army, currency and democratic political system of government, Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations and has few formal diplomatic allies. China opposes any international engagement with Taiwan, which it regards as a part of its territory, and has been whittling away at the number of countries that have official ties with the island. Taiwan currently has 12 diplomatic allies.  

In response to the surge in international attention and visits, China has carried out a series of major military exercises around the island over the past two years and almost daily military harassment that has included a mix of fighter jets, naval and coast guard vessels and drones. It has also amped up its rhetoric that unification is inevitable. 

UN Resolution 2758 

At Tuesday’s conference, attending lawmakers adopted a model motion they say will pave the way for them to pass similar resolutions in their parliaments at home. The aim of the motion is to counter China’s interpretation of United Nations Resolution 2758 in their legislatures.  

U.N. Resolution 2758 was passed on Oct. 25, 1971 and is a key international agreement that Beijing uses to isolate Taiwan. Experts note, however, that the resolution only decided that the People’s Republic of China would replace the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. It did not, however, determine Taiwan’s sovereign status.  

While some countries, such as the United States, have rejected China’s claim that the U.N. resolution supports its sovereignty claim over Taiwan, some foreign lawmakers attending the summit say the model resolution adopted by IPAC members could inform governments about the possibility of China using its interpretation of the U.N. resolution as a pretext to launch a potential military attack against Taiwan.

“We see the danger of China’s false interpretation of [the U.N. resolution] as bolstering the pretext for legality of any future attack or coercion against Taiwan, so we think talking about this issue will help bring the potential danger onto the radar of different governments,” Reinhard Butikofer, former chairman of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the People’s Republic of China, told VOA on the sideline of the summit.  

Cost of conflict 

On Tuesday, the summit also focused on the impact a potential conflict over Taiwan could have on countries around the world. Building on a campaign called “Operation Mist” that IPAC launched last September, the alliance hopes to push more governments to conduct assessments of the economic impact of a potential Taiwan Strait crisis on their countries. The Taiwan Strait is the body of water that separates Taiwan and China.  

“There is a strong desire among IPAC members to continue this operation because they believe people in their countries need to know the economic impact of a potential Taiwan Strait crisis,” Luke de Pulford, the executive director of IPAC, told VOA in Taipei.  

Ahead of Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections earlier this year, Bloomberg Economics estimated that a conflict between China and Taiwan would decimate the global economy, costing as much as $10 trillion, which is equal to about 10% of the world’s GDP. 

Pressuring IPAC 

While the IPAC summit sought to raise international awareness of Taiwan’s plight, at least eight lawmakers from six countries, including Bolivia, Slovakia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, said they had received calls or texts from Chinese diplomats urging them not to attend the conference.  

According to an Associated Press report, some lawmakers received texts from Chinese diplomats asking whether they planned to attend IPAC’s annual summit in Taiwan while one lawmaker said Chinese diplomats asked the head of her political party to stop her from participating in the conference.  

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry condemned Beijing’s “despicable act” in a statement while de Pulford of IPAC said the Chinese government’s pressure campaign is simply “illegitimate.”

“The communications were not through formal diplomatic channels, but rather, they were harassing text messages and phone calls from junior Chinese attaches who felt that they could tell these lawmakers where they couldn’t travel to,” he told VOA.   

IPAC has faced repeated pressure from the Chinese government since its founding in 2020. Some members of the group have been sanctioned by the Chinese government while an indictment from the U.S. Justice Department showed that other IPAC members have been targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers.

In response to questions from VOA, the Chinese Embassy in Washington urged foreign lawmakers attending the summit to “stop exploiting the Taiwan question to interfere in China’s internal affairs and political manipulation for selfish gains.”  

“The Taiwan question is one hundred percent China’s internal affair, which no foreign forces have the right to interfere in,” the Chinese Embassy’s spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in a written statement.  

Opportunity for international engagement 

Some experts say that while Taiwan’s attempts to engage with other countries usually face strong opposition from China, the summit is an important diplomatic channel for Taipei. 

“The significance of this meeting is that these are elected lawmakers who are intended to meet, talk, and discuss Taiwan and bring what they learn [in Taipei] back to their parliaments, with the hope of having concrete proposals of what can be done to help mitigate the odds of conflict happening in the Taiwan Strait and the odds of diminishing China’s aggression in this part of the world,” said Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Taiwan University.  

Taiwan should use the summit to highlight the challenges it faces and how the threat from China affects Taiwan’s domestic politics, he added. 

“Taiwan needs to make sure that lawmakers at the summit are aware of what it means for Taiwan to exist in today’s world and what it means to be contested by China,” Nachman told VOA by phone.  

De Pulford from IPAC said he believes the summit in Taiwan could have an impact on how some countries engage with Taiwan.  

“A lot of the people attending the summit have strong relationships with their own governments, so they are able to leverage their own positions to pave the way for precedents such as ministerial meetings between Taiwan and other countries,” he told VOA.  
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TOKYO — Grilled eel, a popular summer delicacy in Japan, is behind a department store food poisoning incident that has left more than 140 people sick and one dead, the store’s president said.

Shinji Kaneko of Keikyu Department Store in Yokohama – about an hour from Tokyo – apologized after the customers, who last week bought lunch boxes containing eel, suffered vomiting and diarrhea.

One of the customers – reportedly a woman in her 90s – died, Shinji Kaneko told reporters on Monday, bowing deeply and offering “our most sincere condolences.”

The products included eel cooked in the traditional “kabayaki” style: skewered, grilled and basted in a sweet, sticky mixture of soy sauce and mirin rice wine.

Consumed worldwide, eel is particularly popular in Asia, and remains found in Japanese tombs show it has been eaten on the archipelago for thousands of years.

A probe by health officials detected a type of bacteria called staphylococcus aureus in the products, Keikyu Department Store said.

“We take what happened very seriously and feel deeply sorry about it. We will fully cooperate with investigations by public health authorities,” Kaneko said. 

Tokyo-based restaurant Isesada, which operates a stand inside the Keikyu department store, was responsible for cooking and directly selling the eel products.
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Taipei, Taiwan — A lengthy trailer for a new Taiwanese TV series about China invading Taiwan is stirring up emotions and debate both on the self-ruled island and among Chinese.  

The show “Zero Day” tells the story of a Chinese anti-submarine aircraft flying into the waters southeast of Taiwan and disappearing in the lead up to Taiwan’s presidential election, giving China an excuse to blockade Taiwan and then launch an invasion. 

The 17-minute trailer released July 23 has racked up more than 800,000 views and depicts increasing tensions with a seven-day countdown before China’s invasion.  It shows psychological and cognitive warfare as Beijing hacks Taiwan’s communications and replaces them with the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda.  

The TV series has 10 episodes of independent stories, has been filming since March, and is expected to be completed by the end of November for broadcast next year.

Hsin-mei Cheng, the production manager of “Zero Day,” tells VOA it’s not just an action show meant to entertain.  She says “Zero Day” aims to raise Taiwanese people’s awareness of the threats already coming from Beijing.

“Our definition of war is information and espionage warfare, the so-called infiltration war. It’s actually talking about red infiltration. Our creators think the war (in the Taiwan Strait) has actually begun, and it exists around our lives in various ways.”

Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.  China steps up military rhetoric, exercises, and monitoring around Taiwan in the lead up to politically sensitive events, such as its presidential elections.  

After watching the trailer, James Liu, a Taipei citizen, had mixed feelings about the extremely pessimistic and tragic situations the show illustrates.

He says a scene where a Taiwanese social media influencer calls for Taiwan to surrender before the invasion rather than fight “their own people” seemed real.  

“People who may not usually think about (China’s infiltration) should start thinking about it,” says Liu, “at least (strengthening) psychological defense or have an understanding of information warfare, which would be helpful.”

Kung-yu Chen, a landscape designer in Taiwan’s central city of Taichung, says the trailer shows what he would expect if war broke out, including the chaos at the grassroots level and some people’s immediate surrender and collaboration.  

He notes many high-ranking officials and influential people in Taiwan have sent their children abroad to study, and wonders if party and government leaders would hold on to the last moment as shown in the trailer if war breaks out. 

“Patriotism may be talked about by people who can’t run away because they can only stay, and only then will they be deified for persisting until the last moment,” he says.  “Those with the ability and dual nationality have run away in advance.”

But the trailer also shows a Taiwanese son choosing to stay and fight as his parents join others in fleeing the island before the invasion.  

Other Taiwanese disagree with how the show’s trailer depicts what would happen if China invaded.  

Chien-yu Chen, a retailer of car accessories in Taiwan’s southwestern coastal city of Tainan, says the possible actions by China against Taiwan were too smooth and there was no counteraction shown from Taipei.

“Whoever chooses to watch the show has already chosen a certain political stance,” he says.  “I don’t think it’s to strengthen (the sense of defense). I think it’s more like a patriotic propaganda show.”

The “Zero Day” trailer also attracted online criticism from the other side of the Taiwan Strait.  

“In the plot, they tried their best to smear the mainland, saying that we deliberately blew up our own anti-submarine aircraft as a reason for going to war,” posted a Chinese military blogger under the name “Foreign Affairs Pioneer Zhang Zhidong.”

Nationalist Chinese commenters said the show was full of people who support Taiwan’s independence and boasted if war really starts, they would not give Taiwan so much time.  

A commenter under the name “boomxwk” from Guangdong posted on social media, “It will take seven days to take over Taiwan and also have the Smurfs (soldiers in blue camouflage uniforms) land on the island? Do you understand the value of drones?”

Despite some Chinese netizens finding ways to watch the trailer inside China, when “Zero Day” is released next year, the show will have to get past China’s internet censorship machine, known as the Great Firewall, to reach a larger Chinese audience.  

Beijing’s censors have an unspoken zero tolerance policy for any content on Taiwan that depicts China as the aggressor.  

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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PHNOM PENH — The wreckage of a Cambodian military helicopter that went missing more than two weeks ago with two pilots aboard was spotted Monday on a mountaintop with no survivors immediately seen, the government and state news agency reports said. 

A Defense Ministry statement posted on its Facebook page said that a search flight spotted the wreckage of the Chinese-made Z-9 helicopter in the heavily forested Cardamom Mountains in the southwestern province of Pursat.

Military recovery personnel have been sent to the crash site, but it will be difficult to reach because it is densely forested and the weather is bad, the ministry said.

The ministry made no mention of bodies or survivors, but the state news agency AKP cited an unnamed senior defense official as saying the body of one of the pilots had been spotted and that the recovery team would search for the other.

The helicopter with two pilots had been on training flight, and was flying in bad weather when air force headquarters lost touch with it on July 12. An intensive search for the missing aircraft was launched a day after the incident happened.

A photo shared widely shared on social media Monday showed a helicopter broken into several pieces partially covered by foliage. The photo and its source could not immediately be verified.

In 2014, another Chinese-made Z-9 helicopter crashed in a pond south of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, killing two generals who headed the air force’s helicopter unit along with two pilots.
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Beijing — Chinese President Xi Jinping called for further cooperation with Italy on Monday at a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, saying the two countries were the ends of the historical Silk Road trade route.

Meloni pulled Italy out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative — whose name refers to the ancient overland trade route — in December, but signed an agreement Sunday that provides a new path for the two countries to cooperate on trade and other issues.

Meloni is on a five-day state visit, her first trip to China as prime minister.

The Belt and Road Initiative, one of Xi’s signature policies, aims to build power and transportation infrastructure around the world in order to stimulate global trade while also deepening China’s ties with other nations.

“China and Italy are located at opposite ends of the ancient Silk Road,” Xi told Meloni, “and the long-standing friendly exchanges between the two countries have made important contributions to the exchange and mutual learning of Eastern and Western civilizations, as well as human development and progress.”

“If countries are inter-connected, they will advance; if they are closed to each other, they will retreat,” said Xi.

Meloni said Italy could play an “important role” in China’s relationship with the European Union and creating balanced trade relationships. The EU imposed provisional tariffs of up to 37.6% on China-made electric vehicles in early July. China’s support for Russia after it invaded Ukraine has further strained relations with the EU.

She also noted China’s role as a diplomatic power on the global stage. “There is growing insecurity at the international level, and I think that China is inevitably a very important interlocutor to deal with all these dynamics,” said Meloni.
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Jakarta, Indonesia — Coal firms in major CO2 emitter Indonesia are overlooking planet-warming methane emissions, obscuring the full environmental impact of their operations, according to a report published Monday.

Methane — which is responsible for about one-third of warming from greenhouse gases — is a key focus for countries wanting to slash emissions quickly and slow climate change. 

London-based energy think tank Ember analyzed the emission profiles of 10 major coal-mining companies in Indonesia, collectively responsible for half of the archipelago’s coal production.

It found that only four of the 10 firms included coal mine methane (CMM) emissions in their emissions inventory, indicating that the environmental impact of coal mining in the country was not being wholly accounted for. 

“Failing to understand or report on these emissions appropriately undermines a company’s overall sustainability reporting. It also overlooks a potentially significant missed opportunity for emissions reduction,” the report said.

The companies’ CMM emissions “could exceed 8 million tones of CO2 equivalent, more than a third of the companies’ potential total emissions”, Ember said in a press release.

The CMM emissions of most major Indonesian coal firms may be “on par or greater than” their total emissions from fossil fuel combustion and purchased electricity, according to the report.

CMM, categorized as fugitive emissions or unintentional releases, refers to the methane released when coal is extracted or topsoil is removed.

Methane remains in the atmosphere for only about a decade, but it has a warming effect 28 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year timescale. Over a 20-year timescale, it has a warming impact around 80 times greater than CO2.

Analysts urged Indonesia’s coal firms to start taking the impact of methane emissions seriously to meet sustainability standards.

“Measuring and reporting methane emissions will be crucial in coal mining decarbonization efforts and ensuring compliance with national and international standards,” Ember analyst Dody Setiawan said.

Indonesia is one of the signatories of the voluntary Global Methane Pledge and Jakarta says it has committed to “take comprehensive domestic actions to achieve the global reduction of methane emissions” by 2030.
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BEIJING — Lawmakers from at least six countries say Chinese diplomats are pressuring them not to attend a China-focused summit in Taiwan, in what they describe as efforts to isolate the self-governed island. 

Politicians in Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and one other Asian country that declined to be named say they are getting texts, calls and urgent requests for meetings that would conflict with their plans to travel to Taipei, the island’s capital. China vehemently defends its claim to Taiwan and views it as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary. 

The summit begins Monday and is being held by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing. IPAC has long faced pressure from the Chinese government: some members have been sanctioned by Beijing, and in 2021 the group was targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed earlier this year. 

But Luke de Pulford, the alliance’s director, says the pressure from Chinese officials the past few days has been unprecedented. During past IPAC meetings in other locations, lawmakers were approached by Chinese diplomats only after they concluded. This year, the first in which IPAC’s annual summit is taking place in Taiwan, there appears to be a coordinated attempt to stop participants from attending. 

The AP spoke to three lawmakers and reviewed texts and emails sent by Chinese diplomats asking whether they were planning to participate in the summit. 

“I’m Wu, from Chinese Embassy,” read a message sent to Antonio Miloshoski, a member of parliament in North Macedonia. “We heard that you got an invitation from IPAC, will you attend the Conference which will be held next week in Taiwan?” 

In some cases, lawmakers described vague inquiries about their plans to travel to Taiwan. In other cases, the contact was more menacing: One lawmaker told The AP that Chinese diplomats messaged the head of her party with a demand to stop her from going. 

“They contacted president of my political party, they ask him to stop me to travel to Taiwan,” said Sanela Klarić, a member of parliament in Bosnia. “He showed me the message from them. He said, ‘I will advise you not to go, but I cannot stop you, it’s something you have to make a decision.’” 

China routinely threatens retaliation against politicians and countries that show support for Taiwan, which has only informal relations with most countries due to Chinese diplomatic pressure. Klarić said the pressure was unpleasant but only steeled her determination to go on the trip. 

“I really am fighting against countries or societies where the tool to manipulate and control peoples is fear,” said Klarić, adding that it reminded her of threats and intimidation she faced while suffering through wars in Bosnia in the 1990s. “I really hate the feeling when somebody is frightening you.” 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

De Pulford called the Chinese government pressure “gross foreign interference.” 

“How would PRC officials feel if we tried to tell them about their travel plans, where they could and could not go?” de Pulford said, using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China. “It’s absolutely outrageous that they think that they can interfere in the travel plans of foreign legislators.” 

Lawmakers from 25 countries are expected to attend this year’s summit and will feature high-level meetings with Taiwanese officials, according to a news release. The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Last week, Beijing criticized Taiwan for its annual Han Kuang military drills, saying that Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party was “carrying out provocations to seek independence.” 

“Any attempt to whip up tensions and use force to seek independence or reject reunification is doomed to failure,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters. 

China has been peeling off the island’s diplomatic allies, often with promises of development aid, in a long-running competition between the two that has swung in Beijing’s favor in recent years. The Pacific Island nation of Nauru switched recognition to Beijing earlier this year, a move that reduced Taiwan’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies to 12. 

But China’s at-times heavy-handed approach has also alienated other countries. 

In 2021, Beijing downgraded relations and blocked imports from Lithuania, a member of both the EU and NATO, after the Baltic nation broke with diplomatic custom by agreeing that a Taiwanese representative office in its capital of Vilnius would bear the name Taiwan instead of Chinese Taipei, which other countries use to avoid offending Beijing.  

The following year, the EU adopted a resolution criticizing Beijing’s behavior toward Taiwan and took action against China at the World Trade Organization over the import restrictions. 

This time, Chinese pressure is also triggering backlash. 

Bolivian Senator Centa Rek said that she submitted a letter of protest after a Chinese diplomat called her and told not to go to Taiwan, saying the island was run by an “imposter president” and that the summit was hosted by an organization “not accepted within the terms of the policy of mainland China.” When Rek refused, the diplomat said he would report her decision to his embassy, which Rek interpreted as a “veiled threat.” 

“I told him that it was an unacceptable intrusion, that I would not accept an order or intrusion from any government,” Rek said. “These were personal decisions and that it seemed to me that he had gone beyond all international political norms.” 

Most of the lawmakers targeted appear to be from smaller countries, which de Pulford, the alliance’s director, said was likely because Beijing “feels that they can get away with it.” But he added that the coercive tactics have only made participants more determined to take part in the summit.
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HONG KONG — Three of the world’s top auction houses are racing to expand in Hong Kong, eager to woo young Asian buyers even as the global art market retreats from pandemic-era highs.

In the span of two months, Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams will each see the culmination of yearslong efforts to upgrade their regional headquarters in the southern Chinese city.

Sotheby’s on Thursday unveiled showrooms at an upscale mall in Hong Kong’s finance district, a two-story space previously occupied by fashion label Giorgio Armani.

“We envision for this state-of-the-art space in Hong Kong to be the epicenter of culture for global visitors,” managing director of Asia Nathan Drahi said at the opening.

“We are very confident in the prospect of Hong Kong because it possesses some strong fundamentals for our industry,” he told AFP, pointing to the favorable tax framework.

Nearby, Christie’s is gearing up for a September opening at a new skyscraper designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, with its total floor space doubling to 4,600 square meters.

“Asia has been the pillar of the company,” said Francis Belin, president of Christie’s Asia Pacific.

“But we didn’t have the physical tool, the infrastructure … to actually be at the level of our ambitions.”

The firms are “putting their bets down and saying Hong Kong is the center for Asia,” according to art adviser Patti Wong — but she said the expansions come with risk.

‘An ideal base’

Hong Kong’s biggest auctions of the year are held every spring and autumn at the city’s convention and exhibition center — an intense four months that build hype and draw visitors.

With new in-house venues, events will be more spread out.

“This is a big test for Hong Kong and whether we can develop into a more mature auction market [with] visitors throughout the year,” Wong said.

Global art sales have slowed since Christie’s and Sotheby’s first announced their Hong Kong expansion plans in the heady days of 2021 and 2022.

This year, Christie’s reported $2.1 billion in sales in the first six months — the second consecutive year of decline — down from its 2022 peak of $4.1 billion.

Wendy Goldsmith, a London-based art adviser and former Christie’s auctioneer, cited China’s real estate crisis as a major factor.

“[Asian collectors] are currently taking a bit of a breath buyingwise but the interest and appetite to collect is still there,” Goldsmith told AFP.

“Auction houses know that they’ll be back … and probably stronger than ever.”

Bonhams, which will move to a 1,765-square-meter location at a new office building in September, said it found success targeting transactions under 10 million Hong Kong dollars ($1.3 million).

“This segment has proven resilient despite broader economic uncertainties and represents a huge opportunity in Asia,” said Julia Hu, Bonhams’ managing director for Asia.

Hong Kong remained “an ideal base for tapping into other major Asian cities,” Hu added, citing its strategic location, efficient logistics, collector base, and tax and legal frameworks.

Young buyers

New York-based Phillips, another auction house, opened its regional headquarters next to Hong Kong’s museum of visual culture in 2023.

The companies are unfazed by Hong Kong’s political environment, even as critics say a crackdown by Beijing has chilled artistic freedoms, said cultural policy scholar Patrick Mok.

“The companies that operate in Hong Kong’s art market are rather apolitical … they know those [political] works can’t fetch good prices here,” Mok said.

Auction houses are now competing for younger buyers and embracing online bidding — a shift accelerated by the pandemic.

Christie’s said 29% of buyers in the first half of 2024 were millennials or Gen Z.

“Auction houses turned on a dime during COVID … [They] are marketing machines now,” said Goldsmith, adding that auctions have been spiced up to resemble Hollywood productions.

“[They] are more than willing to provide these events, lectures, dinners, viewings … all to conjure up the next bid.”

The opportunity — and challenge — of the Hong Kong venues will be to bring internet-native buyers into the real world.

But Hu from Bonhams was confident, saying that showroom auctions are irreplaceable.

“Our clients still crave the sheer thrill and excitement of being physically present,” she said. 
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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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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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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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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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