The Philippines, an old U.S. ally and more recent friend of China, is awkwardly bouncing one superpower off the other on its way to a neutral foreign policy that will give the Southeast Asian country benefits from both sides, specialists say.Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin told the Philippine-based ANC News Channel last week “we need the U.S. presence” in Asia. That remark follows years of anti-American thundering by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has also sought friendship with China since he took office in 2016.Like Asian neighbors such as Indonesia and Vietnam, the strategically located Philippines intends eventually to keep equal relations with both world powers, analysts believe. Asian countries with a neutral stance often get development aid and investment from China along with military support – to resist China — from the United States.Philippines Reinstates Pact with US MilitaryUS Welcomes the decision on the Visiting Forces AgreementFor that reason, scholars say, officials in Manila make statements that outsiders find conflicting.“It’s something like, when you say something bad against China you have to compensate it,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.“It’s an ongoing show, I would say, so I would have to take [Locsin’s] pronouncements in that bigger context of this balancing game,” he said.The impoverished Philippines sees Beijing as a source of investment and development aid despite a decades-old dispute over sovereignty in the South China Sea. Duterte resents U.S. presence in the country.However, Duterte’s military and much of the Philippine public want the country to keep close ties with the United States, especially as China gets stronger just offshore in waters claimed by Manila. “Duterte may still be extremely popular with Filipinos, but Beijing decidedly is not,” Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a February study. The Philippine defense community remains “extremely worried,” he added.China Launches 4 Missiles into South China SeaU.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper calls out China’s ’rule-breaking,’ and vows to protect Pacific norms   For Washington, the Philippines represents part of a Western Pacific island chain of political allies that work together as needed to stop Chinese maritime expansion. The United States and the Philippines have lived by a mutual defense treaty since 1951. China hopes strong ties with the Philippines will reduce U.S. clout in the South China Sea dispute, where the People’s Liberation Army has a lead over neighboring states. U.S. officials periodically warn Beijing to leave the South China Sea open for international use. Washington doesn’t claim the sea but periodically sends naval ships over to show that the waterway is still open.In 2016, China pledged $24 billion in aid and investment to the Philippines.A neutral foreign policy in the Philippines will come in hot and cold spurts aimed at both superpowers, scholars say. Duterte said in early August, for example, that he would avoid joining military exercises with the United States in the sea that his government disputes with China. In July and August, though, the Philippine navy participated in the multicountry Rim of the Pacific exercises that the U.S. government hosts every two years. Duterte notified Washington in February of his intention to terminate the 21-year-old Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States, a pact that lets U.S. troops fluidly move in and out of the Philippines. Manila suspended that plan in June.The Philippines should eventually formulate a “more dignified” foreign policy so China and the United States know what to expect, said Enrico Cau, Southeast Asia specialist with the Taiwan Strategy Research Association. Manila need not worry about losing the support of either side, he said. China wants stronger relations in Southeast Asia, he said, while the U.S. hopes to keep its military toehold. Neither superpower has cut ties with a smaller country over strong ties with the other.“You take just an equidistant standing, which is constant, and that actually improves relations with everybody – also allows China and the United States to know what to expect,” Cau said.A cementing of foreign policy will wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November, said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Metro Manila-based advocacy group Institute for Political and Electoral Reform. The Philippines is not “moving in either direction” today, he said. Incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up military support for the five Asian governments that oppose Beijing’s expansion in the South China Sea over the past decade. It’s unclear whether challenger Joe Biden would continue that direction.
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At least one person was killed and more than 2,000 people evacuated to temporary shelters in South Korea as a powerful typhoon churned across the peninsula, authorities said Thursday.Typhoon Maysak — named after the Cambodian word for a type of tree — made landfall early Thursday in Busan on the southern coast, knocking down traffic lights and trees and flooding streets.A woman was killed after a strong gust shattered her apartment window in Busan, while a man in his 60s was injured when the wind toppled an outdoor refrigerator, crushing him.More than 2,200 people evacuated to temporary shelters and around 120,000 homes left without power throughout the night across southern parts of the country and on Jeju Island.Maysak was making its way up the eastern side of the peninsula into the Sea of Japan, known as the East Sea in Korea, packing gusts of up to 140 kph.”The typhoon’s influence on our country will gradually weaken,” South Korea’s Meteorological Administration said, forecasting heavy downpours and strong winds in eastern areas.Maysak was forecast to make landfall again in North Korea at around 0300 GMT at Kimchaek, in North Hamgyong province.Natural disasters tend to have a greater impact in the North due to its creaking infrastructure, and the country is vulnerable to flooding as many mountains and hills have long been deforested.Pyongyang’s state media was on high alert, carrying live broadcasts of the situation.”The trait of this typhoon is that it has brought heavy precipitation,” said a news reporter for Korean Central Television in its early morning newscast, standing in an inundated street in the eastern port of Wonsan.”The total precipitation from 21:00 on September 2 to 6:00 on September 3 is 200 millimeters,” he added.Maysak is the second typhoon in a week to hit the peninsula.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week visited a farming region hit by Typhoon Bavi and expressed relief the damage was “smaller than expected.” 
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The Taiwan government released a new design Wednesday for its passport cover, and the island’s popularly known name “Taiwan” is noticeably amplified in a bold font to avoid a connection to China, once the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.  
 
In a reduced size, the island’s official name – “the Republic of China” (R.O.C.) – remains on the cover, which observers say helps de-escalate tensions with China.  
 
The official name, R.O.C., has made it difficult for its people to travel overseas since the start of the pandemic in January, as Taiwanese often are mistaken for Chinese, according to Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu.  
 
The government pushed the legislature to pass a motion in July, requesting that the Cabinet redesign the country’s passport cover and the insignia of China Airlines, Taiwan’s national carrier, to be more Taiwan-centric.
 Taiwan-centric passport  
 
Acting on the legislative motion, Wu said the new design puts Taiwan front and center on the cover while making only minimal changes.
 
“On the passport cover, the word Taiwan is enlarged and placed right above the word passport, which stresses explicitly it’s a Taiwan passport. It’s now crystal clear,” Wu told a press briefing Wednesday to introduce the new design.
 
Another change involves the island’s official name, which is largely downsized on the cover, but printed three times inside the ring circling the national emblem.
 
Taiwan first added its alternative name to the passport cover in 2003 when the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) swept into power, which was widely seen as a part of the party’s hidden agenda to push Taiwan toward de jure independence.Confrontations avoided
 
The re-designed passport cover suggests another step forward, although the DPP government apparently has made concessions by retaining the official name to avoid being engaged in ideological confrontations, said opposition KMT legislator Charles Chen.  Members of the media take photos of paper cut-outs of the old and new (R) Taiwan passport displayed in Taipei, Taiwan, Sept. 2, 2020.“I think the hidden agenda is no more hidden. But this step is rather small, a very tiny step. So, there’s a strong compromise in this design. If it really takes off the term, Republic of China, from the cover, wow, that’s [will be] a significant step,” Chen told VOA by phone.
 
That could provoke China, which sees Taiwan as a renegade province but so far, China’s response toward the new passport design appears to be measured.  DPP’s tricks
 
“Whatever tricks the DPP government is pulling, Taiwan remains an integral part of China – a fact that will never change,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, told a media briefing when asked to respond to Taiwan’s new passport design.
 
Domestically, the KMT’s Chen said the new design only serves the purpose of the DPP government to please its supporters since it won’t affect the way airport customs around the world handle Taiwan’s passport holders.  
 
There had been reports, however, that Taiwanese passport holders were barred from entering countries such as Indonesia, which refused entry of the Chinese people to prevent the spread of COVID-19.  
 
As a result, a poll in March released by the New Power Party (NPP) showed that nearly 75% of Taiwanese supported the idea of removing “Republic of China” from the country’s passports to draw a clear distinction between Taiwanese and Chinese.
 Genuine desire
 
NPP creative media director Jerry Liu said the government’s move to highlight “Taiwan” on the passport cover is positively welcomed, but not enough.
 
“If they just put the ‘Republic of China’ inside the passport, like the very first page of the passport, and on the cover, only show, then it will be just much better. And I’m sure the majority of Taiwanese people will appreciate that way,” Liu told VOA by phone.
 
Liu also urged the government to find ways to modify the island’s national emblem as it bears a striking resemblance to the KMT’s party emblem.
 
According to Liu, the party has kick-started a new passport cover design contest in the past few months. It says it has received more than 120 designs, which show mostly only “Taiwan” and images about Taiwan, such as a butterfly, a Taiwan deer or a Taiwan blue magpie on their proposed passport cover designs.
 
This underscores how much the local people desire to be identified as Taiwanese, instead of Chinese, Liu added.
 
Recent polls show that a record 83% of local people identified themselves as Taiwanese. 
   
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The United States is requiring senior Chinese diplomats to receive prior approval before visiting U.S. university campuses and meeting with local U.S. government officials, citing the need for reciprocity between the two countries.
 
The new measures come as Washington says Chinese authorities have imposed significant restrictions on American diplomats working in China.
 
“The Chinese Communist Party has implemented a system of opaque approval processes designed to prevent American diplomats from conducting regular business, attending events, meetings and connecting with the Chinese people, especially on university campuses and via the press and social media,” said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Wednesday in a press briefing.
 
Cultural events with an audience larger than 50 people hosted by the Chinese Embassy and consular posts outside of mission properties will also require prior approval from the State Department.  
 
The U.S. is also working to ensure all official Chinese Embassy and consular social media accounts are properly identified as Chinese government accounts.   
 
The latest moves come as the U.S. Embassy in China is denied unfettered access to Chinese social media, and as Chinese citizens are blocked from using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
 
Pompeo on Wednesday said the new requirements are “a direct response” to China’s “excessive restraints” already placed on American diplomats, with the goal of providing “further transparency” on the Chinese government’s practices.  
 
“Should the PRC (People’s Republic of China) eliminate the restrictions imposed on U.S. diplomats, we stand ready to reciprocate,” said Pompeo in a statement.
 
The new measures follow an announcement from last October that all Chinese diplomats and Chinese officials traveling to the U.S. on official business would be required to give the State Department advance notice of meetings with local, state and federal officials, as well as educational and research institutions.   
 
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European markets are making major gains Wednesday, while Asian markets rebounded from a sluggish start to finish mostly higher.    The FTSE index in London is up 1.6% in the midday session, while both Paris’s CAC-40 and Frankfurt’s DAX indices are soaring 2.2% higher.   Tokyo’s Nikkei index finished its trading session 0.4% higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed down 0.2%, and Shanghai’s Composite index was 0.1% lower.  The S&P/ASX in Sydney soared 1.8%. Mumbai’s Sensex finished 0.4% higher.  Seoul’s KOSPI index ended 0.6% higher, while the TSEC index in Taipei was down nearly four points, but was virtually unchanged percentage-wise.  In commodities trading, gold is selling at $1,964.30 an ounce, down 0.7%.  U.S. crude oil is trading at $43.02 per barrel, up 0.6%, and Brent crude is trading at $45.90 per barrel, up 0.7%.     All three major U.S. indices are trending positively in futures trading ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street.        
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The Khmer Rouge commander known as ‘Comrade Duch’, Pol Pot’s premier executioner and security chief who oversaw the mass murder of at least 14,000 Cambodians at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, died on Wednesday. He was 77. Kaing Guek Eav or ‘Comrade Duch’ was the first member of the Khmer Rouge leadership to face trial for his role within a regime blamed for at least 1.7 million deaths in the “killing fields” of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Duch died at 00:52 a.m. (1752 GMT on Tuesday) at the Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital in Phnom Penh, Khmer Rouge tribunal spokesman Neth Pheaktra said. He gave no details of the cause, but Duch had been ill in recent years. In 2010, a U.N. tribunal found him guilty of mass murder, torture and crimes against humanity at Tuol Sleng prison, the former Phnom Penh high school which still stands as a memorial to the atrocities committed inside. He was given a life sentence two years later after his appeal that he was just a junior official following orders was rejected. Duch – by the time of his trial a born-again Christian – expressed regret for his crimes. Under Duch’s leadership, detainees at Tuol Sleng prison, codenamed “S-21,” were ordered to suppress cries of agony as Khmer Rouge guards, many of whom were teenagers, sought to extract confessions for non-existent crimes through torture. The guards were instructed to “smash to bits” traitors and counter-revolutionaries. For the Khmer Rouge, that could mean anyone from school teachers to children, to pregnant women and “intellectuals” identified as such for wearing glasses. Beneath Tuol Sleng’s chaotic facade, Duch – himself a former math teacher – had an obsessive eye for detail and kept his school-turned-jail meticulously organized. “Nothing in the former schoolhouse took place without Duch’s approval. His control was total,” wrote photographer and author Nic Dunlop, who found Duch in 1999 hiding near the Thai border, two decades after the Khmer Rouge fell. “Not until you walk through the empty corridors of Tuol Sleng does Stalin’s idiom that one death is a tragedy – a million a statistic, take on a terrifying potency,” Dunlop wrote in his account of Duch and his atrocities, “The Lost Executioner.” At S-21, new prisoners had their mugshots taken. Hundreds are now on display within its crumbling walls. Norng Chan Phal, one of the few people to have survived S-21, was a boy when he and his parents were sent to Duch’s prison and interrogated on suspicion of having links to the Khmer Rouge’s mortal enemy, Vietnam. His parents were tortured and killed but Chan Phal survived to give testimony at Duch’s trial in 2010. “He was cooperative, he spoke to the court frankly. He apologized to all S-21 victims and asked them to open their hearts. He apologized to me too,” Chan Phal told Reuters. “He apologized. But justice is not complete.” 
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The strongest typhoon of the year is on its way to the Korean Peninsula Wednesday after lashing Japan with strong winds and rain.Typhoon Maysak peaked early Tuesday with winds of 233 kilometers per hour, coming within a week of the first major storm and a few days before a third potential typhoon.Maysak, a Category 4 storm on the five-level scale, could affect weather as far away as Canada.Maysak is expected to make landfall Wednesday in South Korea as a Category 1 or Category 2 storm. Prefectures along Japan’s eastern coast were still under weather advisories Tuesday, with some at the southern tip of the island under more serious weather warnings. Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, is predicted to lie in the path of the strongest quadrant of the storm, raising fears of storm surges and flooding, according to the Washington Post. More than 3.4 million people live in Busan.“It is expected that the whole country will be affected by typhoons from the far south of Jeju Island to the day after tomorrow,” tweeted the Korea Meteorological Administration Tuesday. 15시 #태풍’은 매우 강한 태풍으로 일본 오키나와 부근 해상에서 북북동진 중입니다.오늘 늦은밤 제주도남쪽먼바다 시작으로 모레까지 전국이 태풍 영향권에 들 것으로 예상됩니다.전국 매우 강한 바람과 매우 많은 비, 전해상 매우 높은 물결, 일부 해안 폭풍해일 주의!https://t.co/ojZlDteaoipic.twitter.com/e8DBlymVcu— 기상청 (@kma_skylove) September 1, 2020″Very strong winds and very much rain across the country, very high currents, and some coastal storm surges!”This year’s Pacific typhoon season, typically busiest between May and October, has been unusually uneventful thus far.But last week, Typhoon Bavi, weaker than Maysak, dumped significant amounts of rain on the Korean Peninsula, which this year has already experienced one of its longest and wettest monsoon seasons on record.Bavi and Maysak aren’t the end of it. Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island, and both Koreas are bracing for another developing storm system, Tropical Storm Haishen, to hit later this week.Korean weather authorities predicted Tuesday that Haishen could strengthen to a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometers per hour by Saturday.The Japan Meteorological Administration noted Tuesday that sea surface temperatures around the country in August were the highest on average since record-keeping began in 1982, contributing to the unusual number of serious storms in the Western Pacific.【報道発表】（R2.9.1）日本の南を中心に海面水温が平年よりかなり高くなっており、8月の月平均海面水温が解析値のある1982年以降で最も高くなった海域があります。#いのちとくらしをまもる防災減災https://t.co/vZS1J8Zeyppic.twitter.com/7YELkX50Hi— 気象庁 (@JMA_kishou) September 1, 2020Videos on social media showed Maysak whipping sheets of rain and gusts of wind Monday night across Okinawa.Typhoon Maysak last night making its way across parts of Japan!At the time Sustained winds over 150 km/h (95 mph)Permission: Shuji Shinjo | Urasoe , Okinawa, Japan@WeatherBug#TyphoonMaysak#Typhoon#Maysakpic.twitter.com/eIJ7Pu1MeU— Live Storm Chasers (@Livestormchaser) September 1, 2020  
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The Australian government says it has been in contact with an Australian television journalist who has been detained in China since mid-August.
 
The Foreign Ministry said Monday it was notified by Chinese officials on August 14 that Cheng Lei had been detained.  The ministry said it conducted a virtual consular visit last Thursday with Cheng, who is being held at a detention facility.
 
The ministry says it does not know why Cheng is under detention. Australian news outlets say she is being held under a form of detention called “residential surveillance at a designated location” which means she could be held for several months.
 
Cheng anchors a business show on CGTN, the English-language channel of China’s state-owned CCTV, but videos of her work have been removed from the channel’s website and social media.  
 
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne says Canberra will continue to seek information on Cheng’s detention, which comes amid an increasingly bitter rift between the two regional neighbors.  Beijing has imposed heavy tariffs and restrictions on Australian agricultural imports in apparent retaliation for Australia’s push for an independent probe into the origins of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which was first detected last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
 
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After scientists determined that the coronavirus likely spread from an animal to a human, there came a flurry of statements from nations around Asia promising to ban the trafficking of animals. Now there is data to suggest that authorities, at least in Vietnam, are following through with enforcing the bans. Among the cases of trafficked wildlife that was seized in Vietnam, the percent that led to arrests reached 97% in the first half of this year, according to Education for Nature Vietnam, an environmental organization.  From 2015 to 2019, the number had remained steady at around 87%. Scientists believe the pandemic may have begun after human contact with an infected bat or pangolin in China.  Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations act as a frequent conduit for illicit animal products that end up in China. In recent years police have seized pangolins, a scaly mammal that resembles armadillos, as well as endangered turtles, gibbons, and langurs in Vietnam. ‘More serious’“ENV’s prosecution analysis attests to the strength of the current penal code and the elevated efforts of Vietnam’s law enforcement and criminal justice courts to take down wildlife criminals,” Bui Thi Ha, the vice director of Education for Nature Vietnam said, referring to the penal code that was revised in 2018. “Since the new law has been in force, and especially this year in 2020, evidence shows that wildlife trafficking crimes are being taken more seriously in Vietnam.”A view over the Saigon river next to Ho Chi Minh city’s financial district. An expert in illegal wildlife trafficking says many of the people involved in the illicit trade in rhino horn are from this and other Vietnamese cities.Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus, ending wildlife trafficking has become more urgent to stop a potential source of disease, as well as any harm to wildlife, environmentalists say. Facebook has responded by taking down hundreds of posts offering illegal animals and animal parts in Southeast Asia.  In Vietnam, in addition to the increase in the arrest rate, more criminals are going to prison. Among trafficking cases that went to court, the percent that resulted in a prison sentence reached 68% this year, according to data compiled by ENV. That contrasts with 2015 to 2019, when the percentage did not go beyond 49%. Prison Terms “This suggests the courts are taking a much more assertive stance to wipe out wildlife crime in 2020 than in previous years,” ENV said in an analysis of 552 cases in the past five years. It recommended that Vietnam, to fully end the trafficking, next turn its attention to the leaders of the trafficking rings, as well as the state officials who support them. The Southeast Asian nation can also focus enforcement on ports and airports, as well as on the use of money laundering, ENV said. Vietnam says it is taking a “whole of government” approach to enforcement. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc published a directive in July prohibiting the import and sale of wildlife products. The premier’s order assigns a task to each office, from the defense ministry increasing border patrols, to the health ministry checking that pharmacies don’t sell drugs with illegal animal parts. The state prosecutor said in a statement it will enforce the directive by increasing investigations of transnational criminals, as well as impose “severe penalties on masterminds and leaders who abuse positions and powers to commit crimes.” 
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Hong Kong’s booksellers and publishers, long known as champions of freedom of expression in the Chinese territory, are now under greater threat following the new National Security Law enacted in July.Now, booksellers could run afoul of laws that carry strict punishments for vague offenses such as “separating the country” and “subverting state power.”Hillway Press, an independent publishing house in Hong Kong, has been mainly publishing online novels and textbooks. After last year’s anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement, it began publishing books on social issues. The publisher said authorities are looking for an excuse to publicly punish someone as an example to others.”The printing house has received the information that politicians are looking for publishers of political books to kill the chickens to scare the monkeys,” said a Hillway Press executive who requested anonymity and is referred to as Mr. C.He said the chilling effect had appeared long before the adoption of the national security law. The company’s latest publication, “To Freedom,” which included articles about the anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement, was rejected by six printing houses.Bookseller Lam Wing-kee waves to supporters outside his Causeway Bay Books bookstore before taking part in a protest march in Hong Kong, June 18, 2016.The book’s planning and drafting began in April. When the draft was finished at the end of May, China’s Communist Party put the Hong Kong version of the national security law on the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s agenda. A long-term printing house partner of the publishing house suddenly changed its mind and declined to print the book because of the sensitive content. Hillway Press had to have the book printed and bound at different companies so it could be published.”To Freedom” contains many words that criticize the Communist Party of China. To protect interviewees and business partners, the publishing house deleted the sensitive content. “Liberate” has been changed to “free” and “reconstruct.” “Anti-CCP” has been taken out. Paragraphs discussing “Hong Kong independence” have been deleted, and illustrations with the words “Liberate Hong Kong” on the cover have been reduced in transparency.”I am deeply saddened by this self-castration,” said Mr. C. “Under the new legal framework, the publishing industry’s biggest concern is where the red line is.”The blurry legal definition leads to white terror, which leads to fewer social issues that can be explored and, as a result, fewer books that can be published. Mr. C expects Hong Kong’s publishing industry to shrink.”The most frightening thing about the national security law is that there have been no official and clear instructions as to which words and subject matters can be published and which cannot be mentioned. Under such circumstances, we are actually very worried that we will break the law by accident,” he said.On the fourth day of the legislation becoming law, the Hong Kong Public Library immediately took at least nine political books off its shelves, including the works of Chen Yun, a scholar, Joshua Wong, an activist, and Tanya Chan, a Legislative Council member.”All along, what best reflected freedom of speech in Hong Kong is our freedom of the press,” said Mr. C. “For a long time, Hong Kong was a place where a hundred flowers bloomed, a hundred schools of thought contended. The books that are banned in Taiwan and mainland China could be bought in Hong Kong. With the national security law, some subjects can no longer be discussed, and some words will not be able to get published.”A column of books on the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy movement, with a tag which reads “Don’t forget June 4th”, are displayed inside a bookstore in Hong Kong which sells books that banned in mainland China, Nov. 6, 2012.Hong Kong Reader Bookstore is an independent bookstore that sells books on humanities and social sciences, with political books accounting for about 30% of the bookstore’s sales. Daniel Lee, the store’s director, also said the terrible thing about the national security law was the blurring of the redlines.”The usual practice in Hong Kong is that as long as the government does not specify what is illegal, we can do it. However, it has always been the practice in the mainland that you do not know that you have broken the law until the moment you are arrested.”Lee pointed out that there was no clear list of which titles would be officially banned from sale, causing problems for bookstores.”Maybe until one day when the national security police suddenly show up at the bookstore, we won’t know that a book is forbidden. But we will have already broken the law by accident.”Lee said that when he opened the bookstore, he only wanted to promote Hong Kong’s reading culture and never thought that selling books would become a political mission.”We didn’t choose to be on the front line of freedom of speech,” he said. “But in the end, freedom of expression in Hong Kong is endangered, and as bookstores, we have become the reluctant center of this matter.”Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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China is opening another chapter in its bitter trade and diplomatic dispute with Australia with the launch of a second probe into Australia’s wine imports. China’s commerce ministry announced Monday that it will investigate over three-dozen government subsidy programs for the Australian wine industry.  The probe will last one full year. FILE – Bottles of Penfolds Grange wine and other varieties, made by wine maker Penfolds and owned by Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates, at a winery located in the Hunter Valley, Australia, Feb. 14, 2018.Australian Federal Trade Minister Simon Birmingham issued a statement pushing back against Beijing’s claims, saying the government’s research and development programs equate to subsidizing the country’s wine exports. “The government will work with our internationally renowned wine industry to mount the strongest possible case against these claims,” Birmingham said. The new probe comes nearly two weeks after the ministry said it was launching an anti-dumping investigation into Australian wine imports, alleging that winemakers have sharply cut the price of the products they were selling in China, subsequently damaging China’s domestic wine industry. China is the leading market for Australian wine exports with over $790 million in sales last year for a 37% market share, with France a distant second at 27%. The anti-dumping probe is the latest move in China’s apparent retaliation over Australia’s push for an independent probe into the origins of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which was first detected last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. A worker weighs beef products on sale at a food court in Beijing, Aug. 28, 2020. China blocked imports from an Australian beef producer on Friday after reporting a banned drug was found in its meat.Beijing has imposed heavy tariffs on Australian barley and suspended Australian beef imports, and has also advised its citizens and students to reconsider Australia as a destination for travel and education, citing racial discrimination. China is also Australia’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade worth $170 billion last year, according to Reuters.   
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Artificial intelligence that automatically detects threatening behavior at train stations is part of a new trial to improve safety for women traveling at night in Australia.The New South Wales state government says nine out of 10 Australian women have experienced harassment on the street. It asked researchers to submit ideas to improve safety as part of its Safety After Dark Innovation Challenge. Four entries have been chosen and will be tested over the next six months.One group from the University of Wollongong will develop artificial intelligence (A.I.) software that will examine real-time feeds from security cameras and alert an operator when it detects suspicious activity or an unsafe environment.The A.I. will be trained to detect people fighting, agitated behavior, individuals being followed, and arguments. The university team says the software is a world-first, and that they were “pushing the limits of the technology.”Researcher Elizabeth Muscat, who is a transport planner, is also developing algorithms that create safe routes for female travelers.“It will give women the opportunity to make better informed choices on the routes they choose,” Muscat said. “So, maybe they would choose to take a route that offers them a higher level of passive surveillance or, meaning that a lot more people will be around, or businesses will be open, lighting is improved in that location. The end product could be a mobile application where women can on their own mobile phones have an application similar to Google Maps or another route-finding app where they could be able to choose which route they want to take home.”Authorities in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, said the range of technology was “exciting.”Research in 2018 showed that 20% of women in Sydney felt unsafe on public transport.
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