Cambodia Sunday released opposition leader Kem Sokha from house arrest. He was arrested two years ago and charged with treason.  A court said Sunday that Sokha is now banned from politics and cannot leave the country. Sokha’s release came a day after self-exiled Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy arrived in Malaysia in his attempt to return to Cambodia. Rainsy had promised to return to his homeland from Paris by Saturday, Cambodia’s 66th Independence Day. He said he was coming back to restore democracy in Cambodia. It is not immediately clear if Rainsy will be allowed to enter Cambodia. Sokha and Rainsy are the co-founders of the now-outlawed Cambodia National Rescue Party.  
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A South Korean facility that kidnapped and abused children and the disabled for a generation was also shipping children overseas for adoption, part of a massive profit-seeking enterprise that thrived by exploiting those trapped within its walls, The Associated Press has found.The AP, which previously exposed a government cover-up at Brothers Home and a level of abuse greater than earlier known, has now found that the facility was part of an orphanage pipeline feeding private adoption agencies.Relying on documents obtained from officials and freedom of information requests, the AP uncovered direct evidence that 19 children were adopted out of Brothers and sent abroad, as well as indirect evidence showing at least 51 more adoptions. The adoptions AP found took place between 1979 and 1986.There were probably many more adoptions over the three decades Brothers operated, but the extent will likely never be known. Most documents have been lost, destroyed or withheld by the government and adoption agencies.The AP found one of the adoptees.J. Hwang, who asked to be quoted by the name on her adoption papers because of privacy concerns, was 4 in 1982 when documents say police officers found her on the street and took her to Brothers, a compound in Busan. After her initial adoption fell through, she was sent weeks later to another orphanage and then to her new home in North America.“One of my main questions is wondering if I was supposed to be (at Brothers), or if my parents, my biological parents, are still out there looking for me,” said Hwang, who didn’t know she had been at Brothers. “Why me?”The previous AP investigation uncovered details about Brothers, where from the 1960s to the late 1980s thousands of children and adults that authorities deemed “vagrants” were rounded up and kept. Many were enslaved, raped and even beaten to death.But Brothers was also separating young children for adoption, the AP found. Brothers sent these children to adoption agencies, which placed them with families in the West.During that period, South Korea’s ruling military dictatorships aggressively institutionalized and exported poor children for profit and to clear the streets of those considered socially unacceptable.Adoptive parents were unaware of the horrors happening where their children once lived or that their payments likely helped fund an abusive facility. Biological parents may not have known that their children were at Brothers, let alone sent overseas.FILE – Choi Seung-woo, a victim of Brothers Home, speaks during an interview in front of National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, April 2, 2019.Lee Chae-sik, now 50, worked at the Brothers nursery as a boy. Once a month, for two years in the early 1980s, Lee said he penned letters bound for North America. Each letter was attached to a photo of a foreign couple and another of a Brothers child.Hundreds of times, Lee wrote: “We have received the money and gifts you sent us. Thank you.” The letters addressed the couples as “yangbumo,” which typically means adoptive parents.He said the photos were filed in a folder marked “Holt,” which is also the name of an adoption agency. Dozens of times, he said, the children in the photos would disappear just days after the letters were sent.Lee said he has “no doubt” that Brothers was selling babies.Kim Sang-ha, who spent 12 years at Brothers until 1987, remembers writing similar letters.Park Gyeong-bo, who was at Brothers from 1975 to 1980, said guards would occasionally dress up children for photos that inmates thought were for adoption papers because the children would later disappear.Former inmate Lee Hye-yul said she was 7 when she was told by a Brothers official that she would be sent to a family in Britain. Lee begged and cried for days to have the adoption called off. She was later told that the adoption was canceled but not why.Several former adoption workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of privacy restrictions, agreed that what Lee Chae-sik described likely indicated an international adoption process.Because of the loss of records, there’s no direct evidence to back the claims that adoptions were part of Brothers owner Park In-keun’s money-making operations. But experts say Park wouldn’t have sent children away unless he was getting more money than from keeping them at the compound, where he received government subsidies for each inmate and used inmates for slave labor.Records will never show the real number of adoptions from Brothers, which came as adoption agencies competed for children and falsified the origins of many of them, said Lee Kyung-eun, a legal expert on transnational adoptions.Park died in 2016. The former No. 2 at Brothers, Lim Young Soon, acknowledged that there had been some adoptions, without providing specifics.“The adoptions happened a long time ago, and there’s a limit to what you can find with just the records that remain,” said Seong Chang-hyeon, a Ministry of Health and Welfare official. “We do recognize that the children (at Brothers) were exposed to various kinds of human rights violations.”Holt International spokeswoman Susan Soonkeum Cox told AP that David Kim, a former president of the Oregon-based agency, couldn’t recall specifics but remembers that Holt Korea worked with Brothers. The two agencies separated in the 1970s but maintained a partnership.The AP confirmed five other U.S. agencies took children from Brothers: Children’s Home Society of Minnesota, Dillon International, Children’s Home Society of California, Catholic Social Services and Spence-Chapin. None verified adoptions from Brothers when approached by the AP.Hwang said she never cared about the details of her adoption. But now she’s filled with questions, including, perhaps most importantly, whether her birth family willingly gave her up.“I’m very curious about what the real story is for my first six year’” she said. “I have thought all my life that it was one thing, and now it’s changed.”
 
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Wildfires razing Australia’s drought-stricken east coast have left two people dead and several missing, more than 30 injured and more than 150 homes destroyed, officials said Saturday.Around 1,500 firefighters were battling more than 70 fires across Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, with the most intense in the northeast where flames were fanned by strong winds, Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.A woman who was found Friday unconscious and with serious burns near Glen Innes had died in hospital, he said.Her daughter-in-law Chrystal Harwood identified the victim as 69-year-old grandmother Vivian Chaplain, who was alone in her house in the small community of Wytaliba when it was engulfed in flames.“I was the last one to speak to her. She was in an absolute panic. She said: ‘We’re on fire. There’s fire everywhere. I need the boys here now,’” Harwood told Nine Network television of their final phone call.“Before I even got to tell her to just get out, she’d hung up on me. I couldn’t get back through to her. I tried so many times,” Harwood said. “She was amazing. She was such a strong, loving woman.”On Friday, Harwood made a desperate plea on social media for someone to come to Chaplain’s rescue.“Viv is alone can someone help, anyone please … boys are on the way down if they can get through,” Harwood posted. “The RFS can’t get to her they are trying … the road down is a tunnel of fire.”Firefighters found another body on Saturday in a burned car near Glen Innes, a victim of the same fire, officials said. The local man’s name has not been released.Another seven people have been reported missing in the vicinity of the same fire.Toll expected to climb“We are expecting that number (of missing persons) to climb today,” Fitzsimmons told reporters. “There are really grave concerns that there could be more losses or indeed more fatalities.”More than 30 people including firefighters received medical treatment for burns and one patient had a cardiac arrest, he said.At least 150 homes had been destroyed since Friday, and damage assessment teams had yet to reach some devastated areas, a Rural Fire Service statement said. Residents could not yet return because of the dangers of fire, smoke and loose asbestos in the rubble, the statement said.Smoke haze as a result of bushfires blankets central Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Nov. 9, 2019.Hundreds flee in QueenslandHundreds of people evacuated their homes along a 500-kilometer (310-mile) swathe of the eastern seaboard from the Queensland state border south to Forster.Forster is a town 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Sydney, Australia’s largest city. Many spent the night in evacuation centers while some slept in cars.In Queensland, around 50 wildfires were raging on Saturday. At least one house was lost, a firefighter suffered a broken leg and 6,000 residents were evacuated from three communities in the state’s southeast, Police Inspector Rob Graham said.Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned Australia to expect more bad news from the fire zones.“The devastating and horrific fires that we have seen particularly in New South Wales but also in Queensland have been absolutely chilling,” Morrison told reporters in Sydney.The Insurance Council of Australia declared the wildfire crisis a “catastrophe,” meaning insurance claims will be given priority.’It’s going to be horrific’In the New South Wales town of Taree, more than 300 people evacuated overnight to a social club, including Club Taree’s chief executive Morgan Stewart.“It was pretty scary,” Stewart said. “We’re hearing lots of stories of lost houses, lost property, goods and effects, animals, land. It’s going to be horrific, I think.”Peter Lean spent the night on the roof of his house in the town of Wallabi Point, extinguishing burning embers carried on strong winds.“I’ve never seen the sky so red since 2000,” Lean said. “We’ve got winds blowing, they’re circling, it’s like a cyclone.”The fire danger reached unprecedented levels in New South Wales on Friday, when 17 fires were burning at the most extreme danger rating known as the Emergency Warning Level.“I can only recall a figure of less than 10 that we (previously) got to, which was an extraordinary event in years past,” Fitzsimmons said.“The fact that we have 17 at once yesterday and another nine burning at Watch and Act (Level) is a magnitude that we simply haven’t seen before, commanding so much attention, so much priority, so much competition for resources and need to get to different communities,” he added.Only two fires were burning at the highest danger rating by Saturday.The annual Australian fire season, which peaks during the Southern Hemisphere summer, has started early after an unusually warm and dry winter.
 
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Members of Cambodia’s opposition have spent the past few days crossing Southeast Asia in an attempt to return to Cambodia, a return promised by their exiled leader, Sam Rainsy.Their destination is Poipet, a northwestern border town known for its casinos and a key conduit for trade with Thailand.An uneasy calm will welcome Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) members, if they are able to reach Poipet, where mixed security forces have garrisoned the town in anticipation of Sam Rainsy’s possible return.In Chan Kiri village, But Pov is busy making breakfast for her family: fried chicken and radishes. The mother of two works at a shoe factory across the border in Thailand, along with her husband, Kat Buny, and her son, Ny Bunat.They have decided to take a few days off from work. But Pov said she’s worried there will be unrest in the town, as evidenced by the heightened security presence in Poipet.“Other people are also scared. So am I,” But Pov, 37, said.A banner displaying photos of the 18 senior CNRP leaders wanted for arrest is plastered on a tree in Poipet, Banteay Meanchey province, on Nov 7, 2019. (Sun Narin/VOA Khmer)Fear and anxietyOthers in the town are reluctant to speak, all expressing fear and anxiety over the security measures taken in their town.“People are quiet. No one dares to talk,” said Sar Sarorn, 40, a worker pulling handcarts full of goods from Thailand to Cambodia.Another villager, Mao Mab, 50, said he is very careful of what he says, despite agreeing to speak to VOA Khmer.“I can talk about my business, but not related to politics,” he said.Closer to the border, Ra Chantha sells fruit from a cart and can see police forces deployed nearby. While she needs the money from her daily sales, she has decided to stay away Saturday.“I will stop selling on November 9, since I am afraid,” Ra Chantha, also a mother of two, said. “We don’t know what happens, but there are a lot of forces.”The railway tracks to Thailand have also been barricaded with barbwire, November 7, 2019 (Sun Narin/VOA Khmer)IntimidationEng Chhai Eang, deputy president of the CNRP, said the mixed forces were deployed to threaten and intimidate the party’s supporters.For now, all the political maneuvering is happening overseas. Cambodia is leaning on members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to prevent the opposition from returning to Cambodia, but at the same time saying the government wants to arrest them as fugitives.Human Rights Watch said in a statement issued Thursday that the Cambodian government should permit exiled opposition leaders to return to Cambodia and freely resume political activities.“This is the culmination of three months of aggressive harassment, arrests and attacks on the CNRP and its members, which is really about preventing the restoration of multiparty democracy in Cambodia,” said Brad Adams, the executive director of the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch.Another reason for the heavy security presence, however, could be the increasing political support for the CNRP in the area. Two of the three communes in and around Poipet were won by the opposition in 2017.This is evidenced by some people VOA Khmer spoke to who supported Sam Rainsy’s return, though on peaceful terms.“It is good if they get along with each other, shaking hands,” said grocery seller Ra Chantha.And the factory worker from Chan Kiri village, But Pov, was a little more explicit in her support of the opposition, adding that the aim was to get free and fair elections.“A country can progress only if there is an opposition party,” she said, returning to making breakfast for her children.This article originated in VOA’s Khmer service.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected China’s claim the U.S. and China have agreed to roll back some of the tariffs each side imposed on the other’s goods during their ongoing trade dispute.”They’d like to have a rollback,” Trump said Friday as he spoke with reporters outside the White House. “I haven’t agreed to anything.”U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the news media from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Nov. 8, 2019.Trump’s remarks suggest that much work remains to be done at the bargaining table to end the bitter trade war that has hurt both economies.China’s Commerce Ministry said Thursday the world’s two largest economies have agreed to roll back some of the tariffs each side imposed on the other’s goods during their ongoing trade dispute.Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said at a news briefing if negotiators reach a phase one agreement in trade talks, then both the United States and China should reduce the tariffs by the same amount and at the same time.The overall size of the reductions, Gao said, would be determined as part of the negotiations.China and the United States imposed multiple rounds of tariffs on billions of dollars worth of goods.White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told VOA’s Mandarin Service a phase one deal would address some U.S. complaints with China’s trade policies, including currency manipulation, forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft, but that an overall trade agreement would have to accomplish more.Chinese officials have said China follows market rules.VOA’s Mandarin Service contributed to this report.
 
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Human rights groups, lawyers and former defectors are criticizing South Korea’s decision to return two North Korean fishermen who are suspected of killing 16 of their colleagues and then fleeing to the South.The two men were captured late last week after their squid fishing boat crossed the eastern sea border separating North and South Korea, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry. The two confessed that they and another man killed the captain and then 15 other crew members.South Korea rejected the men’s request for defector status on the grounds they are “heinous criminals” and returned them to North Korea through the Panmunjom border village Thursday.The bizarre incident tests South Korea’s domestic and international legal commitments. The country’s constitution in theory recognizes North Koreans as South Korean nationals, and Seoul usually accepts fleeing North Koreans, pending an investigation into their background. But South Korean law also allows authorities wide latitude to reject incoming North Korean individuals, for instance, on national security grounds.Despite the criminal allegations against the North Korean fishermen, some defector and human rights groups in Seoul say the men deserved the legal protections offered by South Korea, noting it is highly likely they will now be executed without a fair trial.“The two defectors should be handled under the South Korean legal system. We can expect what punishment they will receive in North Korea,” said a statement from Saejowi, a Seoul-based defector support group.FILE – An unidentified North Korean fisherman, center, crosses the borderline at Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, July 14, 2015. South Korea said Tuesday that it had sent back two North Korean fishermen who were rescued earlier this month from South Korean waters.No due processThe Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) also said it was “deeply concerned” about “the first deportation of North Koreans by South Korea since the 1953 Korean War Armistice.”“This is the first time (South Korea) has sent North Koreans back against their will,” said HRNK. “In doing so, South Korea has undermined its national constitution, which recognizes all North Koreans as citizens of South Korea, granting them the right to live in the South and be protected by its legal system.”“As we know from decades of research into how North Korea treats its citizens, there is no doubt that the two deportees have been returned to a place where they face no due process, harsh punishment, torture, and almost-certain execution,” said Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of HRNK.The two Koreas do not have an extradition agreement. While South Korea’s government technically claims judicial authority over the North, South Korean officials say that does not apply to this case.Officials point to Article 9 of South Korea’s North Korean Refugees Protection and Settlement Support Act, which says authorities are not required to extend protection to those who commit “serious crimes such as murder.”Grisly killingsFollowing a three-day investigation, South Korean investigators expressed confidence they have pieced together the details of the grisly slayings.The fishing boat left the North Korean port of Kimchaek on Aug. 15 with a crew of 19, officials say. But late last month, three crew members killed the captain, allegedly because he had treated them harshly.“The young men told investigators they decided to kill the other 15 crewmembers as well because they feared they would be punished for the murder if any witnesses were left alive,” reported South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo.“They called out the others by twos every 40 minutes on the pretext of changing shifts and methodically slaughtered them with a blunt weapon and threw the bodies into the water,” the paper reported.The three men initially tried to return to the same North Korean port, but after one of the men was arrested, the two others fled using the same boat and were subsequently detained by the South Korean navy, according to South Korean officials.Joo Seong-ha, a prominent North Korean defector-turned journalist who lives in Seoul, supports the decision to deport the fishermen.“Crimes against humanity must be punished everywhere,” Joo said in a public Facebook post. “I believe that the agents from NIS and Defense Ministry made a rational decision.”International obligationsBut while it may be difficult to sympathize with those accused of multiple homicides, the decision sets a bad precedent, said Seoul-based human rights lawyer Kim Se-jin, who said South Korea did not live up to its international obligations.Specifically, Kim points out that South Korea is a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture, which prohibits the return or extradition of a person to another state “where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”“We respect the South Korean investigation, but the Convention Against Torture says if the criminal or suspect is expected to be tortured or threatened, then the government should not repatriate,” Kim said. “Even though the facts that constitute the crime are obvious, South Korea should have subjected them to judicial proceedings in South Korea.”“It is de facto truth that the two criminals have a high chance of extrajudicial executions,” she said.Defections slowSince the end of the 1950s Korean War, which ended in a truce and not a peace treaty, around 32,000 North Koreans have fled to the South, most via China.North Korean refugees are first interrogated by South Korean authorities to ensure they are not spies. They are sent to a government-run center to receive training meant to better equip them to live in South Korea.In recent years, the number of North Koreans coming to the South has slowed. In 2018, 1,137 North Koreans entered South Korea. That is down from a peak of 2,914 in 2009.
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Cambodia’s most prominent opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, was stopped from boarding a flight in Paris on Thursday in his attempt to return home to challenge his country’s longtime autocratic leader, but he assured his followers he would go ahead with his plan. 
 
He and fellow leaders of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party had vowed to enter Cambodia from Thailand on Saturday to spark a popular movement to oust Prime Minister Hun Sen from power. When Sam Rainsy tried to take a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok from Paris, where he lives in exile, Thailand’s flag carrier told him they had received from very high up the instruction to not allow me to board,'' he said. 
 
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said Wednesday that Sam Rainsy would not be allowed to enter Thailand because members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — like Thailand and Cambodia — have a policy of not interfering in the affairs of neighboring countries.   FILE - Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen delivers a speech during a ceremony in Kampong Speu province, south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 22, 2019.Hun Sen had declared that Sam Rainsy and his colleagues would be blocked from entering Cambodia and had informed neighboring countries that they were unwelcome. Malaysia also has hindered the free movement of Cambodian opposition politicians, stopping two party members from flying to Thailand and temporarily detaining Cambodia National Rescue Party Vice President Mu Sochua when she arrived late Wednesday night. At Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris, an angry Sam Rainsy told reporters that he wouldn't be cowed by being kept off his flight and said he planned to return via another neighboring country. 'Democracy will be reinstalled'
 Never, never will I abandon. We need to continue. The days of Hun Sen are numbered. Democracy will be reinstalled in the near future. It’s our conviction and our determination,” he said. 
 
Before heading to the airport, Sam Rainsy told The Associated Press that Hun Sen was going all out to block opponents’ return because he was very afraid.'' 
 
He later made an online broadcast on Facebook, where he has almost 4.8 million followers, calling on his compatriots not to be disappointed and remain strong. 
 We will be seeking all the possibilities, all the options, in order to make sure that we are finally able to arrive in Cambodia to push for the regime change plan that our Cambodians are hungry to see,” he said. 
 
Many human rights activists criticized ASEAN countries for attempting to block Sam Rainsy and his colleagues. 
 
What we are seeing now shows that the long arm of Hun Sen's repression is reaching all over Southeast Asia. Members of ASEAN states are now collaborating with Hun Sen in making sure that there is no space for the opposition party and their network to launch any campaign to challenge Hun Sen,'' said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher based in Thailand for the group Human Rights Watch. FILE - Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad participates in an ASEAN-U.N. summit in Nonthaburi, Thailand, Nov. 3, 2019.Malaysia released Mu Sochua and the two other activists on Thursday, even though Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had earlier said Malaysia didn’t want to be used as a base for political activists or interfere in the affairs of other countries. 
 
Mu Sochua said after her release that the Malaysian government demonstrated that it abides by its own laws and makes its own decisions. 
 There is hope. There is no way my spirit can be impacted by such a detention,” she told The Associated Press. We have been struggling for democracy for the past 25 years, and I've also been in prison, in the prison of Mr. Hun Sen.'' 
 
Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International's East and Southeast Asia regional director, said Malaysian authoritieshave ultimately done the right thing — but the three should never have been detained in the first place. Other ASEAN states must follow suit and refuse to collude in Cambodia’s human rights abuses.” Arrests promised
 
Cambodian officials have repeatedly warned that if the opposition leaders make it back, they will be immediately arrested. Most if not all have convictions or charges pending against them in Cambodian courts, including inciting armed rebellion, despite their avowedly nonviolent intentions. 
 
Cambodian courts are widely considered to be under the influence of the government, which employs the law to harass its opponents. 
 
The Cambodian opposition party was dissolved by court order in late 2017, allowing Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party to sweep a 2018 general election. 
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UK police say they have formally identified the 39 people found dead in a container truck in southeastern England and notified their families in the apparent people-smuggling tragedy.The authorities said Thursday they’ve been working with Vietnamese police and the coroner to identify the bodies that were found Oct. 23 in the back of a truck in an industrial park in the English town of Grays.
 
“This is an important step in the investigation and enables us to work with our Vietnamese Police colleagues to support the families of those victims,” Assistant Chief Constable Tim Smith. “It is only right that we provide an opportunity for family members to take in the news confirming the death of their loved ones before releasing any further information.”
 
Police last week said all of the victims were Vietnamese citizens. DNA samples were taken from families in Vietnam who suspected their missing relatives may have been on that truck.
 
British police have charged 25-year-old Maurice Robinson from Northern Ireland with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. They say he drove the cab of the truck to the English port of Purfleet, where it picked up the container, which had arrived by ferry from the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium.
 
Three other people have been released on bail pending further investigation in the case.
 
In Ireland, a 22-year-old man was arrested on a British warrant. Essex Police said they have started extradition proceedings to bring him to the U.K. to face charges of manslaughter in the case.
 
Several other suspects have been arrested in Vietnam
        
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South Korea deported two North Koreans on Thursday after finding they had killed 16 fellow fishermen on a boat and fled to South Korea across the sea border over the weekend.The two North Koreans, both men in their 20s, were found aboard a boat south of the eastern sea border last Saturday, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry. It said a South Korean investigation later found the two had killed 16 colleagues aboard a fishing boat and escaped to South Korea.Details of the alleged onboard killings weren’t immediately known.South Korea has a policy of accepting North Koreans who wants to resettle in the South to avoid political oppressions and economic poverty at home. But a Seoul Unification Ministry spokesman, Lee Sang-min, said South Korea has decided to send the two fishermen back to North Korea because they allegedly committed “grave” crimes and couldn’t be protected by the South Korean government.Lee said South Korea expelled the men to North Korea via an inter-Korean border village on Thursday. He said Seoul on Tuesday had informed Pyongyang of their planned deportations and that North Korea on Wednesday responded it would accept them.Lee said Seoul has determined the two’s acceptance to the South Korean society would threaten its own public safety.
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Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday hailed a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron as giving a boost to multilateralism and free trade, amid ongoing economic tensions with Washington.The two countries also pledged continued support for the Paris Agreement as the U.S. begins its withdrawal from the landmark climate deal.
 
Following a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing, Xi said the two leaders had sent “a strong signal to the world about steadfastly upholding multilateralism and free trade, as well as working together to build open economies.”
 
In his remarks, Macron said China and Europe “share the same feeling that trade war only results in losers.”
 
 “Developing market access and partnerships between our companies is a priority,” Macron said.
 
China and France signed commercial agreements Wednesday with a total value of $15 billion, covering areas including aviation, finance and environmental protection.
 
The French leader’s visit is timed to ease some of the tensions that are stifling global commerce, with the U.S. and China in a bitter fight over tariffs and the EU pressing China to make good on commitments to boost imports of agricultural products and manufactured goods while opening its market for financial products and other services.
 
Macron’s trip provided the occasion for the EU and China to sign a deal to better protect food and alcohol products from copying and counterfeiting. Another agreement is under discussion between Beijing and Brussels to provide a framework for investment.
 
During a joint briefing with Xi, Macron appeared to take a jab at the U.S., which this week began the process of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement.
 
Macron expressed “regret” over “some countries’ negative attitude” toward environmental protection and the fight against climate change, pledging to work with China on halting the loss of biodiversity. The French president’s office also released a statement Wednesday that reaffirmed France and China’s joint support for the “irreversible” Paris Agreement.
 
France and China are “committed to realize unprecedented efforts to ensure the future of the next generations, to intensify international efforts in the fight against climate change and to accelerate the transition toward a green development,” the statement said.
 
On the issue of fundamental freedoms and human rights, Macron said that he and Xi discussed their respective positions. Western leaders have been under pressure to address the five months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
 
At a news conference, Macron said he evoked Hong Kong “several times” with Xi. “I obviously raised our concerns, which are also Europe’s concerns … we called several times on the parties to engage in dialogue, restraint, de-escalation,” he said.
 
Macron also raised European concerns over Chinese tech company Huawei’s involvement in building the next-generation 5G wireless network. Without specifically naming Huawei, the EU warned last month that next-generation telecommunication networks face a range of cyber threats, including from hostile countries.
 
 “I think that Huawei is right to invest in 5G because it’s a technology of the future,” Macron said. “I just say that at some point, on some part of our network, it’s an issue of sovereignty. … So European states must have a say. That’s completely normal.”
 
Earlier this week, Macron visited the commercial hub of Shanghai, where he visited a sprawling import fair and presided at the ribbon cutting for a branch of Paris’ famed Centre Pompidou modern art museum along the Chinese city’s riverfront.
 
Designed by British architect David Chipperfield, the Pompidou Shanghai embodies China’s aspirations to become a center of culture as well as business, although the ruling Communist Party’s strict demands for ideological purity have caused some to question whether it can succeed at such a quest.
 
The Pompidou will assemble items for exhibit at the Shanghai outpost from among its huge collections under a five-year contract.
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There is not often good news coming out of the territorial disputes of the South China Sea, but Vietnam, in its tensions with China, could take solace in recent remarks from some of Washington’s high level emissaries, who have given a boost to the Southeast Asian nation. At the highest level is Michael Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State, who on Thursday expressed remorse at the many ways his nation looked the other way during what he called China’s “hostile” ascendance and “intransigence,” including as it affected Vietnam. His remarks were consistent with the view of observers who believe in hindsight the U.S. made a fatal miscalculation, tolerating China’s human rights abuses because it thought that with a more open economy, China would open up to democratic reforms, too. “We hesitated and did far less than we should have when China threatened its neighbors like Vietnam, and like the Philippines, and when they claimed the entire South China Sea,” Pompeo said in a speech in New York City.These are among the Asian nations that have overlapping claims to the South China Sea, where observers fear physical battles could break out over valuable shipping lanes and oil. Beijing claims about 80 percent of the sea. It is only one of the many instances Pompeo gave of China’s poor conduct that went unopposed. He said the U.S. did not speak up enough after Tiananmen Square, after Taiwan struggled to maintain sovereignty against China, and after China became a World Trade Organization member without playing by fair trade rules.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo chats with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, June 14, 2018.He said “we accommodated and encouraged China’s rise for decades,” even at the expense of democratic values. The remarks were a word of encouragement for Vietnam as it has spent years going back and forth, trying to maintain its maritime sovereignty. Every few months a development big or small affects the political calculation in the South China Sea.Most recently, that development was “Abominable,” a Hollywood movie and an appropriate adjective for Vietnam’s reaction to it. The animated movie includes a map that shows the South China Sea as if it were the territory of Beijing. Vietnam removed the movie from theaters last month. The Philippines soon followed its example. This was a notable decision for Manila because in the past, President Rodrigo Duterte has been more accommodating of Beijing and less interested in prosecuting Philippine claims to the South China Sea. This was also around the same time that Vietnam got a word of support from another official at the U.S. State Department. Assistant Secretary of State in the bureau for East Asian and Pacific affairs David Stilwell said he doesn’t want China to insincerely agree on a code of conduct in the South China Sea, just to “legitimize its egregious behavior and unlawful maritime claims.”“While claiming that they are committed to peaceful diplomacy, the reality is that Chinese leaders – through the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] navy, law enforcement agencies, and maritime militia – continue to intimidate and bully other countries,” he told a Pacific subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October. “Their constant harassment of Vietnamese assets around Vanguard Bank is a case in point.” Nations have tried to negotiate a code of conduct for years. This weekend Thailand hosted a meeting between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. While in Bangkok, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told his counterparts of the need for such a code. He also said neighboring countries should not do anything to further “complicate” the maritime situation. “The leaders emphasized the importance of maintaining a peaceful, secure, stable, free, and safe maritime and aviation environment in the South China Sea,” a summary of the meeting on the Vietnamese government’s official news site said, “refraining from taking actions that complicate the situation.”
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Beijing said Sunday it is “ready to work” with Southeast Asian nations on a code of conduct in the flashpoint South China Sea, where it is accused of bullying fellow claimants and building up military installations.China claims most of the resource-rich waterway, a major global shipping route and long a source of tension among claimants in Southeast Asia.The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been locked in talks for a code of conduct for the sea, where China is accused of deploying warships, arming outposts and ramming fishing vessels.The agreement, set to be finished in 2021, will set out conduct guidelines for the sea along with conflict resolution parameters.On Sunday, China’s premier Li Keqiang said the first reading of the document — a chance for all members to comment on the draft terms — was “a very important landmark.””We stand ready to work with ASEAN countries building on the existing foundation and the basis to strive for new progress” on the guidelines, he said.He added that China wanted to “maintain and uphold long-term peace and stability in the South China Sea.”Tensions have flared in recent weeks between China and Vietnam, one of Beijing’s most vocal critics in the sea.Hanoi hit back at China after it sent a survey ship into waters inside its Exclusive Economic Zone and around islands claimed by both Hanoi and Beijing.The ship left after several weeks in the area.The Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also have overlapping claims with China in the sea.The US has accused China of bullying behavior in the sea, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week America has been too easy on China.”We hesitated and did far less than we should have,” he said, referring to China’s disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines in the sea.
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