China’s likely acquisition of two new diplomatic allies in the South Pacific advances its growing global economic effort – warily watched by the West – to offer infrastructure aid to other countries in return for natural resources.Kiribati and the Solomon Islands both broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan last week on their way to recognizing instead Taiwan’s political rival China. China will probably pump development aid into the two tiny archipelagic nations to help their infrastructure and expect in return access to fisheries and possible undersea fossil fuels, analysts and government officials say.China is doing the same in much of Asia already, a program it calls the Belt and Road Initiative.The South Pacific, a series of archipelagos far from the world’s major population centers, needs an outside source of infrastructure for economic development. Western ally Australia has traditionally helped but due to its small size can’t offer what China can, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate politics and international studies professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.“There’s a Pacific Belt and Road initiative and the idea is you provide some infrastructure and connectivity projects to different countries, and that’s a way to bring them into your economic sphere of influence,” Nagy said.China in turn gets more access to some of the world’s best fisheries and possible reserves of oil or gas, he said. The western and central Pacific produce more than half the world’s tuna.Global Belt and RoadChina started its primary Belt and Road initiative in 2013 around Eurasia. It helps often less developed countries with loans and labor to build ports, airports and roads. In return for the roughly $1 trillion invested there to date, China expects to open new trade routes and give its companies, constrained at home, new markets.Beijing officials hope to “brand” the Belt and Road as a global initiative by extending it to the South Pacific, business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates says.The Pacific faces “some of the most difficult development conditions in the world and has huge financing needs, especially due to the effects of climate change,” the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Australia said in an article published last year. Australia kicked off in July an infrastructure financing mechanism that will give Pacific nations about $1 billion in loans and $340 million in grants.Australia, New Zealand and Japan – which is also seeking stronger world influence –hope to resist China’s political influence and natural resource access, Nagy said. Australia and the United States should “seek enhanced coordination” and “commit robust aid packages” as countermeasures, said Fabrizio Bozzato, a Taiwan Strategy Research Association fellow who specializes in the Pacific.Cases of Kiribati, Solomon IslandsIn Kiribati, a nation of just 116,000 people and at risk of losing land mass to rising sea levels, China had been talking to President Taneti Mamau and members of his party since at least 2016 about development aid, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said.“Recently, the Chinese government has taken advantage of fisheries and other commercial investments to establish a presence in Kiribati, penetrating political circles and extending its influence,” Wu told a news conference Friday in Taipei.The prime minister of the Solomon Islands said his country dropped Taiwan for China earlier in the week to “engage at the international level with development partners capable of advancing our national interests.”About one in eight of Solomon citizens lives below the national poverty line, the Asian Development Bank says. The group of 300 islands with a 611,000 population faced with a shortage of jobs aims to build a food processing industrial plant among other upgrades.China’s larger budget and lack of a democratic approval process usually make it easier to give more development aid than Taiwan can offer.Political mileage China may see increased influence over the South Pacific as a way not only to squelch Taiwan but also to resist the U.S.-led Indo Pacific strategy – part of which means bringing Western allies together to contain China’s maritime expansion in Asia.China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and asks that other countries avoid diplomatic relations with it. Beijing has not dropped the threat of force, if needed, to bring Taiwan under its flag.“You could of course explain this as something that’s good for China’s interests but you definitely can’t rule out that it’s a so-called counter strategy to the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy,” said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
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Category: East
East news. East is the direction toward which the Earth rotates about its axis, and therefore the general direction from which the Sun appears to rise. The practice of praying towards the East is older than Christianity, but has been adopted by this religion as the Orient was thought of as containing mankind’s original home
YouTube ‘Milestone’ Highlights Vietnam Growth and Growing Pains
The Vietnamese comedy channel FAP TV has become the first YouTube account to hit the 10 million subscribers mark in the Southeast Asian country of nearly 100 million people, according to an announcement on Thursday from the Asia Pacific office of Google, which owns YouTube.Vietnam has been one of the fastest growing markets for the video site, especially after Google invested in computer servers in the country, which have sped up streaming and download times. YouTube has also invested heavily in Vietnamese language content and advertising. But the process has come with growing pains, too, most notably in the realms of taxes and censorship. The site has blocked videos with content critical of the government. While these actions are taken following requests from the state, YouTube says it follows the same protocol around the world when it gets requests from governments to take down clips. Videos have been blocked in countries from Algeria to Germany, with reasons cited ranging from hate speech to terrorism.In its transparency report for Vietnam Google notes that it received a request from the Vietnamese government to remove 28 YouTube videos inciting violent protests during the Vietnamese Independence Day period (Vietnam’s Independence Day is September 2). Google says it removed 12 videos for violating YouTube Community Guidelines that prohibit publishing instructions to commit violent acts. It restricted access to 4 other videos in Vietnam. The company did not remove the remaining 12 videos.YouTube promoted its brand in Ho Chi Minh City with a panel with Vietnamese users.Google also appears to be complying with a new cyber security law in Vietnam, which requires foreign companies to set up representative offices inside the country. Some have speculated that one of the factors motivating the law is to ensure that multinational companies do not evade taxes.Vietnam has been trying to collect taxes from both Google and YouTube, as well as other foreign tech companies that make profits from Vietnamese customers while declaring their profits to tax authorities in other countries with lower tax rates like Singapore. In contrast to a bricks and mortar store that sells bicycles, which are simple to tax, foreign tech companies tend to sell intangible services, like advertising attached to YouTube videos, which are harder to tax. “Aside from the matter of studying amendments to laws and regulations of tax administration, cooperation is needed between state agencies and industry,” Luu Duc Huy, head of the policy department at the Vietnamese General Department of Tax, told the government TV station, V News. “Second, cooperation is needed between the Vietnamese tax agency and other countries’ tax agencies.”Google has said repeatedly that it follows all laws in the countries where it operates. It is not just Vietnam. Most countries from Thailand to France are trying to figure out how to collect taxes on YouTube and other businesses that physically operate beyond their borders but make money from citizens within the borders. As Huy noted, the solution is likely to derive from these multiple tax authorities coming together, as is now being proposed by the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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4 Chinese Tourists Killed in Utah Bus Accident Identified
Authorities on Saturday identified the four Chinese tourists killed in a bus crash in southern Utah, and the tour group is dispatching employees from China to help those injured.Three women and one man perished in the crash on a highway running through the red-rock landscape of southern Utah on Friday. The victims have been identified as Ling Geng, 68, Xiuyun Chen, 67, Zhang Caiyu, 62, and Zhongliang Qiu, 65. They were all from Shanghai, China.They were part of a tour group made up of 29 tourists and one leader. They come from Shanghai and the nearby provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Heilongjiang, according to a news report on the media website huanqiu.com. The tour leader came from Hebei Province, near Beijing, according to the Zhejiang Online news site.Five passengers remained in critical condition Friday night, and the death toll could rise, Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Nick Street said.All 31 people on board were hurt. Twelve to 15 on board were considered to be in critical condition shortly after the crash, but several of them have since improved, Street said. Not everyone was wearing a seatbelt, as is common in tour buses, he said.The Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism urged the travel agency, Shanghai Zhuyuan International Travel Agency, to spare no effort in rescuing the injured and properly handle the follow-up matters.Phone calls to the travel agency rang unanswered Sunday morning. Lu Yong, the travel agency’s general manager, told a Chinese TV program that the agency’s American partners sent 10 staff members to hospitals to help the victims communicate with doctors and police.The News Perspective program, part of the Shanghai Media Group, said in an article on its official social media account that seven relatives of the victims were expected to leave for the United States on Monday or Tuesday with travel agency staff and officials from the culture and tourism bureau.The news program’s social media post included photos of parts of the itinerary, indicating the accident occurred on the seventh day of a 16-day trip and also included visits to Yellowstone National Park, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. They were to fly to the East Coast after the western U.S. stops.The crash happened near a highway rest stop a few miles from southern Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park, an otherworldly landscape of narrow red-rock spires.Authorities believe the driver swerved on the way to the park on Friday morning. But when he yanked the steering wheel to put the bus back onto the road, the momentum sent the bus into a rollover crash, authorities said.The driver, an American citizen, survived and was talking with investigators, Street said. He didn’t appear to be intoxicated, but authorities were still investigating his condition as well as any possible mechanical problems, he said.There was some wind, but it was not strong enough to cause problems, Street said.The crash left the top of a white bus smashed in and one side peeling away as the vehicle came to rest mostly off the side of the road against a sign for restrooms.The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to investigate. The agency was scheduled to speak about the investigation Sunday afternoon.The company listed on the bus was America Shengjia Inc. Utah business records indicate it is based in Monterey Park, California. A woman answering the phone there did not have immediate comment.Intermountain Garfield Memorial Hospital said it received 17 patients, including three in critical condition and 11 in serious condition. Patients also were taken to Cedar City and St. George hospitals.Millions of people visit Utah’s five national parks every year. Last year, about 87,000 people from China visited the state, making them the fastest-growing group of Utah tourists, according to state data.More than half of visitors from China travel on tour buses, said Vicki Varela, managing director of Utah Office of Tourism.The Chinese Embassy tweeted that it was saddened to hear about the crash and that it was sending staff to help the victims.Bryce Canyon, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City, draws more than 2 million visitors a year.“You have a group from China who have worked hard to come to the states, got the visa and everything they needed, excited about it, and for a tragedy like this to happen it just makes it all the more tragic,” Street said.
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Hong Kong Protesters Vandalize Subway Station, Deface Chinese Flag
Protesters on Hong Kong vandalized a subway station and defaced a Chinese flag Sunday during another weekend of pro-democracy demonstrations.Thousands also rallied inside a shopping mall in Sha Tin. Protesters later built a barricade across the street and set it on fire.Riot police fired tear gas to disperse some of the protesters.Riot police patrol inside Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong, Sept. 22, 2019.Meanwhile, Hong Kong has cut back rail and bus access to its airport in a move designed to avoid an anti-government protests at one of the busiest airport hubs in the world.”There are calls online for using fake boarding passes, fake air tickets or fake flight booking information to enter the terminal buildings…the Airport Authority reminds that such behavior could amount to forgery or using false instrument,” the authority said in a statement warning demonstrators to stay away.Damaged ticket machines are seen inside Sha Tin MTR station after an anti-government rally at New Town Plaza at Sha Tin, Hong Kong, Sept. 22, 2019On Saturday, police fired tear gas at demonstrators who vandalized a light rail station.A proposed bill that would have allowed some Hong Kong criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial sparked the months-long, anti-government demonstrations. The extradition legislation has been withdrawn, but the demonstrations continue.Dissenters have since broadened their demands for the direct election of their leaders and police accountability.More than 1,300 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began in early June.
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Hong Kong Police Move to Curb Airport Protests After Night of Violence
Hong Kong riot police took up position at the main rail station serving the airport Sunday to prevent a new anti-government protest targeting air travel after a night of violent street clashes in the Chinese-ruled territory.Protesters have targeted the airport before, occupying the arrivals hall, blocking approach roads and setting street fires in the nearby town of Tung Chung, and trashing its subway station. The Airport Express train, which takes passengers under the harbor and across a series of bridges to the airport, built on reclaimed land around an outlying island, will only allow passengers to board in downtown Hong Kong Sunday, not on the Kowloon Peninsula, the Airport Authority said.And only people holding flight tickets were allowed to enter the terminal. Bus services were also affected.Pro-democracy protesters demonstrate in a shopping mall in the district of Yuen Long to mark the two-month anniversary of the triad attack that took place in the Yuen Long train station, in Hong Kong, Sept. 21, 2019.“There are calls online for using fake boarding passes, fake air tickets or fake flight booking information to enter the terminal buildings. … The Airport Authority reminds that such behavior could amount to forgery or using false instrument,” it said in a statement.One man, a 73-year-old retiree from Canada traveling to Hong Kong, said he had no problem with the protests if they were “legal and peaceful.”“They are just trying to voice their demands. As a civilized resident I think these demands are legitimate,” the man, who asked to be identified only as Chow, told Reuters.Australian traveler Jody Paul, 55, who spent a week on holiday in the former British colony, said the protests hadn’t affected her trip.“It was lovely — we didn’t see any of the protesters or any of the action. I was hoping for a glimpse.”Headache for BeijingThe violence has hit pockets of Hong Kong at different times over more than three months, allowing life to go on as normal for the vast majority most of the time.But pictures of petrol bombs and street clashes broadcast worldwide present a huge headache for Beijing just days ahead of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on Oct. 1.Women react after tear gas was fired by the police near Yuen Long station, in Hong Kong, Sept. 21, 2019.The Hong Kong government has called off a big fireworks display to mark the day in case of further clashes. China, which has a People’s Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong, has said it has faith in Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to solve the crisis.Police fired tear gas to disperse pro-democracy protesters who threw petrol bombs in two new towns Saturday after pro-China groups pulled down some of the “Lennon Walls” of anti-government messages. There were violent clashes elsewhere in the city.Police condemned the violence and said there had been many serious injuries in fights between people of “different views.”“They threw petrol bombs at police vehicles and police officers, and even attempted to snatch the revolver of a police officer,” police said in a statement Sunday.Pro-democracy protestsThe protests picked up in June over legislation, now withdrawn, that would have allowed suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial. Demands have since broadened into calls for universal suffrage.The protesters are angry about what they see as creeping Chinese interference in the former British colony, which returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula intended to guarantee freedoms that are not enjoyed on the mainland.China says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” arrangement and denies meddling. It has accused foreign governments including the United States and Britain of inciting the unrest.
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In Cambodia, It’s a Bad Year for Dengue Fever
Amir Khasru of the VOA Bangla Service contributed to this report.KRAYEA COMMUNE, KAMPONG THOM PROVINCE, CAMBODIA — The babies are crying, coughing as they vomit.Each parent holds one of the 8-month-old twins. Their daughters tested positive for the potentially lethal and almost always painful dengue fever.Lang Chanthoeun says she doesn’t have money yet to get treatment for Pheak Sonisa and Pheak Somatha. “I tried to borrow money from relatives but they didn’t have any,” she said.“Last night, I couldn’t sleep,” said the 35-year-old mother of six who lives in a poor rural area of Cambodia’s Kampong Thom province on the central lowlands of the Mekong River. The local rubber plantations in the province’s Santuk district shelter mosquitos, making it a center of this year’s dengue outbreak.The government should consider providing a treatment center in the province so villagers don’t need to travel, said Meas Nee who holds a doctorate in sociology and international social work from Australia’s La Trobe University.According to a 2008 article in the International Journal for Equity in Health, “High rates of hospitalization and mortality from dengue fever among infants and children reflect the difficulties that women continue to face in finding sufficient cash in cases of medical emergency, resulting in delays in diagnosis and treatment.”“Regardless of whether they used a public or private facility, villagers reported spending on average US$34.50 and up to US$150 for a single episode of dengue,” wrote Sokrin Khun and Lenore Manderson in their article, Some villagers look after children who have been diagnosed with dengue fever at a private health clinic in the village, June 2019. (Sun Narin/VOA Khmer)In Kampong Thom province’s Krayea commune, many babies and young children have received dengue treatment in local private clinics and from state-run hospitals in the province. A few of them have been treated at the reputable A villager drives a tractor past a private health clinic in Kampong Thom province’s Krayea commune, where children diagnosed with dengue fever stay for treatment, June 2019. (Sun Narin/VOA Khmer)Since 2006, the Cambodian government has run a program offering free health care at public facilities. Those who are eligible receive Equity Cards, known colloquially, and predictably, as “poverty cards,” which must be presented to tap into benefits.But more than a decade after the program began with help from the German and Australian governments, many people remain frustrated and confused about the criteria used to allocate the cards and the benefits bestowed on their holders.Neither Pin Roeun nor Chun Mom are in the program. That means they don’t have the card for the poorest of the poor.Lang Chanthoeun said she qualified for the program but has yet to receive a card.Srey Sin, who heads the Kampong Thom province department of health, said more than three times as many people have shown up at local hospitals for dengue fever treatment in 2019 compared with last year.“We treat them for free if they have the poverty card,” he said. “Our staffs have tried their best to treat them even though there are a lot of people.”Lang Chanthoeun’s husband took the twins to a state-run hospital in the province after they were diagnosed with dengue at the local clinic.Hak Sopheak, 37, said he spent $25 each for treatment of Pheak Sonisa and Pheak Somatha but wasn’t pleased.“It took my daughters getting worse for the medical staff to get them treatment,” he said. “Before that, they did not receive good care.”
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Solomons Recognized Beijing in Latest Diplomatic Blow to Taiwan
The Solomon Islands announced Saturday the establishment of diplomatic relations with China, becoming the second Pacific island nation in as many days to switch its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan.The moves are part of a long-term effort by Beijing to undermine Taiwan’s recognition as an independent nation and come as a blow to its president, Tsai Ing-wen, who is seeking re-election in January. Both Beijing and Taipei claim to be the rightful government of China.The Solomon Islands’ move had been expected after it severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan on Monday. The island nation of Kiribati announced on Friday that it was switching its recognition to China “in accordance with the best national interest for our country and people.”The Solomons’ foreign minister also cited the national interest in announcing his country’s decision, saying the Solomons has “huge” development needs and that “we need a broader partnership with countries that also includes China.”Both Beijing and Taipei have used development assistance to woo the support of small nations. The latest moves leave Taiwan with little more than a dozen countries plus the Vatican that recognize its independence.
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Hong Kong Protesters Burn Flag, Police Fire Pepper Spray
Protesters burned a Chinese flag and police fired pepper spray during a march Saturday in an outlying district of Hong Kong in renewed clashes over anti-government grievances.
Police accused protesters of spraying water at officers during the march by several thousand people in Tuen Mun in Hong Kong’s northwest. Reporters saw at least one person arrested.
The event was relatively small compared with previous demonstrations that have taken place every weekend since June. The protests started with opposition to a proposed extradition law and have expanded to include demands for greater democracy in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
The events are an embarrassment for China’s ruling Communist Party ahead of Oct. 1 celebrations of its 70th anniversary in power. Hong Kong’s government has announced it has canceled a fireworks display that day, citing concern for public safety.
Protesters in Tuen Mun marched about 2 kilometers (1 1/2 miles) from a playground to a government office building. Many were dressed in black and carried umbrellas, a symbol of their movement.
Protesters chanted, “Reclaim Hong Kong!” and “Revolution of our times!”
Most were peaceful but some took down a Chinese flag outside a government office and set fire to it. Government broadcaster RTHK said some damaged fire hoses in the Tuen Mun light rail station.
Organizers announced the event, due to last two hours, was ending after one hour due to the chaotic scene at the station.
An organizer quoted by RTHK, Michael Mo, complained that police escalated tensions by sending armed anti-riot officers.
That will “only escalate tension between protesters and police,” Mo was quoted as saying.
Elsewhere, scuffles were reported as government supporters heeded a call by a pro-Beijing member of the Hong Kong legislature to tear down protest posters at subway stations.
Hong Kong’s leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, has agreed to withdraw the extradition bill. But protesters are pressing other demands, including an independent investigation of complaints about police violence during earlier demonstrations.
Protesters complain Beijing and Lam’s government are eroding the “high degree of autonomy” and Western-style civil liberties promised to the former British colony when it was returned to China in 1997.
The protests have begun to weigh on Hong Kong’s economy, which already was slowing due to cooling global consumer demand. The Hong Kong airport said passenger traffic fell in August and business is off at hotels and retailers.
Police refused permission for Saturday’s march but an appeal tribunal overturned that decision. The panel on Friday gave permission for a two-hour event that it said had to end at 5 p.m.
Protesters in Tuen Mun also complained about a group of women from mainland China who sing in a local park. Residents say they are too loud and accuse some of asking for money or engaging in prostitution.
Those complaints prompted a similar march in July.
Also Saturday, there were brief scuffles as government supporters tore down protest posters at several subway stops, according to RTHK.
The campaign to tear down protest materials was initiated by a pro-Beijing member of Hong Kong’s legislature, Junius Ho.
Near the subway station in the Tsuen Wan neighborhood, a woman who was tearing down posters threw a bag at a reporter and a man shoved a cameraman, RTHK reported. It said there was pushing and shoving between the two sides at stations in Yuen Long and Lok Fu.
Ho made an appearance in the Shau Kei Wan neighborhood but residents shouted at him and told him to leave, RTHK said.
Ho initially called for protest signs to be torn down in all 18 of Hong Kong’s districts but he said Friday that would be reduced to clearing up trash from streets due to “safety concerns.”
On Wednesday, the Hong Kong Jockey Club canceled a horse race after protesters suggested targeting the club because a horse owned by Ho was due to run.
Later Saturday, some protesters planned to go to another district, Yuen Long, where a group of men with sticks hit protesters and subway passengers in a July 21 incident that caused controversy in Hong Kong.
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Activists do Dirty Work of Clearing Trash on World Cleanup Day
Thousands of activists fanned out across beaches and rivers throughout Asia Saturday, picking up rubbish and drawing attention to the amount of trash that is dumped worldwide, a day after millions marched to urge world leaders to act on climate change.The volunteers turned out for World Cleanup Day, an initiative that has sent millions into the streets and cleaning up litter across the globe since it began just over a decade ago.The Pacific island nation of Fiji swung into action early, with people scouring palm-fringed beaches for rubbish, heaving discarded car tires and engine parts from the coast just west of the capital Suva.Volunteers pick up trash, such as plastics and cigarette butts, on World Cleanup Day in Jakarta, Sept. 21, 2019, in order to educate residents to keep their neighborhood clean.On Australia’s Bondi beach, activists sifted through the sand, carting off bits of plastic and cigarette butts.In the Philippines, some 10,000 people swept across a long stretch of beach on heavily polluted Manila Bay, clutching sacks they filled with rubbish.Plastic pollution is a major problem across Southeast Asia, but particularly in the Philippines, which — along with China, Vietnam and Indonesia — is frequently listed among the world’s worst offenders.“It’s for us to help the environment, especially here in Manila, there’s a lot of garbage,” Mae Angela Areglado, a 20-year-old student told AFP as she pitched in with the cleanup, held right next to the city’s huge Baseco slum.“(Plastic is) affecting the marine life because they think that it is food”, she added.The mass cleanup is coordinated by the Let’s Do It Foundation, which aims to “connect and empower people and organizations around the world to make our planet waste free,” according to its website.It attracted around 1,400 volunteers in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, where they scoured different areas of the city for litter under the scorching sun.“Although our actions are very small — like cleaning trash from the sidewalk — it could spread a meaningful message,” 18-year-old Hoang Thi Hoan told AFP, as motorists zipped by on a busy street.A volunteer collects trash by a river during the World Cleanup Day in Beijing, on September 21, 2019. / AFP / WANG ZHAOIn China, a group of about 30 gathered by the Xiaotaihou River in Beijing to pick up rubbish along the manmade waterway.“You can’t get permission to organize large events in Beijing due to tight security ahead of the 70th anniversary celebrations,” organizer Zhang Hongfu, from the environmental group Friends of Nature, told AFP.Seventy-nine percent of the plastic ever made has ended up dumped, with little reused or destroyed despite recycling and other initiatives to curb use, a U.N. report from 2018 said.Just 9% of the 9 billion tonnes of plastic the world has produced has been recycled.
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Kiribati Cuts Diplomatic Ties to Taiwan in Favor of China
The United States said it is deeply disappointed in Kiribati’s decision to abandon its diplomatic ties with Taiwan, in favor of China.Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers voiced grave concerns. A Senate panel plans to move forward with a congressional proposal that could “impose consequences on nations downgrading ties with Taiwan.”In a stern statement on Friday, a State Department spokesperson said “countries that establish closer ties to China primarily out of the hope or expectation that such a step will stimulate economic growth and infrastructure development often find themselves worse off in the long run.”The spokesperson said the U.S. supports the status quo in cross-Strait relations, which includes Taiwan’s diplomatic ties and international space, as important to maintaining peace and stability in the region.”China’s active campaign to alter the cross-Strait status quo, including by enticing countries to discontinue diplomatic ties with Taiwan, are harmful and undermine regional stability. They undermine the framework that has enabled peace, stability, and development for decades,” the spokesperson told VOA.KiribatiThe Pacific island nation of Kiribati severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan on Friday, becoming the second country to do so this week and bolstering China’s hand.This comes as another blow to Taiwan, as its three decades’ diplomatic relations with the Solomon Islands ended on Monday after the Pacific island state’s cabinet voted in favor of switching ties to China.”In the last couple weeks, the Solomon Islands and now Kiribati have cut formal ties with Taiwan under pressure from Beijing. Unless this behavior is confronted, Beijing will stop at nothing to isolate Taiwan internationally,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said.In the last couple weeks, the Solomon Islands and now Kiribati have cut formal ties with Taiwan under pressure from Beijing. Unless this behavior is confronted, Beijing will stop at nothing to isolate Taiwan internationally. https://t.co/dVS8h1uLgm— Senator Rubio Press (@SenRubioPress) September 20, 2019The U.S. sees Taiwan as part of a network of Asian democracies, calling Taiwan “a democratic success story and a force for good in the world.” Informal Taiwan-U.S. ties have improved under U.S. President Donald Trump.Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who is also ranking member of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, also weighed in on Twitter.China’s predatory campaign to isolate #Taiwan from the rest of the international community is seriously alarming & unacceptable. Taiwan is, and always will be, one of our most important partners in the region. We must continue to stand for democracy. https://t.co/B0XUjcMve3— Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) September 20, 2019Next week, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will consider the so-called TAIPEI Act, the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act, said Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner in a tweet.“Kiribati ending diplomatic ties with Taiwan demonstrates a need for urgent action,” said Gardner, who is the chairman of Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and international cybersecurity policy.The proposed bill will allow the secretary of state to consider “the expansion, termination, or reduction” of U.S. foreign assistance to countries that downgrade ties with Taiwan.China’s ‘problematic behavior’As China’s influence in the region has grown, American officials frequently point out what they see as “a range of increasingly problematic behavior” that includes China’s ongoing militarization of disputed features in the South China Sea, and “predatory” economic activities and investments seen to undermine good governance and promote corruption and human rights abuses.“This should concern all countries,” a State Department official told VOA.Funds were promised by China in return for Kiribati’s recognition, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said.“According to information obtained by Taiwan, the Chinese government has already promised to provide full funds for the procurement of several airplanes and commercial ferries, thus luring Kiribati into switching diplomatic relations,” Wu said.One China principleChinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Kiribati’s decision “fully testifies to the fact that the One China principle meets the shared aspiration of the people.” Geng added, “There is but one China in the world and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China.” The two sides split after the 1949 civil war when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces were driven off the mainland by Mao Zedong’s Communists and sought refuge on Taiwan. But Beijing considers the self-ruled island part of its territory and has vowed to take control of it, by force if necessary.The U.S. switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, but U.S. presidents are bound by law to supply it with arms and come to its defense.The nuance between Washington’s “One China policy” and China’s “One China principle” is that the U.S. stance leaves open the possibility that a future resolution could be determined peacefully by both China and Taiwan.
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Kiribati Cuts Ties With Taiwan, Presaging Switch to China
The Pacific island nation of Kiribati cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan on Friday, becoming the second country to do so this week and strengthening Beijing’s hand.Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said that Kiribati had officially notified his government of the decision.Kiribati is expected to recognize China, which has pledged billions of dollars in aid to help lure it and six other countries into switching allegiance since 2016, when Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took office.
Taiwan “deeply regrets and strongly condemns the Kiribati government’s decision, which disregards the multifaceted assistance and sincere friendship extended by Taiwan to Kiribati over the years,” Wu said at a news conference.Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang commended Kiribati’s switch, which comes four days after the Solomon Islands, once Taiwan’s largest ally in the South Pacific, severed ties in favor of China.’This fully testifies to the fact that the one-China principle meets the shared aspiration of the people and constitutes an irresistible trend of the times,” he said.China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and wants the island to reunite with the mainland. The two split in 1949 during a civil war. Beijing resents Tsai for rejecting its precondition for dialogue that both belong to a single China. It has flown military aircraft near the island and pared back Taiwan-bound tourism to add pressure on her government.Taiwan has 15 allies left, compared to about 180 countries that recognize China.China has made the point that it can snatch as many diplomatic allies of Taiwan as it wishes,” said Fabrizio Bozzato, a Taiwan Strategy Research Association fellow who specializes in the Pacific.Taiwan looks to its allies, mostly small, poor countries, for international legitimacy and a voice in the United Nations. Taiwan left the United Nations in 1971 as the international body recognized China.A total loss of allies would cut all formal outside recognition of Taiwan’s government, formally called the Republic of China, and make it easier for Beijing to claim it, said Chao Chien-min, dean of social sciences at the Chinese Cultural University in Taipei.”Other countries will call you a non-state and then what happens?” he said.” Let’s say the People’s Liberation Army uses non-peaceful means for an activity in the Taiwan Strait. The United Nations can’t do anything. If other countries get involved, what legitimacy do they have to help Taiwan?”The Chinese pressure is scaring ordinary Taiwanese, he said.In the Solomon Islands, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said in a statement Friday that his country had recognized China to ensure stability and avoid uncertainty over what might happen if Taiwanese decide to unite with China.Wu remained defiant, saying that Taiwan is not a province of the People’s Republic of China, the Communist government that took power in 1949.”China’s international pressure will only consolidate the Taiwanese people’s determination never to capitulate to the Chinese government,” he said.
Some analysts believe Taiwan has built legitimacy by strengthening an informal alliance with the United States, its chief arms supplier, and joining the World Trade Organization and the inter-governmental Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.”Taiwan is globally relevant economically, geopolitically and geo-strategically,” Bozzato said. “It is indisputable that the Republic of China would continue to be independent, effectively exerting civil and military jurisdiction over a territory and a population.”Wu said China had used investments in fisheries and other industries to build up a presence in Kiribati, penetrating political circles and extending its influence.”Kiribati President Taneti Mamau requested “massive financial assistance” from Taiwan to buy commercial aircraft, he said, a request inconsistent with Taiwan’s international aid law.China’s Geng said that “those used to dollar-diplomacy may not understand that certain principles cannot be bought with money, neither can trust.”
China and Taiwan competed for South Pacific allies before 2008, often using aid to motivate switches in recognition. The two sides observed an informal diplomatic truce from 2008 to 2016, during China-friendly Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou’s term.
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WATCH: President Trump Joint Press Conference with Australian Prime Minister
President Donald Trump participates in a joint press availability with the Prime Minister of Australia
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Protests Could Undermine Hong Kong’s Ability to Compete with Singapore
Hong Kong and Singapore have always been rivals of a sort. Government stability and transparent legal systems have attracted thousands of multinationals to both since the 1960s, giving each the title of Asian financial center.Antigovernment protests since June suddenly threaten the prowess of Hong Kong. The millions of people massing in the streets, shutting down the airport and setting fires in public places are eroding the sense of stability that multinationals want when they pick a base in Asia.Singapore is standing by now to take any Hong Kong refugees.Pro-democracy protesters react as police fire water cannons outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong, Sept. 15, 2019.Hong Kong would start giving ground to Singapore, people close to one or both places think, if the protests show signs of going on long term and especially if they drive changes in the law or keep snarling the airport. That would mean an exodus of multinationals to Singapore or at least corporate decisions to add Singapore staff rather than Hong Kong staff during Asia expansions.“It really depends how long this continues,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at the market research firm IHS Markit. “If it becomes protracted and the disruptions are ongoing, then I think it does erode confidence in the financial center. Definitely it could undermine Hong Kong’s ability to compete with Singapore.”The rise of two dragonsHong Kong was described in the 1960s as one of Asia’s four economic dragons, a reference to fast industrialization and economic growth.Under British rule through 1997, the territory attracted multinationals with rules that made business easy and transparent for outsiders. It had been described as a financial center as early as 1950. The World Bank ranked Hong Kong No. 4 this year in its worldwide ease-of-doing-business survey.Hong Kong remains one of the world’s four largest international financial centers, though pressured by the rise of Chinese hub cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, Biswas says in a Sept. 9 research note. Singapore is on the list too, along with London and New York.A woman uses her smartphone to take pictures of a lantern display depicting Singapore’s iconic architecture and multiracial society during Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations at Jurong Lake Gardens in western Singapore, Sept. 9, 2019.Singapore averaged 8% GDP growth from the 1960s to the 1990s, putting it among the Asian dragons.About 3,000 multinationals from developed countries keep offices there. The fellow former British colony ranks No. 2 on the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business chart and 13th on the World Justice Project’s scale for adherence to rule of law. The World Justice Project evaluation covers absence of corruption, presence of security and the transparency of government.An historic haven in AsiaA Sept. 12 survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore found that Hong Kong was “unlikely to attract those” who don’t have any presence there now.More than 80% of respondents said the protests had affected their decisions related to investing in Hong Kong. Among the companies eyeing a move from Hong Kong, the survey found, 91% called Singapore the backup location.Singapore has come through as a historic “haven” when crises pop up elsewhere in Asia, said Song Seng Wun, economist in the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore.Despite higher costs than in much of Asia, he said, Singapore offers “strong” rule of law, he said. “Singapore has always been a neutral, safe haven place during times of uncertainties, especially around the region,” Song said.Protesters carrying umbrellas take part in march in Hong Kong, Sept. 15, 2019.No tipping point yetProtests to date have a “temporary” aura, Biswas said, compared to a scenario of lasting for “years.” He doesn’t expect companies to uproot just yet from Hong Kong in favor of Singapore, but those with offices in both places might now consider focusing more resources on the Singapore side.Protests began in Hong Kong June 9 in reaction to a proposed extradition bill that would let citizens get deported to China for political crimes and face harsh sentences. Protesters have added calls for democracy in Hong Kong despite rule by Communist China since 1997.Hong Kong people have a way of reacting vehemently to a cause at first and then quickly relenting, said Michael McGaughy, portfolio manager with Fusion Wealth Management in Hong Kong. He recalls how people covered their faces in masks during the deadly SARS outbreak of 2002 but suddenly stopped when the epidemic showed a decline in early 2003.Common law and the tax system that financial companies like about Hong Kong show no signs of changing, McGaughy said. Anyone tempted to leave because of the protests would “think twice,” he said. His company has not discussed pulling out.“My gut feel is that there’s going to be a lot of talk about it, but if the legal system stays the same then I’d be surprised if people leave,” McGaughy said.
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Taipei: Kiribati Considers Switching Diplomatic Ties to China
The Pacific island nation of Kiribati is considering switching diplomatic relations to China from Taiwan, a senior Taiwan government official said on Friday, amid Chinese pressure on the remaining nations with ties to the self-ruled island.China claims Taiwan as its territory, and says the democratic island has no right to formal ties with any country.The official’s remarks to Reuters came days after the Solomon Islands cut ties with Taipei, which accused China of trying to influence its presidential and legislative elections in January with diplomatic pressure.
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South Korea Reports 2 More Suspected Swine Fever Cases
South Korean officials are investigating two more suspected cases of African swine fever from farms near its border with North Korea, as fears grow over the spread of the illness that has decimated pig herds across Asia.An agriculture ministry official said Friday that officials are testing samples of dead pigs from two farms in Paju city that are about 9 kilometers (5.5 miles) away from a farm where the country’s first case of the disease was confirmed Monday. A second case was confirmed Tuesday in the nearby town of Yeoncheon.South Korea has stepped up efforts to contain the disease, which may have crossed from North Korea, which reported an outbreak in May.Workers had culled some 10,400 pigs at border area farms as of Friday morning.
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More International Cooperation Called Key to Curbing North Korea’s Sanction Evasion
Christy Lee contributed to this report, which originated with VOA’s Korean Service.WASHINGTON — Increased international cooperation is essential for curtailing the ship-to-ship transfers that Pyongyang continues to use to evade sanctions, said a former United Nations panel expert on North Korean sanctions enforcement.“Every member state (of the United Nations) has one or two pieces of the puzzle,” said Neil Watts, a maritime expert who served as a member of the United Nations panel that monitors North Korea sanctions compliance from 2013 to 2018. “And if they all cooperate, they can put together the full picture.”North Korea seemingly is receiving a steady supply of oil through illegal transshipments, said Watts, as indicated by fuel prices that he said have been stable for the last 18 months in North Korea.Two essential tacticsWatts told VOA’s Korean Service Tuesday that two things are essential for going after Pyongyang’s illicit ship-to-ship transfers at sea: Identify key North Koreans driving illicit transshipping networks, and follow the money trails.FILE – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends the testing of a super-large multiple rocket launcher in North Korea, in this undated photo released Sept. 10, 2019, by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency.Watts said there are a handful of key North Korean individuals whom the country relies on to operate illicit networks for ship-to-ship transfers.“It’s an activity that involves a number of characters. But you can be sure that there are only a few trusted individuals from (the) North Korean side that are making these arrangements with complicit actors.”Then, Watts suggested following the money trail to disrupt North Korea’s networks that involve numerous front companies and banks in different countries that coordinate deceptive shipping practices to evade sanctions.“One needs to find the money trails,” he said, “because it’s substantial amounts of money involved. They always make sure that the money is deposited beforehand. … The key is also to find which companies are involved so that you can identify the banks involved and thereby contact the banks to curtail the banks keeping the money for these North Korean entities that are used to pay for the transactions.”Watts said this is possible only when U.N. member states investigate and share information among themselves and with the maritime and shipping industries.“One can go a lot further in terms of cooperation between the member states and the maritime industry involving the brokers or the commodity brokers, the shipping industry,” he said.According to Watts, North Korea operates its illegal networks across borders to make it difficult for authorities to track down foreign individuals and companies involved in ship-to-ship transfers. This setup also makes it difficult to find North Korean entities overseeing the activities designed to evade sanctions.“The North Koreans, knowing full well that should they involve companies and entities that are in multiple jurisdictions, it makes it very hard to follow the trails back to these individuals that are driving it from the North Korean side,” he said.Watts said North Korea uses ship-to-ship transfers as a primary method to evade sanctions and obtain fuel because it knows monitoring and interdicting illicit practices in international waters are difficult.“International waters are often in disputed areas of jurisdiction, also, and they take advantage of that, as well,” he said.FILE – This Japan Ministry of Defense photo shows North Korean-flagged tanker SAM JONG 2, bottom, alongside MYONG RYU 1, a vessel of unknown nationality, in the East China Sea, May 24, 2018, in a suspected illegal transferring of fuel.North Korea uses several deceptive shipping practices such as removing a flag, name, and identification number of a vessel it uses. It also turns off the transponders, called an automatic identification system (AIS), that sends off its location and identification to nearby ports and ships.“What has been done in the commercial sector is to get companies to include in contracts no switching off AIS as a clause to say that there’ll be severe penalties,” Watts said. “In the case of insurers,” he added, “they would lose the insurance.”Illegal historyThere is a history to North Korea’s use of illicit ship-to-ship transfers.In 2017, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution banning sales of Pyongyang’s key export commodities, including coal and seafood, in order to cut off its foreign sources of income — money needed to support its nuclear weapons program. In the same year, the council also prohibited North Korea from importing more than 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum per year.This satellite image from the Department of Justice shows what it says is the North Korean cargo ship Wise Honest docked at an unknown port. The Trump administration has seized the North Korean cargo ship used to supply coal in violation of international sanctions, May 9, 2018.More recently, on Aug. 30, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted two Taiwanese-based individuals and two Taiwanese-based companies, and a Hong Kong-based company, for helping North Korea evade sanctions. It also listed a tanker suspected of transferring oil to North Korean ships and in connection to all three companies and two individuals. In its interim report released in August, the U.N. Panel of Experts said North Korea exceeded the cap on refined petroleum in the first four months of the year and continued to violate sanctions through illicit ship-to-ship transfers.In June, the U.S. and dozens of other countries claimed North Korea violated a U.N. sanctions cap on fuel imports by using at least eight illegal ship-to-ship transfers and 72 illegal deliveries.
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Huawei Faces Public Test as it Unveils Sanction-Hit Phone
Chinese tech giant Huawei launched its latest high-end smartphone in Munich on Thursday, the first of its mobile devices not to carry popular Google apps because of U.S. sanctions.”Today because of the U.S. ban … we cannot pre-install” Google’s applications, said Richard Yu, who heads Huawei’s consumer business group, as he unveiled the group’s latest Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro models.But heading off fears that a phone without popular apps like Whatsapp, YouTube or Google Maps could not succeed, he stressed that the equivalent platform by the Chinese giant offered a choice of 45,000 apps through the Huawei App Gallery.Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group, speaks on stage during a presentation to reveal Huawei’s latest smartphones Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro in Munich, Germany, Sept. 19, 2019.Yu added that the Chinese giant was investing US$1 billion (900,000 euros) into its Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) core software ecosystem, as he urged app developers to bring their creations to the system.Huawei, targeted directly by the United States as part of a broader trade conflict with Beijing, was added to a “blacklist” in Washington in May.Since then, it has been illegal for American firms to do business with the Chinese firm, suspected of espionage by President Donald Trump and his administration.As a result, the new Mate will run on a freely available version of Android, the world’s most-used phone operating system that is owned by the search engine heavyweight.OS warsWhile Mate 30 owners will experience little difference in the use of the operating system, the lack of Google’s Play Store — which provides access to hundreds of thousands of third-party apps and games as well as films, books and music — could be unsettling.Household-name services like WhatsApp, Instagram and Google Maps will be unavailable.The tech press reports that this yawning gap in functionality has left some sellers reluctant to stock the new phones, fearing a wave of rapid-fire returns from dissatisfied customers.With the trade conflict with the U.S. unlikely to be resolved imminently, Huawei has little choice but to ramp up the development of its own “ecosystem” of devices, apps and services that would bind users more closely to it.The world’s second-largest smartphone maker after Samsung, Huawei earlier this month presented its proprietary operating system HarmonyOS, a potential replacement for Android.The Mate 30 will not yet have HarmonyOS installed.But it could make for a new round in the decades-old “OS wars” between Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Mac OS, then Android versus Apple’s iOS.European roleMeanwhile, Eric Xu, current holder of Huawei’s rotating chief executive chair, has urged Europe to foster an alternative to Google and Apple.That could provide an opening for Huawei to build up Europe’s market of 500 million well-off consumers as a stronghold against American rivals.”If Europe had its own ecosystem for smart devices, Huawei would use it … that would resolve the problem of European digital dependency” on the United States, Xu told German business daily Handelsblatt.He added that his company would be prepared to invest in developing such joint European-Chinese projects.
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Japan Court: TEPCO Execs Not Guilty in Fukushima Disaster
A Japanese court ruled Thursday that three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company were not guilty of professional negligence in the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant because ensuring absolute safety at nuclear plants was not a government requirement at that time.The ruling by the Tokyo District Court ended the only criminal trial related to the nuclear accident that has kept tens of thousands of residents away from their homes because of lingering radiation contamination.Lawyers representing the 5,700 Fukushima residents who filed the criminal complaint said they will push prosecutors to appeal the decision. A group of supporters stood outside the court Thursday with placards reading “Unjust ruling.”The court said ex-TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 79, and two other former executives were also not guilty of causing the deaths of 44 elderly patients whose health deteriorated during or after forced evacuations from a local hospital and a nursing home.The executives were accused of failing to anticipate the massive tsunami that struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant on March 11, 2011, following a magnitude 9 earthquake, and of failing to take measures that might have protected the plant.Katsumata and co-defendants Sakae Muto, 69, and Ichiro Takekuro, 73, pleaded not guilty at the trial’s opening session in June 2017. They said predicting the tsunami was impossible.Three of the plant’s reactors had meltdowns, spreading radiation into surrounding communities and into the sea.Prosecutors in December requested five-year prison sentences for each executive, accusing them of not doing enough to guard against the threat of a large tsunami despite knowing the risk.In its ruling, the court said the defendants held responsible positions at TEPCO, but that did not necessarily mean they were responsible for taking measures beyond those in the legal regulatory framework.It said there is no proof they could have foreseen that a tsunami could flood the plant the way it did in 2011.TEPCO officials were aware of a need to improve tsunami prevention measures and were considering taking steps by 2008 and 2009, but those steps were in line with government safety standards at the time.The prosecutors argued that TEPCO could have prevented the disaster had it halted the plant to install safety measures before the tsunami. But the court said the company’s responsibility to supply electricity to the public meant that idling the plant would have had a “social impact,” and that possible measures were likely not ready in time.The acquittal disappointed dozens of Fukushima residents and their supporters who attended the ruling.“Who is going to take responsibility then? It was TEPCO that caused the accident, there is no mistake about it,” said Masakatsu Kanno, a Fukushima resident whose father died after being evacuated from a hospital.Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the decision must be appealed.“The ruling showed that the judge did not understand the dangers of nuclear plants at all, and it was sympathetic to the company executives and their management decisions,” Kawai said. “The ruling sounded as if it was written by supporters of nuclear energy.”Prosecutors had told the court that the three defendants had access to data and scientific studies that anticipated the possibility of a tsunami exceeding 10 meters (33 feet) which could trigger a loss of power and a severe accident.Defense attorneys told the court that the tsunami prediction was not well established. They said the actual damage was larger than projected, and that if TEPCO had taken steps based on the projection, it would not have prevented the disaster.TEPCO declined to comment directly on the ruling but pledged to devote itself to the compensation of disaster-hit people and the cleanup of the plant and its surroundings while enhancing the safety of nuclear plants “with unwavering determination.”Katsumata apologized “to the people for causing tremendous trouble” in a statement released by his lawyer.More than eight years since the disaster, the Fukushima plant has been stabilized and being decommissioned — a decades-long process that is still at an early stage. TEPCO is struggling with massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water that is stored in 1,000 tanks on the compound, hampering the cleanup work.Prosecutors said TEPCO was conducting a tsunami safety review following a 2007 earthquake in Niigata in northern Japan that damaged another TEPCO plant, and the three former executives routinely participated in that process. In March 2008, a TEPCO subsidiary projected that a tsunami as high as 15.7 meters (47 feet) could hit Fukushima, prompting the company to consider building seawalls, but the executives allegedly delayed the idea to avoid additional spending.Prosecutors presented hundreds of pieces of evidence including emails between safety officials and the two vice presidents that suggested increasing concern and a need for more tsunami defenses at the plant. More than 20 TEPCO officials and scientists testified in court.Government and parliamentary investigations said TEPCO’s lack of a safety culture and weak risk management, including an underestimation of tsunami risks, led to the disaster. They said TEPCO colluded with regulators to disregard tsunami protection measures.The company has said it could have been more proactive with safety measures, but that it could not anticipate the massive tsunami that crippled the plant.TEPCO has spent 9 trillion yen ($83 billion) on compensation related to the disaster. It needs to spend an estimated 8 trillion yen ($74 billion) to decommission the plant and 6 trillion yen ($55 billion) for decontamination.
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US, Chinese Trade Deputies Face off in Washington amid Deep Differences
U.S. and Chinese deputy trade negotiators were set to resume face-to-face talks on Thursday for the first time in nearly two months as the world’s two largest economies try to bridge deep policy differences and find a way out of a bitter and protracted trade war.The negotiations, on Thursday and Friday, are aimed at laying the groundwork for high-level talks in early October that will determine whether the two countries are working toward a solution or are headed for new and higher tariffs on each other’s goods.A delegation of about 30 Chinese officials, led by Vice Finance Minister Liao Min, were set to launch talks on Thursday morning at the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office near the White House. The U.S. side is expected to be led by Deputy Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish.The discussions are likely to focus heavily on agriculture, including U.S. demands that China substantially increase purchases of American soybeans and other farm commodities, a person with knowledge of the planned discussions told Reuters.Two negotiating sessions over the two days will cover agricultural issues, while just one will be devoted to the strengthening of China’s intellectual property protections and the forced transfer of U.S. technology to Chinese firms.”Sessions on agriculture will get a disproportionate amount of air time,” the source said, adding that one of these sessions also will include a focus on U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that China cut off shipments of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to the United States.The president is eager to provide export opportunities for U.S. farmers, a key Trump political constituency that has been battered by China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans and other agricultural commodities.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in an interview on Fox Business Network on Thursday, said it remained unclear what China wants and that “we will find out very, very shortly in the next couple of weeks.””What we need is to correct the big imbalances, not just the current trade deficit,” Ross said. “It’s more complicated than just buying a few more soybeans.”Currency on tableU.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who will participate in the October talks along with USTR Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, has said that currency issues will be a focus of the new rounds of talks.Mnuchin formally declared China a currency manipulator last month after the yuan weakened against the dollar, accusing Beijing of reducing the strength of its currency to gain a trade advantage.
Trump has said that China failed to follow through on agricultural purchase commitments made by its president, Xi Jinping, at a G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan as a goodwill gesture to get stalled talks back on track. China has denied making such commitments.When such purchases failed to materialize during U.S.-China trade talks in late July, Trump quickly moved to impose 10% tariffs on virtually all remaining Chinese imports untouched by previous rounds of tariffs.But in an easing of tensions last week, Trump delayed a scheduled Oct. 1 tariff increase on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports until mid-month, as China postponed tariffs on some U.S. cancer drugs, animal feed ingredients and lubricants.”The atmospherics are improving but … President Trump is going to stand firm,” U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told Fox Business Network in an interview that aired on Thursday Beijing also is seeking an easing of U.S. national security sanctions against telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies, which has been largely cut off from buying sensitive U.S. technology products.The trade war, which has dragged on for 14 months, has rattled financial markets as policymakers and investors worry about the broadening global economic fallout of the dispute.The specter of a global recession has prompted central banks around the world to loosen policy in recent months. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut rates for the second time this year, saying the reduction provided “insurance against ongoing risks,” including weak world growth and resurgent trade tensions.Ideological divideTrade experts, executives and government officials in both countries say that even if the September and October talks produce an interim deal that includes purchases and a reprieve for Huawei, the U.S.-China trade war has hardened into a political and ideological battle that runs far deeper than tariffs and could take years to resolve.Jon Lieber, a principal in PwC’s national tax services practice, said a “very narrow agreement” in October would do little to solve fundamental differences between the two countries.To keep markets steady, the two sides could well “string along the talks for a longer period of time,” he added.Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, told reporters on Wednesday that he was cautiously optimistic about the talks.
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China Attacks Pelosi For Meeting Hong Kong Activists
BEIJING (AP) _ China’s foreign ministry on Thursday accused U.S. congressional leader Nancy Pelosi of making irresponsible remarks about pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, one day after she welcomed activists from the city to the U.S. Capitol.Spokesman Geng Shuang said Pelosi and other American lawmakers had confused right and wrong by engaging with what he termed Hong Kong separatists.“We urge the U.S. to stop bolstering radical violent forces in Hong Kong that advocate Hong Kong independence, and stop intensifying words and actions that undermine the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong,” he said at a daily briefing.Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, was joined by Republican lawmakers at a news conference Wednesday with democracy activists including Joshua Wong and pop singer Denise Ho.She sided with their demand for fully democratic elections and thanked them for “challenging the conscience” of the Chinese government and the world.Pelosi has monitored China from her early years in Congress, when she appeared with other lawmakers in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to pay tribute to protesters who died in 1989 pro-democracy protests.Anti-government protests demanding democracy have riven Hong Kong all summer, with no resolution in sight.
The protesters believe that China is eroding the rights and freedoms that Hong Kong has under a “one country, two systems” framework that allows the semi-autonomous city to have its own legal system.The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to advance legislation that would require an annual review of Hong Kong’s special economic and trade status, providing a potential check on the Chinese government’s influence.Geng said Hong Kong is an internal Chinese issue, and that China accepts no interference in its internal affairs.“We strongly urge the U.S. to … respect China’s sovereignty, stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any form and stop promoting the review of relevant Hong Kong-related proposals,” he said.
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Ex-Japanese Energy Company Executives Acquitted in Fukushima Disaster
Three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. have been acquitted in Tokyo District Court on criminal charges related to the 2011 meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant in northeastern Japan.Prosecutors had accused former TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and former vice presidents Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro of professional negligence for failing to act on studies that showed Fukushima could be at risk from the threat of a tsunami. The trio was also accused of causing the deaths of more than 40 people who died after having been forced to evacuate the area near the plant.Katsumata, Muto and Takekuro were the only people facing criminal prosecution involving the disaster. Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence each executive to five years in jail in a trial that lasted more than two years.A powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake in March 2011 triggered a massive tsunami that killed 20,000 people and caused the meltdown of Fukushima’s three nuclear reactors in northeastern Japan, making it the world’s worst nuclear crisis since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
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US Lawmakers Pledge Support for Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Activists
VOA Mandarin Service’s Xu Teng contributed to this report.CAPITOL HILL — U.S. lawmakers will move next week to begin passing legislation combating human rights abuses in Hong Kong, an action intended to send long-term support to democracy activists there.If passed, the bill would allow President Donald Trump to use the Magnitsky Act to sanction Hong Kong and Chinese authorities for human rights abuses, while ensuring protesters are not denied entry visas to the United States and that Hong Kong is complying with U.S. sanctions and laws.A Trump administration official told a Senate panel Wednesday the U.S. had already been successful in supporting the efforts of pro-democracy activists.”I’ll take a little credit, the U.S. government, on having applied sufficient pressure and encouraged Beijing to do the right thing in Hong Kong,” David Stilwell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. After months of protests, activists in Hong Kong succeeded in forcing the withdrawal of an extradition bill widely seen as an incursion by the mainland Chinese government. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in June to protest that legislation, fearing it would threaten the autonomy of the city and endanger dissidents.Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam addresses a news conference in Hong Kong, Sept. 5, 2019.Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam withdrew the bill in September but has not responded to activists’ push for other demands, including amnesty for arrested protesters and an investigation into police brutality.Sen. Marco Rubio told VOA the Senate version of the legislation is expected to come up for a vote in the Foreign Relations Committee at the end of September.”It is mostly technical changes on the process of determining the status of autonomy,” he said Wednesday of the work that still needs to be done on the legislation. “The State Department, which will be in charge of implementing the bill, had some technical suggestions. We’re implementing and incorporating those.”House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, delivers a “State of Homeland Security” address on the war with Islamic State, Dec. 7, 2015.House Foreign Affairs ranking member Michael McCaul said the committee would begin work marking up their version of the bill next week. The two versions of the legislation would still have to be reconciled before heading to Trump to be signed into law.”Chinese authorities will not get away with using violence and intimidation to squash the fundamental freedoms, freedom of speech, of assembly, of demonstration that are guaranteed by law to the people of Hong Kong,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel said of the House legislation. “It also sends the message that Beijing’s attempt to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy is not just a problem for the people of Hong Kong; it’s a concern of the United States, as well.”Pro-democracy activist Denise Ho said the House bill would send a powerful message.”This is a message to these Hong Kong people that we are not isolated in this fight,” Ho said. “We are in the forefront of this very global fight for universal values.”Ho is one of a number of activists in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement on Capitol Hill this week, pushing U.S. lawmakers to take action on the legislation.U.S. assistance to Hong Kong enjoys an unusually bipartisan measure of support in Washington, uniting lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in support of the movement.Lawmakers are also working on legislation that would ban the sale of police equipment to Hong Kong.FILE – Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 7, 2014. McGovern is calling for a new U.S. policy on Tibet.”U.S. companies should not be complicit in the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat who is co-sponsoring the bill along with Republican Rep. Chris Smith.Senate Democrats expressed concern the Trump administration is not fully utilizing the Hong Kong Policy Act to bring pressure to bear on China. Passed in 1992, the legislation separates Hong Kong from mainland China in U.S. eyes for trade and economic purposes. U.S. presidents can modify the act if Hong Kong becomes less autonomous, leveraging pressure on China.”It’s difficult to nail down exactly one aspect of that or one area we can push on. I would say that I’m fully aware of the act. And we’ve been in a long discussion on its implementation, the impacts on both the U.S. and on China,” Stilwell said Wednesday.He also said he had no information on the possibility the administration could use other legal avenues to identify individuals for financial sanctions.
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Malay Muslim Parties’ Pact Rattles Nerves in Multiethnic Malaysia
A new political alliance between Malaysia’s two largest Malay Muslim parties is rousing fears the move could further stall the government’s progressive agenda and raise already simmering racial and religious tensions in the country.
Ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups known as Bumiputra make up nearly two-thirds of Malaysia’s 31.8 million people, with Chinese and Indians accounting for 21% and 6%, respectively. The country’s Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus make up roughly the same mix.
The ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition drew heavily on Chinese and Indian votes to pull off a shock election defeat last year of Barisan Nasional, the political juggernaut that had ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1957. ‘Power should be with us’
UMNO, the driving force behind Barisan, formalized an alliance with the Islamist PAS party on Saturday in a bid to win back power and reverse course on policies they say are eroding the constitutional privileges of the country’s majority Malays and Muslims.
“As the majority of this country, we should form the government. The power should be with us,” PAS spokesman Kamaruzaman Mohamad told VOA in explaining the reason for the alliance.
“If we want to defend the rights of Islam, the rights of Bahasa Melayu [the Malay language], the special rights of the Bumiputra and Malay, we have to be united so that we can [raise] our voice, we can show our strength, so that this government will not abuse these special rights.” FILE – Members from UMNO, in red, and members of PAS wave their parties’ flags during an event announcing an alliance between the two in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sept. 14, 2019.Kamaruzaman dismissed speculation of any coming communal discord.
“We are Muslim and non-Muslim. We are living together harmoniously with no bad incident,” he said, insisting the alliance would not change that.
“We are not going to abuse any right of any religion or any race. That is … clearly stated in the Constitution. So there is no issue that we are going to spark any racial tension.” Adib Zalkapli, a Malaysia-based director of Bower Group Asia, a consultancy, said the parties would continue, however, to play on the country’s entrenched ethnoreligious fault lines to woo voters.
“That is their founding principles, if you like. They got together on the basis of Malay unity and Muslim unity, and claims … by the party operators that Malay Muslims are being marginalized by the new government. So you can expect more of this racial rhetoric from the new alliance,” he told VOA.
UMNO and PAS had been flirting with a pact for some time. Since Pakatan’s surprise victory last year, they have handed the ruling coalition a series of defeats in three consecutive by-elections by running a single, joint candidate in each. Eyes on next election
Adib said UMNO’s move to make the alliance official signaled that the party was banking on Malay Muslim votes over those of the more diverse Barisan coalition, which it still fronts, to win the next general election, due by 2023.
But he is skeptical it will work, noting that Malaysia has never had a monoethnic coalition running the government in its history.
What the new allies can do, Adib said, is hold back Pakatan’s more progressive policy plans and move it to the right.
They have been at it already.
The parties stirred up fears of lost privileges among Malays to pressure the new government into abandoning election pledges to sign a U.N. convention on racial discrimination and to ratify the Rome Statute, which would have seen Malaysia join the International Criminal Court. Pakatan’s efforts to repeal an anti-fake-news law also were shot down in the Senate, which the opposition controls. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is pictured during a news conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Sept. 18, 2019.The string of defeats and U-turns has hurt the new government. Opinion polling by the Merdeka Center, a research group, shows its approval rating plunging from 79% just after the general election to 39% in March.
An UMNO-PAS alliance “may not be able to win power, but it could potentially force the government to adopt some of its ideology or its political ambition,” Adib said. “In the case of PAS, the Islamist party, the party has obviously sharia ambition. So the danger is that this alliance will be able to force the government parties to dance to their tune.” ‘Klang Valley narrative’
Others think the fears of rising tensions are more perception than reality.
Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, who heads the National University of Malaysia’s Institute of Ethnic Studies, called it the “Klang Valley narrative,” so named for the area around Kuala Lumpur, the capital, where the country’s professionals and NGOs are concentrated.
“They read what is on the ground based on what they do. If they see a traffic jam, they think [it] is also a racial and ethnic traffic jam,” said Shamsul, who thinks class concerns now mostly trump racial or religious ones, noting that Malaysia has not had any race riots since the late 1960s.
He recently wrapped up a two-year, government-funded study on Malaysia’s race relations that found an encouraging amount of ethnic intermingling and a prevailing attitude of inclusion.
“So I always say there’s a lot of tongue wagging in this country, but not parang waving,” Shamsul said, referring to a local machete-like cutting tool.
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Have Retired Jack Ma, Alibaba Steered Away From China Communist Party’s Clutches?
The recent retirement of Jack Ma, former chairman of the Alibaba Group, has set a positive example in China for entrepreneurs to plan succession, ensuring the long-term sustainability of their businesses, according to some analysts. But others insist it is still too early to tell if the world’s largest e-commerce giant and its charismatic founder have since steered away from the clutches of the Communist Party, which seemingly views large private companies as a threat.“They key thing here is not to be too confident about any outcome yet, because we’re simply too early in the cycle here. Jack can still retire and then find himself in a lot of problems later,” said Fraser Howie, co-author of three books on the Chinese financial system, including “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China’s Extraordinary Rise.”On the heels of his official retirement last Tuesday, rife speculation remains that Ma was forced out because he had become “too powerful and influential” and posed a challenge to the authority of China’s top leadership. His tech empire remains under the government’s close scrutiny.State pressureIt is believed that through his retirement, Ma has avoided being caught up in the Chinese government’s crackdown of big dealmakers in recent years, such as HNA Group’s Wang Jian, Anbang Insurance Group’s Wu Xiaohui, and movie star Fan Bingbing. The latter two “disappeared” for months at one point, according to observers.FILE – The company sign of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is seen outside its headquarters in Beijing, China, June 29, 2019.“He’s getting an airlift before the hammer falls because he clearly would have been the most high-profile scalp within the private sector,” said Howie, adding that Ma’s case also fires a warning shot across the bow of the country’s rich and famous.Additionally, the fact that some of the country’s tycoons, including Ma, have pledged to hand over control of their businesses to the Communist Party, if needed, epitomizes the lopsided relationship between the state and the private sector under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.For example, shortly after Ma expressed his intention to step down, Alibaba’s online payment platform Alipay inked an agreement with state-owned UnionPay to cooperate on cardless and barcode payments — a development that led to much speculation that Alipay eventually would be nationalized.Xi has good reason to view Ma as a threat because the tycoon’s popularity among the public has outshone that of any government officials in China, said Emmy Hu, former executive editor-in-chief of Global E-Businessmen, an online media platform under Alibaba.“He is one of the most popular and iconic figures in China. Shall democratic and free elections be held, he would have won most votes across China if he’s up to,” Hu said.Corporate rivalryMa is so popular in China that many fraudsters use the catchphrase “you’ll be the next Jack Ma” in an effort to entice victims, she noted.It’s hard to imagine, therefore, that someone as hardworking, ambitious and successful as Ma would choose to step down at a young age of 55 if it weren’t for political pressure, according to Hu.FILE – Jack Ma attends Alibaba’s 20th anniversary party at a stadium in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, Sept. 10, 2019.The journalist added that Ma’s success as a business leader, who has made a great contribution to the economy and provided a livelihood for more than 10 million vendors on Alibaba-owned online shopping site Taobao, made him an obvious target for the Communist Party as it tightened its grip on the private sector. “The pressure that the state has exerted on private enterprises is getting more and more evident. That includes policies requiring companies to set up (Communist) party committees or business executives to join the party” to name a few, Hu said.
Apart from the impact of the U.S.-China trade war, the business environment in China has become increasingly hostile toward private companies that state-owned companies see as rivals and hope to edge out to expand market shares, she said.Succession modelHu says from a purely business point of view, Ma set a marvelous example in Asia for businessmen to plan succession — an observation with which venture capitalist C.Y. Huang agrees.“I think he is a role model who has completed a successful succession for peer mainland Chinese companies (to look up to). … In five years, he has groomed his successors … and proved that his company doesn’t necessarily rely on one person,” said Huang, a partner at FCC Partners, a Taipei-based investment bank. Daniel Zhang replaced Ma as Alibaba’s chief executive in 2015. Last week, he also took over Ma’s chairmanship.Huang underscored that all too often, founding patriarchs of Asian companies have refused to hand over the reins, which then creates barriers for businesses to modernize. He pointed out that on a personal level, Ma sets an example for business people to enjoy their lives, and pursue dreams and goals outside of their businesses.
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