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Beijing — Beijing Tianbing Technology Company said Sunday that the first stage of its Tianlong-3 rocket under development had detached from its launch pad during a test due to structural failure and landed in a hilly area of the city of Gongyi in central China.

There were no reports of casualties after an initial investigation, Beijing Tianbing, also known as Space Pioneer, said in a statement on its official WeChat account.

Parts of the rocket stage were scattered within a “safe area” but caused a local fire, according to a separate statement by the Gongyi emergency management bureau.

The fire has since been extinguished and no one has been hurt, the bureau said.

The two-stage Tianlong-3 (“Sky Dragon 3”) is a partly reusable rocket under development by Space Pioneer, one of a small group of private-sector rocket makers that have grown rapidly over the past five years.

Falling rocket debris in China after launches is not unheard of, but it is very rare for part of a rocket under development to make an unplanned flight out of its test site and crash.

According to Space Pioneer, the first stage of the Tianlong-3 ignited normally during a hot test but later detached from the test bench due to structural failure and landed in hilly areas 1.5 km (0.9 mile) away.

A rocket can consist of several stages, with the first, or lowest, stage igniting and propelling the rocket upward upon its launch.

When the fuel is exhausted, the first stage falls off, and the second stage ignites, keeping the rocket in propulsion. Some rockets have third stages.

Space Pioneer says the performance of Tianlong-3 is comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which is also a two-stage rocket.

In April 2023, Space Pioneer launched a kerosene-oxygen rocket, the Tianlong-2, becoming the first private Chinese firm to send a liquid-propellant rocket into space.

Chinese commercial space companies have rushed into the sector since 2014 when private investment in the industry was allowed by the state.

Many started making satellites while others including Space Pioneer, focused on developing reusable rockets that can significantly cut mission costs.

The test sites of such companies can be found along China’s coastal areas, located by the sea due to safety reasons.

But some are also sited deep in the country’s interior such as Space Pioneer’s test center in Gongyi, a city of 800,000 people in the central province of Henan.
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TOKYO — The Paris Olympics open next month and the agency that oversees doping enforcement is under scrutiny following allegations it failed to pursue positive tests of Chinese swimmers who subsequently won medals — including three gold — at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

The focus on the World Anti-Doping Agency and China’s swimmers raises questions for athletes about the fairness of the competitions and the effectiveness of doping control at the Olympics.

“It’s hard going into Paris knowing that we’re going to be racing some of these athletes,” American swimmer Katie Ledecky, a seven-time Olympic champion, said in a television interview. “I think our faith in the system is at an all-time low.”

Rob Koehler, who worked as a deputy director of WADA until 2018, offered a similar tone.

“Athletes have zero confidence in the global regulator and World Aquatics,” Koehler, the director general of athletes’ advocacy body Global Athlete, told The Associated Press. “Transparency is needed more than ever. Without it, the anti-doping movement will crumble and athletes will never feel they have a level playing field.”

The background

From January 1-3, 2021, 23 elite Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine — a heart medication known as TMZ — while competing in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang and staying in a local hotel.

Chinese authorities investigated but did not sanction the swimmers and said they had unwittingly ingested the banned substance. They blamed food/environmental contamination and said the drug had gotten into spice containers in the hotel kitchen.

The investigation was carried out by the Chinese Minister of Public Security, China’s national police force.

WADA accepted the explanation and argued, in part, it was not possible to send its own investigators to China during what officials said was a “local COVID outbreak.”

Several of those athletes later won medals at the Tokyo Olympics, including gold medals in three events.

Eleven of the 23 Chinese swimmers were named this month on the country’s national team to compete in Paris, including Zhang Yufei, who won gold in the 200-meter butterfly and the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay. She also won two silver medals in Tokyo.

Also on the list for Paris is 200 individual medley Olympic gold-medalist Wang Shun, and 200 breaststroke world-record holder Qin Haiyang.

The criticism of WADA

WADA has been criticized for seeming to look the other way at aspects of the Chinese anti-doping agency’s investigation and reporting. It has also not published any of the science behind its decision.

The Chinese agency, known as CHINADA, did not report the positive tests to WADA until mid-March. And in early April 2021 it told WADA it had begun an investigation. On June 15 of that year, it told WADA that environmental contamination was the cause and said it was not pursing an ADRV — an anti-doping rules violation.

Had an anti-doping rules violation been found, CHINADA should have filed a mandatory provisional suspension with a public disclosure forthcoming.

Many questions have been asked since the case became public this year, including by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators. Why did it take 2 1/2 months to report the findings, and why was the investigation begun even later? WADA attributes the “certain delays” to COVID restrictions.

Why was there an apparent delay in inspecting the hotel kitchen? Why was the residue still around, particularly in light of China’s tough sanitation rules during the pandemic? And where did the TMZ come from and how did it land in a spice container? Why were the national police involved in a sports doping case?

The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD broke the story in April of this year.

WADA’s defense

Basically, WADA says it had no grounds to challenge the findings of CHINADA. WADA did say, however, it did not agree with all of CHINADA’s investigation “for largely technical reasons.”

WADA says it accepted the contamination theory because: the levels of TMZ were very low; the swimmers were from different regions of China; and the swimmers were in the same place when the positive tests occurred. Also, competing swimmers stayed in another hotel. Three were tested and none tested positive.

Legally, WADA argued that it could have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but was advised not to by external lawyers. It would have been a narrow appeal that would not have kept the athletes from competing at the Tokyo Olympics.

WADA has appointed retired Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier to review the handling of the case. Fairly or not, his impartiality has been questioned.

The banned medication

Trimetazidine is listed as a “metabolic modulator” and is banned by WADA — in competition and out of competition. It is believed to help endurance and recovery time after training. One of the best-known TMZ cases involved Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, who was suspended for three months in 2014 after testing positive for the substance. He also served a four-year suspension for a separate doping violation.

Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for TMZ weeks before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. She said the substance had belonged to her grandfather and had accidentally contaminated her food. She was allowed to skate in Beijing, but was was eventually handed a four-year suspension.

WADA said Valieva’s contamination scenario “was not compatible with the analytical results.” In the case of the Chinese swimmers, WADA said “the contamination scenario was plausible and that there was no concrete scientific element to challenge it.”

Strict Liability

The principle of “Strict Liability” — athletes are responsible for what they ingest — is at the heart of the WADA code, and is there to ensure all athletes are treated equally. Some question if the principle was followed in this case.

WADA’s rules specify that a “mandatory provisional suspension” should have taken place after the positive tests, which were carried out at a WADA-approved laboratory in Beijing. The local anti-doping agency — in this case, CHINADA — should have issued the suspension.

“CHINADA’s handling of the case, and WADA’s subsequent response, did not adhere to the most essential rule in the code — the principle of Strict Liability,” Steven Teitler, the legal director of the Netherlands doping agency, wrote in a white paper examining the case.

WADA further muddied the water in a fact sheet it published. It said “even for mandatory provisional suspensions there are exceptions.” It said there were multiple precedents for the decision to exonerate the Chinese athletes, precedents that did not seem to have been widely known.

This has raised more questions about how the agency follows its own rules.

The anti-doping system relies on national agencies like CHINADA to enforce the rules, which can clash with the wishes of high-profile athletes and the prestige they might bring to a country and its government.
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Bangkok — Crime empires embedded in Asia’s “Golden Triangle” border areas are getting richer and more powerful, blurring the lines between the illicit economy and the legitimate one as they diversify from drugs to wildlife trafficking, cyber scams and money laundering, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The Golden Triangle, which cuts across the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, is home to an array of transnational crime organizations that run multibillion-dollar enterprises with virtual impunity — and they are embracing new technology to make more profit.

Myanmar, which borders five countries, has long been the epicenter of many illegal Asia-Pacific trades. It has sunk into chaos since a 2021 coup, allowing crime groups to flourish in the lack of governance, especially in remote Shan State, which borders Thailand to the south and China to its east.

“Some of the challenges in Myanmar are really at the heart of the criminality we are seeing in and around the Golden Triangle,” said Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC deputy regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“At the same time, Myanmar’s border areas are now much more connected to the rest of the region, and the spillover into Southeast Asia is growing,” he told VOA.

Fortunes carved out on unfettered methamphetamine production are now being multiplied with cyber scam parks and illicit wildlife trafficking — including bear bile and elephant ivory into southern China — and then laundered through casinos, the U.N. agency said in its annual World Drug Report earlier this week.

In the absence of serious law enforcement threats to their empires, the criminal networks working alongside armed groups in the Golden Triangle are getting bigger and more sophisticated in the ways they wash their money. They have been using an “underground banking infrastructure” of casinos, crypto and traditional currency exchanges to clean billions of dollars, Hofmann said.

“The line between the formal economy and criminal business is increasingly blurred, and corruption weakens governance systems in the region,” he said.

Increased Golden Triangle meth production is pushing drugs into new markets, as the price of yaba — addictive caffeine-laced meth pills taken across the Mekong River — crumbles to as low as $1 to $2 per pill, or less than a can of coke.

But cheaper meth has not come with “fluctuations in purity,” the study stated, driving up addiction rates in a region with limited resources and patchy political will for drug treatment and rehabilitation.

“There is a stronger focus now on a more balanced approach to drug control, taking into account both supply and demand of illicit drugs,” Hofmann said.

“But as drugs are getting cheaper and more accessible, including for very poor and young people, it is clear much more needs to be done in resourcing prevention and treatment systems that take care of those amongst the most vulnerable parts of society,” he said.

Myanmar’s conflict and chaos have exacerbated poverty in the border areas, in turn driving a surge in opium poppy production by poor rural communities.

Just this week, Myanmar’s Home Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Yar Pyae said in a statement: “In 2023, Myanmar saw a slight increase in illegal opium poppy cultivation. Therefore, the persuasion by the Myanmar Tatmadaw, Myanmar Police Force, and various departments to local ethnic communities in drug prevention efforts through educational activities has led to the destruction of a total of 6,181 acres of poppy fields during the 2023-2024 opium poppy cultivation season. The alternative development management sector is continuously carrying out the implementation of opium alternative development activities, the crop substitution sector, and the livestock breeding sector.”

Yet, Myanmar is now the world’s number one opium producer, as the Taliban cracks down on poppy cultivation — the base ingredient of heroin — in Afghanistan, the study said.

The report also warned of mounting environmental damage caused by the rampant meth trade. While there are no studies in hard-to-reach areas, the UNODC said as a rule, every kilogram of methamphetamine produced creates 5 to 10 kilograms of toxic chemical waste.

Thailand alone burned upwards of 340 tons of seized narcotics in December and a further 20 tons on June 26, world drug day.

The kingdom has launched a renewed drug crackdown, but methamphetamine, ketamine and heroin continue to pour through its borders and ports to the rest of Southeast Asia.

“The drug producers are still operating along the borders, pumping out hundreds of thousands of pills a day,” Krisanaphong Poothakool, a prominent criminologist and former senior Thai police officer, told VOA.

The latest seizures with new packets of branding point to new players entering the meth trade, as traffickers get increasingly skillful in the way they move their drugs.

“Producers in Thailand are also making the pills on the go in moving vehicles. It’s nearly impossible to intercept them all,” he said.

Insulated from crackdowns by remote Golden Triangle locations, alliances with powerful armed groups and easily corrupted officials, the crime organizations of Southeast Asia show no sign of slowing down.

Security experts warn that cyber scams with bases in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia have made new fortunes for the crime lords and are becoming increasingly advanced with artificial intelligence and the reach of the internet.

“We are only at the beginning of a technology-driven revolution of the criminal ecosystem here, with implications for people far beyond this region,” Hofmann said.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — When Ngarauru Mako told her family she was calling off Christmas festivities in favor of celebrating Matariki, the Māori new year holiday that’s experiencing a renaissance in New Zealand, her children didn’t believe her.

“We grew up with Christmas because it was just what you did, but I realized it wasn’t my thing,” said Mako, who is Māori, a member of New Zealand’s Indigenous people. “I just decided myself to cancel Christmas, be the Grinch, and take on Matariki.”

Now in its third year as a nationwide public holiday in New Zealand, Matariki marks the lunar new year by the rise of the star cluster known in the Northern Hemisphere as the Pleiades. The holiday is seeing a surge in popularity, even as political debates about race in New Zealand have grown more divisive. Accompanying the holiday’s rise is a tension between those embracing Indigenous language and culture, and a vocal minority who wish to see less of it.

“For much of our past, since the arrival of settlers to this land, mostly out of Great Britain, we’ve really looked to mimic and build our identity off Great Britain,” said Rangi Mātāmua, professor of Mātauranga Māori -– Māori knowledge — at Massey University and an adviser to the government on Matariki.

“But I think as we’ve moved a number of generations on, Aotearoa New Zealand is starting to come of age in terms of our understanding of our identity,” he added, using both the Māori and English names for the country.

When New Zealand established the national day in 2022, it became the first nation in the world to recognize an Indigenous-minority holiday, scholars including Mātāmua believe. But many did not know what it was. Even so, 51% of people did something to mark the day, official figures show, and that number grew to 60% in 2023. Matariki falls on a different midwinter date each year based on the Māori lunar calendar; in 2024 it was officially celebrated June 28.

 

A 700-year-old tradition that fell out of observance in modern times — even among the 1 million Māori who make up New Zealand’s population of 5 million -– the fortunes of Matariki changed over the past few decades, as Māori language, culture and traditions saw a passionate resurgence.

“Māori culture has been oppressed for a long, long time. We lost our reo — our language — nearly, we nearly lost our identity,” said Poropiti Rangitaawa, a musician who performed Māori songs this month at a family Matariki celebration outside of Wellington, the capital city. “But with the hope of our people, our old people, our ancestors, they have brought it up and now it’s really strong.”

The carnival day at Wainuiomata where Rangitaawa played was one of many events New Zealanders of all ethnicities attended to mark Matariki. Some attended predawn ceremonies where steam from food is released to “feed the stars” and lists of names are read remembering the dead and those born since the last celebration.

Dotted around Wellington were remembrance spots — in the back room of a church, in a garden -– where visitors displayed notes to those they had lost: a dad, an aunt, a cat.

“It’s only just now that I’m realizing Matariki is about the stars, and I love the fact that they’ve got a star for the ones we’ve lost in the year,” said Casey Wick, attending a celebration with her family.

For many, a growing knowledge of the holiday has come through their children, which is typical of New Zealand’s Indigenous movement. Protests in the 1970s seeking recognition of the language gave rise to Māori language pre-schools whose first generation of graduates are fluent speakers.

Every elementary school in New Zealand now recognizes Matariki, and many this month hosted shared meals for families to celebrate. Children come home singing the names of the nine Matariki stars to the tune of the Macarena.

“I learn more from her about Matariki than I could ever give to her,” said Liana Childs, whose daughter Akaylia, 9, recited the stars of the cluster perfectly. The family is not Māori, Childs said, but they studied the Māori seasons, which guide the planting of crops and when to hunt.

“I think it’s just brought us closer together as a family,” she said.

The political climate for Māori language and culture, however, is complicated.

Words in the language are now commonplace in conversations, but Māori has its detractors, too. Matariki was established as a national day under New Zealand’s previous center-left government, which urged the country to embrace Māori culture. The government, however, was often decried for doing little to address woeful economic, health and justice issues for Māori that became entrenched after New Zealand was colonized in the 19th century.

A change of government last October meant a new era for Matariki. The party leading the current center-right coalition supports the day, but one of its coalition partners does not. The government has also pledged to scrap some policies recognizing Māori that were passed by its predecessors, getting rid of a Māori health agency that prioritized Indigenous New Zealanders, who die younger than people of non-Maori descent; reversing a movement to grant Māori names to government agencies, some of which have already reverted to their English titles; and halting plans for shared management of public utilities with Māori tribes.

One of the governing parties has provoked a fresh debate about New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi -– signed between Māori tribes and the British Crown in 1840 -– with the suggestion that modern interpretations have given Māori too many rights. The rumblings about a revisited treaty have prompted protest marches.

“Governments will come and governments will go,” said Mātāmua, the professor. “Matariki existed before government, and it will continue to exist after the current government.”

Māori language and culture almost died out when earlier politicians opposed their expression, Mātāmua said, but in a nation where many are now enthusiastic about it, any government trying to curtail the celebration would learn “that perhaps trying to put this genie back in the bottle would be very, very difficult.”

At the Matariki celebration in Wainuiomata, Tash Simpson stood with friends at a stall that fused Māori and Kenyan crafts.

“We’re stronger now. Our people are more knowledgeable now,” she said of political threats to Māori. “But now we know what’s coming and we’re ready.”
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Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia — Mongolian Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene declared victory early Saturday in parliamentary elections, after a contest dominated by deepening public anger about corruption and the state of the economy. 

People across the vast, sparsely populated nation of 3.4 million, sandwiched between China and Russia, voted Friday to elect 126 members of the State Great Khural. 

With 100 percent of votes counted by machine, the prime minister told a press conference in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, a few hours after polls closed that his ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) had won a majority of seats. 

“According to the pre-results, the Mongolian People’s Party has 68 to 70 seats,” he said. 

The vote, he said, represented a “new page” in “democratic debate.” 

The votes were being counted by hand, and an official result was expected later Saturday. 

If the preliminary results hold, the MPP will see its overall share of parliamentary seats fall, from a supermajority of 79% in 2020 to about 54% in the new one. 

Results tallied by local media outlet Ikon based on official data also showed the MPP winning 68 seats, with the main opposition Democratic Party winning 42. 

The minor anti-corruption HUN party won eight, Ikon reported. 

Voter turnout was 69.3% nationally, a screen at the country’s Electoral Commission headquarters showed. 

Julian Dierkes, a professor at the University of British Columbia and an expert on Mongolian politics, wrote that “everything points to a reduced MPP majority with a surprisingly strong showing” by the Democratic Party. 

“The relatively strong turnout,” he said, also suggests “desire for some change.”

Deep frustration 

Analysts had expected the MPP to retain the majority it has enjoyed since 2016 and govern for another four years. 

They say the party can credit much of its success to a boom in coal mining that fueled double-digit growth and dramatically improved standards of living, as well as to a formidable party machine and a weak, fractured opposition. 

Yet there is deep public frustration over endemic corruption, as well as the high cost of living and lack of opportunities for young people who make up almost two-thirds of the population. 

There is also a widespread belief that the proceeds of the coal-mining boom are being hoarded by a wealthy elite – a view that has sparked frequent protests. 

Broad spectrum 

The streets of Ulaanbaatar, home to almost half of Mongolia’s population, have been decked out this week with colorful campaign posters touting candidates from across the political spectrum, from populist businessmen to nationalists, environmentalists and socialists. 

Parties are required by law to ensure that 30% of candidates are women in a country where politics is dominated by men. 

Preliminary results Saturday suggested that 25% of seats in the new parliament would be held by women, up from 17% in 2020. 

The MPP is the successor to the communist party that ruled Mongolia with an iron grip for almost 70 years.  

It remains popular, particularly among rural, older voters, and commands a sprawling, nationwide campaign apparatus.
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new york — The United States and its allies warned Friday that expanding military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is dangerous, illegal and a growing threat to the wider international community.

“Last week, Russian and DPRK leaders signed a ‘Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,’ paving the way for further deepening their military cooperation,” Robert Wood, U.S. deputy U.N. ambassador, told reporters, surrounded by representatives of nearly 50 like-minded countries.

“We are deeply concerned about the security implications of the advancement of this cooperation for Europe, the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”

DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Wood spoke ahead of a meeting of the U.N. Security Council requested by the United States, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea to discuss North Korea’s transfer of arms and munitions to Russia, which are helping drive the Kremlin’s war machine in Ukraine. Such transfers would violate a U.N. arms embargo on North Korea.

“Before February 2022, it was hard to imagine that the war in Ukraine would pose such a direct threat to the security of the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean Ambassador Joonkook Hwang told council members. “But now we are facing a new reality.”

He said South Korea’s national defense ministry has assessed that since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a summit in Russia in September, Pyongyang has shipped at least 10,000 containers to Russia that can hold a total of as many as 5 million artillery shells. His government has also determined that 122-millimeter artillery shells made in North Korea were included in the weapons Russia has used against Ukraine.

In return for the weapons, North Korea is seeking trade and military assistance from Russia, which would violate U.N. sanctions. It is also benefiting from Russia’s political protection in the Security Council.

“All these developments can bring about a shift in the global security landscape, and the potential long-term effects are dangerously uncertain,” Hwang said, adding that Seoul would “resolutely respond” to any threats to its security in a “prudent and measured” way.

U.N. sanctions experts detailed prohibited transfers of military equipment and munitions from North Korea to Russia in a report in February — which Moscow denied. Russia then used its Security Council veto to shut down the 14-year-old monitoring panel in April.

Russia’s envoy again dismissed accusations it is getting weapons from North Korea at Friday’s meeting.

“This is completely false,” Vassily Nebenzia told the council, adding that the two countries’ cooperation “is exclusively constructive and legitimate in nature.”

Nebenzia dismissed the panel of experts’ findings as controlled and directed by the West.

“The panel of experts have been following those orders given them and turning in the direction they were told to turn,” he said.

North Korea’s envoy defended Pyongyang and Moscow’s treaty, saying relations between the two countries “are completely peace-loving and defensive in nature.”

“Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to be concerned about development of their bilateral relations, unless they have intention to undertake a military invasion of the DPRK and Russian Federation,” Ambassador Song Kim said.

China, which has traditionally been North Korea’s closest ally, expressed concern about heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“China calls on parties concerned to be rational and pragmatic and to find joint efforts to find a solution,” Deputy Ambassador Geng Shuang said.

Washington’s envoy urged Beijing to use its influence with both Pyongyang and Moscow to persuade them to cease their “increasingly dangerous cooperation.”

“So I appeal to my Chinese colleague to understand that if indeed the situation on the Korean Peninsula continues on the trajectory it’s going, the United States and its allies will have to take steps to defend their security,” Wood said.
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washington — The recent defense pact between Russia and North Korea could present a diplomatic opportunity for the United States and China to work together for stability on the Korean Peninsula, an issue of mutual interest to both countries, some experts say.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Monday that China would be “somewhat anxious” about enhanced cooperation between Russia and North Korea, adding that Chinese officials have “indicated so in some of our interactions, and we can see some tension associated with those things.”

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters after the Russia-North Korea summit last week in Pyongyang that concern about the new defense agreement between the two countries “would be shared by the People’s Republic of China” — China’s official name.

During their keenly watched summit, Russian President Vladmir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, vowing to challenge the U.S.-led world order.

Under the treaty, the two countries, which share a short border along the lower Tumen River, are now required to provide military assistance using all available means if either of them is attacked by a third country.

High-precision weapons

Putin further raised the stakes in this newly cemented relationship, saying he is not ruling out the possibility of Russia providing high-precision weapons to North Korea.

According to some experts in Washington, China’s frustration with its two neighbors could make room for a Sino-American effort to dissuade Russia and North Korea from moving forward with their nascent defense pact.

Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, told VOA’s Korean Service earlier this week that there is a way for the U.S. to find “some common ground” with China on this issue.

He explained that it is in China’s interest not to see the transfer of Russia’s advanced, offensive military technologies to North Korea, which could be destabilizing on the Korean Peninsula.

“That opens up a common ground for the United States to deal with China to limit any destabilizing transfer of technology to the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

Joseph DeTrani, who served as the special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006, told VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday that the U.S. and China need to come together on this issue.

DeTrani said North Korea has to be on the list of “the issues of mutual concern” between the top two powers, as the U.S. pursues dialogue with China on subjects such as artificial intelligence and trade.

Dennis Wilder, who served as senior director for East Asia affairs at the White House’s National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, was more cautious about the possibility of U.S.-China coordination.

Wilder told VOA’s Korean Service this week that the current state of U.S.-China relations makes Beijing averse to working with Washington on North Korea.

“No, they have no interest in joining with us, considering how they feel we are treating them,” Wilder said. “I very much doubt that the Chinese would be interested. A far possibility would be that they might want to share information, but that would be the only place.”

No ties to call on

Robert Gallucci, who was the chief U.S. negotiator during the 1994 North Korea nuclear crisis, offered a similar view.

“We don’t have a relationship with Beijing right now that we could call on,” he said earlier this week.

Gallucci told VOA’s Korean Service that China will not appreciate the possibility of its influence on North Korea being undercut.

Gary Samore, who served as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, told VOA’s Korean Service via email on Wednesday that China might have a limited influence on what is happening between Russia and North Korea, although Washington and Beijing share an interest in keeping things calm on the Korean Peninsula.

“I expect that Beijing will discourage any military assistance from Russia to North Korea that could be destabilizing,” he said. “Whether Putin or Kim Jong Un will respect China’s wishes, I can’t say.”

Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA’s Korean Service via email earlier this week that “in principle, China welcomes Russia to consolidate and develop traditional friendly relations with relevant countries,” without referring to North Korea.

Meanwhile, Washington is holding out hope that Beijing can still leverage its historical ties with Pyongyang to drive a solution.

“We urge Beijing to use its influence to encourage the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] to refrain from destabilizing behavior and return to the negotiating table,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday.
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WASHINGTON — Vietnam has ramped up its building of islands in the disputed South China Sea to bolster its position in relation to China, say experts, but does not pose any threat to the other main claimant in the area, the Philippines.

Since November last year, Vietnam has accelerated the expansion of its outposts in the Spratly Islands, according to a report published earlier this month by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

According to the report, Vietnam constructed 280 hectares (1 square mile) of land across 10 features it controls in the archipelago in the first half of 2024, compared with a total of 301 hectares (1.2 square miles) in the first 11 months of 2023 and the whole of 2022 combined.

Beijing still controls the three largest outposts in the Spratly chain but, thanks to the recent dredging and landfill work, Hanoi now controls the next four largest. Manila’s largest island in the archipelago — Thitu — ranks ninth in size.

Vietnam and the Philippines have been locked in a decadeslong territorial dispute with China over the South China Sea and its islands despite a ruling in 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that dismissed China’s claim to most of the sea. That claim infringes on the exclusive economic zones of several coastal states.

“Boosting presence”

Vietnam’s acceleration of island building took place after Hanoi upgraded ties with Washington to the highest level in September 2023 and agreed to building a “community of shared future” with Beijing in early December.

“It’s a good timing for Vietnam to step up dredging,” Hoang Viet, a lecturer at University of Law in Ho Chi Minh City who closely monitors the situation in the South China Sea, told VOA over the phone.

Hanoi has learned a lesson from Manila’s recent stand-off with Beijing over the Second Thomas Shoal in which Chinese coast guard vessels attempted to block the Philippines’ resupply missions to its troops on a grounded vessel. Viet said the lack of an expanded outpost there puts Manila at a disadvantage.

It will be more complicated for Beijing to harass a claimant that has a strengthened garrison on a disputed feature, he said, so it’s imperative that Hanoi speed up dredging in the South China Sea if it wants to safeguard its presence in the area.

He said legal action is not enough for Hanoi or Manila to push their claims if they are not accompanied by an actual military presence, noting that the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s 2016 ruling has not helped the Philippines much against Chinese aggression.

“It’s Chinese aggression that has prompted Vietnam to carry on its own reclamation. Vietnam had seen no need to do that prior to Chinese reclamation and militarization in the South China Sea,” he said.

Harrison Pretat, deputy director of AMTI, told VOA in an email that the new reclamation will give Vietnam several more large ports in the Spratly Islands.

“This may allow Vietnam to begin operating more coast guard or militia vessels in disputed areas for long periods, without having to make the long return journey to Vietnam’s coast,” he said.

“It is also possible that Vietnam could build a second airstrip in the Spratly Islands, enhancing its ability to move personnel and supplies quickly and potentially conduct maritime air patrols,” he said.

Viet also cited Vietnam’s need to build strongholds in the waters to help with search and rescue operations for its fishermen caught in rough weather, as well as to prevent them from engaging in illegal fishing in its neighbors’ waters.

“Not provocative to Manila”

Viet said Vietnam’s dredging is “unlikely to stoke tension” in the South China Sea given that “it is purely for development or defense purposes, not to threaten or attack other claimants.”

“Beijing has little reason to protest because they reclaimed twice as much land, while Washington and Manila understand Vietnam’s motive,” he said.

Hanoi and Manila have overlapping claims to features in the Spratly chain, but incidents between the two countries have been rare, while bilateral ties were strengthened during President Ferdinand Marcos’ state visit to Hanoi earlier this year. The two countries agreed to increase coast guard cooperation.

Two days after AMTI released its report, Commodore Jay Tarriela, spokesperson of the Philippine Coast Guard for the West Philippine Sea, told local press that “Vietnam focuses on minding their own affairs and reclaiming maritime features they occupied before the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties.”

AMTI’s Pretat argued that although Manila is not excited to see Vietnam expanding its outposts, it “doesn’t see it as a threat to its own maritime activities.”

“Vietnam has shown no effort to forcefully administrate its claims the way China has,” noted Pretat. “The Philippines is much more concerned with China’s behavior at sea and its efforts to restrict the activities of Philippine fishers, coast guard and military.”

He stressed that Manila sees Hanoi as a potential partner. “Vietnam has been one of the only claimants besides the Philippines to maintain a relatively strong stance against China’s claims and activities in the South China Sea,” he said.

Viet said statements by Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang regarding incidents in the Second Thomas Shoal last Friday “carried implicit support for the Philippines.”

She also said that Vietnam “stays ready to discuss with the Philippines to seek and achieve a solution that is mutually beneficial for both countries” regarding overlapping claims to the undersea continental shelf, AP reported.

However, Viet said that despite similar stances on South China Sea issues, as well as shared concern of China’s assertiveness, Hanoi’s measured and less noisy approach to Beijing makes it hard for them to work with Manila to counter Beijing.

“Without the support of ASEAN or other claimants like Indonesia or Malaysia, I think Vietnam’s appetite for direct and public opposition to China’s activities currently can’t match the Philippines,” said Pretat.
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Beijing — Former Chinese defense minister Li Shangfu has been expelled from the ruling Communist Party, state media said Thursday, after he was sacked abruptly last year in unexplained circumstances.

“The Politburo… has decided to expel Li Shangfu from the party, terminate his credentials as a representative of the 20th National Congress, and transfer his suspected criminal issues to military procuratorial organs for review and prosecution,” state broadcaster CCTV said.

The Communist Party’s powerful Politburo of senior leaders convened on Thursday to review a report on Li’s status.

There, they ruled Li had “betrayed his original mission and lost his party spirit and principles,” according to CCTV.

He “seriously polluted the political environment and industrial ethos in the field of military equipment, and caused great damage to the party’s cause, national defense and the construction of the armed forces,” CCTV said.

Li is “suspected of bribery” having been accused of “taking advantage of his position and taking huge sums of money to seek benefits for others… and giving money to others to seek inappropriate benefits,” it said.

He also “illegally sought personnel benefits for himself and others,” it added.
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SAN DIEGO — A pair of giant pandas are on their way from China to the U.S., where they will be cared for at the San Diego Zoo as part of an ongoing conservation partnership between the two nations, officials said Wednesday.

Officials with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance were on hand in China for a farewell ceremony commemorating the departure of the giant pandas, Yun Chuan and Xin Bao.

The celebration included cultural performances, video salutations from Chinese and American students and a gift exchange among conservation partners, the zoo said in a statement. After the ceremony, the giant pandas began their trip to Southern California.

“This farewell celebrates their journey and underscores a collaboration between the United States and China on vital conservation efforts,” Paul Baribault, the wildlife alliance president, said in a statement. “Our long-standing partnership with China Wildlife Conservation Association has been instrumental in advancing giant panda conservation, and we look forward to continuing our work together to ensure the survival and thriving of this iconic species.”

It could be several weeks before the giant pandas will be viewable to the public in San Diego, officials said.

Yun Chuan, a mild-mannered male who’s nearly 5 years old, has connections to California, the wildlife alliance said previously. His mother, Zhen Zhen, was born at the San Diego Zoo in 2007 to parents Bai Yun and Gao Gao.

Xin Bao is a nearly 4-year-old female described as “a gentle and witty introvert with a sweet round face and big ears.”

The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has a nearly 30-year partnership with leading conservation institutions in China focused on protecting and recovering giant pandas and the bamboo forests they depend on.
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seoul, south korea — North Korea has successfully conducted an important test aimed at developing missiles carrying multiple warheads, state media KCNA said on Thursday.  

The test was carried out on Wednesday using a first-stage engine equipped with a solid-fuel based intermediate and long-range ballistic missile, it said.  

The dispatch came a day after South Korea’s military said that North Korea launched what appeared to be a hypersonic missile off its east coast, but it exploded in midair.  

KCNA said the missile succeeded in separating warheads that were accurately guided to three preset targets. 

“The purpose was to secure the capability to destroy individual targets using multiple warheads,” it said.  

South Korea, the United States and Japan condemned the launch as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and a serious threat. They also warned against additional provocations in the wake of last week’s summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin.  

During Putin’s first visit to North Korea in 24 years, the two leaders signed a mutual defense pact, which Kim lauded as an alliance, but South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called it “anachronistic.” 

In another dispatch, North Korea’s defense minister Kang Sun Nam condemned Ukraine’s attack on Crimea with U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles that killed at least four people and injured 151 as an “inexcusable, heinous act against humanity.”  

The attack highlighted how Washington has served as a “top-class state sponsor of terrorism,” he said, adding that any retaliation from Russia would make “the most justifiable defense.”  

The U.S. State Department said on Monday that Washington provided weapons to Ukraine so it could defend its sovereign territory, including Crimea. 
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