CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s government has withdrawn a bill that would give a media watchdog power to monitor digital platforms and require them to keep records about misinformation and disinformation on their networks. 

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said Sunday that the government was unable to drum up the support needed to pass the legislation. The opposition spokesman, David Coleman, said the bill “betrayed our democracy” and amounted to “censorship laws in Australia.” 

“Based on public statements and engagements with senators, it is clear that there is no pathway to legislate this proposal through the Senate,” Rowland said. 

The bill would have granted the Australian Communications and Media Authority power over digital platforms by approving an enforceable code of conduct or standards for social media companies if self-regulation fell short. 

“This bill would have had the effect of suppressing the free speech of everyday Australians, as platforms would have censored online content to avoid the threat of big fines,” Coleman said said in a statement.
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BRISBANE, Australia — Australian Elvis Smylie shot a 4-under 67 to win the 54-hole Australian PGA on Sunday by two shots after a final round shootout with his compatriot and former mentor Cameron Smith.

Smylie finished on 14-under 199, two ahead of Smith who had a 2-under final round 69. Smith’s LIV tour teammate Mark Leishman and Australian Anthony Quayle shared third place on 11 under at the par-71 Royal Queensland.

Heavy rain showers and an unplayable course on Friday forced the second round to be abandoned and made the joint Australasian PGA and European Tour event a 54-hole tournament.

Five years ago Smylie, the son of former Australian tennis pro Liz Smylie. won the Cameron Smith Scholarship which allowed him to spend a week at Smith’s Florida home where he was able to learn to live and practice as a PGA Tour professional.

Now 22, Smylie started Sunday’s final round tied atop the leaderboard with Smith at 10 under par.

Smith was the 2022 British Open winner at St. Andrews and previously won the Australian PGA in 2017, 2018 and 2022. Smylie had a breakthrough win in last month’s West Australian Open.

The pair traded birdies until the sixth hole when there was a two-shot turnaround when Smylie birdied and Smith bogeyed. Smylie, who led after a first round 65, had four birdies in his first seven holes and played his outward nine in four-under 32, turning at 14 under.

He had good ups and downs under pressure at the par four 10th and 12th holes, using his three wood to bunt the ball onto the greens from close range.

With a bogey at the ninth hole, Smith turned in 35, having dropped back into a second place tie at 11-under with Quayle, Mark Leishman and Australia David Micheluzzi.

Smith had another bogey on the par-4 14th which dropped him back to 10 under while Quayle finished with an 8-under 63 to take an early clubhouse lead at 11-under.

Smylie was under pressure at the par-5 15th when he hit his second well to the left of the green. Again he scrambled to save par while Smith birdied to move back to 11-under, cutting the lead to three shots.

Smith trimmed Smylie’s lead to two when he holed out from off the green for birdie at the par-3 17th, winning a large cheer from the crowd on the tournament’s party hole. Smylie’s birdie putt from six feet slipped past.

Smylie held his nerve when he put his tee shot on the 18th into light rough with the broad trunk of a tree between him and the green 186 meters away. He curled his around the tree, but into a greenside bunker.

Smylie played a nerveless shot from the sand to three feet and holed out for par, finishing with 11 consecutive pars. He managed to get up and down from precarious positions six times on the back nine.

“It’s a dream come true,” Smylie said. “I won’t forget this day playing with Cam and [Leishman].

“My short game was great; I definitely saved myself.”

The Australian PGA is the first event of the 2025 European Tour season.

Next week, many of the same players will travel to Melbourne for the Australian Open, also on the European Tour. It is being played concurrently with the Women’s Australian Open at famed sandbelt courses Kingston Heath and Victoria.
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JAYAPURA, Indonesia — On the southeastern coast of the city of Jayapura, Petronela Merauje walked from house to house in her floating village inviting women to join her the next morning in the surrounding mangrove forests.

Merauje and the women of her village, Enggros, practice the tradition of Tonotwiyat, which literally means “working in the forest.” For six generations, women from the 700-strong Papuan population there have worked among the mangroves collecting clams, fishing and gathering firewood.

“The customs and culture of Papuans, especially those of us in Enggros village, is that women are not given space and place to speak in traditional meetings, so the tribal elders provide the mangrove forest as our land,” Merauje said. It’s “a place to find food, a place for women to tell stories, and women are active every day and earn a living every day.”

The forest is a short 13 kilometers away from downtown Jayapura, the capital city of Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost province. It’s been known as the women’s forest since 2016, when Enggros’ leader officially changed its name. Long before that, it had already been a space just for women. But as pollution, development and biodiversity loss shrink the forest and stunt plant and animal life, those in the village fear an important part of their traditions and livelihoods will be lost. Efforts to shield it from devastation have begun but are still relatively small.

Women have their own space — but it’s shrinking

One early morning, Merauje and her 15-year-old daughter took a small motorboat toward the forest. Stepping off on Youtefa Bay, mangrove trees all around, they stood chest-deep in the water with buckets in hand, wiggling their feet in the mud to find bia noor, or soft-shell clams. The women collect these for food, along with other fish.

“The women’s forest is our kitchen,” said Berta Sanyi, another woman from Enggros village.

That morning, another woman joined the group looking for firewood, hauling dry logs onto her boat. And three other women joined on a rowboat.

Women from the next village, Tobati, also have a women’s forest nearby. The two Indigenous villages are only 2 kilometers apart, and they’re culturally similar, with Enggros growing out of Tobati’s population decades ago. In the safety of the forest, women of both villages talk about issues at home with one another and share grievances away from the ears of the rest of the village.

Alfred Drunyi, the leader of Drunyi tribe in Enggros, said that having dedicated spaces for women and men is a big part of the village’s culture. There are tribal fines if a man trespasses and enters the forest, and the amount is based on how guilty the community judges the person to be.

“They should pay it with our main treasure, the traditional beads, maybe with some money. But the fines should be given to the women,” Drunyi said.

But Sanyi, 65, who’s been working in the forest since she was just 17, notes that threats to the space come from elsewhere.

Development on the bay has turned acres of forest into large roads, including a 700-meter bridge into Jayapura that passes through Enggros’ pier. Jayapura’s population has exploded in recent decades, and around 400,000 people live in the city — the largest on the island.

In turn, the forest has shrunk. Nearly six decades ago, the mangrove forest in Youtefa Bay was about 514 hectares. Estimates say it’s now less than half that.

“I am so sad when I see the current situation of the forest,” Sanyi said, “because this is where we live.” She said many residents, including her own children, are turning to work in Jayapura instead of maintaining traditions.

Pollution puts traditions and health at risk

Youtefa Bay, where the sea’s brackish water and five rivers in Papua meet, serves as the gathering bowl for the waste that runs through the rivers as they cross through Jayapura.

Plastic bottles, tarpaulins and pieces of wood are seen stuck between the mangrove roots. The water around the mangrove forest is polluted and dark.

After dozens of years being able to feel the clams on the bay with her feet, Sanyi said she now often has to feel through trash first. And once she removes the trash and gets to the muddy ground where the clams live, there are many fewer than there used to be.

Paula Hamadi, 53, said that she never saw the mangrove forest as bad as it is now. For years, she’s been going to the forest almost every day during the low tide in the morning to search for clams.

“It used to be different,” Hamadi said. “From 8 a.m. to 8:30 in the morning, I could get one can. But now, I only get trash.”

The women used to be able to gather enough clams to sell some at the nearest village, but now their small hauls are reserved for eating with their families.

A study in 2020 found that high concentrations of lead from waste from homes and businesses were found at several points in the bay. Lead can be toxic to humans and aquatic organisms, and the study suggests it has contaminated several species that are often consumed by the people of Youtefa Bay.

Other studies also showed that populations of shellfish and crab in the bay were declining, said John Dominggus Kalor, a lecturer on fisheries and marine sciences at Cenderawasih University.

“The threats related to heavy metal contamination, microplastics, and public health are high,” Kalor said. “In the future, it will have an impact on health.”

Some are trying to save the land

Some of the mangrove areas have been destroyed for development, leading to degradation throughout the forest.

Mangroves can absorb the shocks of extreme weather events, like tsunamis, and provide ecosystems with the needed environment to thrive. They also serve social and cultural functions for the women, whose work is mostly done between the mangroves.

“In the future people will say that there used to be a women’s forest here” that disappeared because of development and pollution, said Kalor.

Various efforts to preserve it have been made, including the residents of Enggros village themselves. Merauje and other women from Enggros are trying to start mangrove tree nurseries and, where possible, plant new mangrove trees in the forest area.

“We plant new trees, replace the dead ones, and we also clean up the trash around Youtefa Bay,” Merauje said. “I do that with my friends to conserve, to maintain this forest.”

Beyond efforts to reforest it, Kalor said there also needs to be guarantees that more of the forest won’t be flattened for development in the future.

There is no regional regulation to protect Youtefa Bay and specifically the women’s forests, but Kalor thinks it would help prevent deforestation in the future.

“That should no longer be done in our bay,” he said. 
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BAKU, AZERBAIJAN — United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming in tense negotiations in the city where industry first tapped oil.

The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming, and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times a deal of $100 billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.

It was not quite the agreement by consensus that these meetings usually operate with and developing nations were livid about being ignored.

COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev gaveled the deal into acceptance before any nation had a chance to speak.

When they did, they blasted him for being unfair to them, the deal for not being enough, and the world’s rich nations for being too stingy.

“It’s a paltry sum,” India negotiator Chandni Raina said, repeatedly saying how India objected to rousing cheers. “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it.”

She told The Associated Press that she has lost faith in the United Nations system.

Nations express discontent

A long line of nations agreed with India and piled on, with Nigeria’s Nkiruka Maduekwe, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change, calling the deal an insult and a joke.

“I’m disappointed. It’s definitely below the benchmark that we have been fighting for for so long,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, of the Panama delegation. He noted that a few changes, including the inclusion of the words “at least” before the number $300 billion and an opportunity for revision by 2030, helped push them to the finish line.

“Our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over,” he said.

The final package pushed through “does not speak or reflect or inspire confidence and trust that we will come out of this grave problem of climate change,” India’s Raina said.

“We absolutely object to the unfair means followed for adoption,” Raina said. “We are extremely hurt by this action by the president and the secretariat.”

Speaking for nearly 50 of the poorest nations of the world, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more mild, expressing what he called reservations with the deal.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that he hoped for a “more ambitious outcome.” But he said the agreement “provides a base on which to build.”

Some see deal as relief

There were somewhat satisfied parties, with European Union’s Wopke Hoekstra calling it a new era of climate funding, working hard to help the most vulnerable. But activists in the plenary hall could be heard coughing over Hoekstra’s speech in an attempt to disrupt it.

Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”

“It was not certain. This was tough,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, of (a) multilateral system having real difficulties, the fact that we could get it through in these difficult circumstances is really important.”

U.N. Climate Change’s Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called the deal an “insurance policy for humanity,” adding that like insurance, “it only works if the premiums are paid in full, and on time.”

The deal is seen as a step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the U.N. talks in Paris in 2015.

The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius and carbon emissions keep rising.

Hope more cash will follow

Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.

“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”

And even though it’s far from the needed $1.3 trillion, it’s more than the $250 billion that was on the table in an earlier draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit.

Other deals agreed at COP29

The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of the oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.

Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon pollution rights, an idea that was set up as part of the Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Backers said a U.N.-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.

Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.

“What they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.

With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A ban on New Zealanders wearing or displaying symbols of gang affiliation in public took effect on Thursday, with police officers making their first arrest for a breach of the law three minutes later.

The man was driving with gang insignia displayed on the dashboard of his car, Police Commissioner Richard Chambers told 1News.

The prohibition on displaying gang insignia anywhere outside private homes, including on clothing or in vehicles, is among a suite of new measures intended to bolster police powers to disrupt the groups. Wearing or displaying the insignia of 35 listed gangs will now prompt a fine of up to 5,000 New Zealand dollars ($2,940) or up to six months in jail.

New Zealand’s center-right government, which pledged ahead of last October’s election to tackle gang crime, says the measures will reduce the membership of groups responsible for violence and drug offenses. But detractors say the law breaches civil liberties and could drive gang activities underground.

“Gangs aren’t community groups. They’re not a Rotary club,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon wrote on social media Thursday. “They thrive on destroying the lives of other New Zealanders, whether that’s by peddling drugs or through brutal acts of violence that leave communities in fear.”

Under the new law, officers can also disperse public gatherings of three or more members, bar some gang affiliates from associating with each other, and enter homes of those who keep breaking the law to search for banned items. Gang membership will now be considered by the courts when sentencing offenders.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell told reporters Thursday that two people were arrested hours after the law took effect for wearing gang “patches,” which are large insignia often worn by gang members on the backs of leather jackets or vests. The government says the patches are intimidating because members are required to earn them through violent acts.

The measures shift New Zealand’s response to gangs closer to that of neighboring Australia, which also uses a law to suppress the public visibility of gangs, and away from jurisdictions like the U.S. and Britain, which use criminal law to respond to specific activities carried out by organized crime groups, according to a report published by Treasury officials in February.

Facial tattoos that display gang insignia are exempt from the ban, as is the wearing of gang colors. The government was criticized by some for not including white supremacist groups in its list of 35 organizations targeted by the new law. That means displaying swastikas and making Nazi salutes remains legal in New Zealand -– unlike in Australia, which banned both in a law that took effect January.

There are nearly 9,400 people on a New Zealand police list of known gang members. New Zealand’s population is 5 million.

Successive governments have vowed to tackle criminal gangs, which often are linked to poverty and other deprivation. The previous center-left government was decried by Luxon’s administration for working with gangs on social initiatives, including COVID-19 vaccination efforts, while the current government has been denounced for advancing policies that are likely to ensnare some of New Zealand’s most marginalized groups, including Indigenous Māori.

Official reports say three-quarters of those on the national gang list are Māori, who make up less than 20% of New Zealanders, and that 80% to 90% of those in two of the most notorious gangs are former wards of the state.

Luxon made a formal apology this month for the widespread abuse of children and vulnerable adults in state care over the past seven decades.
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Chinese hackers are positioning themselves in U.S. critical infrastructure IT networks for a potential clash with the United States, a top American cybersecurity official said Friday.

Morgan Adamski, executive director of U.S. Cyber Command, said Chinese-linked cyber operations are aimed at gaining an advantage in case of a major conflict with the United States.

Officials have warned that China-linked hackers have compromised IT networks and taken steps to carry out disruptive attacks in the event of a conflict. Their activities include gaining access to key networks to enable potential disruptions such as manipulating heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems in server rooms, or disrupting critical energy and water controls, U.S. officials said earlier this year.

Beijing routinely denies cyber operations targeting U.S. entities. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Adamski was speaking to researchers at the Cyberwarcon security conference in Arlington, Virginia. On Thursday, U.S. Senator Mark Warner told The Washington Post a suspected China-linked hack on U.S. telecommunications firms was the worst telecom hack in U.S. history.

That cyber espionage operation, dubbed “Salt Typhoon,” has included stolen call records data, compromised communications of top officials of both major U.S. presidential campaigns before the November 5 election, and telecommunications information related to U.S. law enforcement requests, the FBI said recently.

The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are providing technical assistance and information to potential targets, the bureau said.

Adamski said Friday that the U.S. government has “executed globally synchronized activities, both offensively and defensively minded, that are laser-focused on degrading and disrupting PRC cyber operations worldwide.”

Public examples include exposing operations, sanctions, indictments, law enforcement actions and cybersecurity advisories, with input from multiple countries, Adamski said.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Violent attacks in China this month have killed 43 people and injured more than 70, raising questions about why the tragic incidents occurred and sparking discussion and debate online.

VOA spoke with observers who see a link between the incidents and a lack of effective measures to address the underlying social and mental health issues caused, in part, by the country’s current economic challenges.

“These violent attacks happen quite frequently, and one cause of the attacks is China’s sluggish economy and the direct grievances that it creates for average people across several industries and social classes,” said Kevin Slaten, the research lead of the China Dissent Monitor project under Washington-based Freedom House.

In Slaten’s view, widespread grievances caused by China’s economic downturn not only caused worker protests in China but may also have forced some people to adopt more extreme measures to express their feeling of desperation. While some violent acts seem to be random, others are directed at a person or people known to the suspect.

“There are more incidents of unpaid wages toward the end of the year, and these things not only drive protests but also drive individual frustration, anger and hopelessness that leads some people to take it out through senseless violence,” Slaten said in a phone interview.

In one of the most recent attacks, a 21-year-old student in the city of Wuxi, in eastern China, was reportedly so dissatisfied with his pay at an internship that he killed eight people and injured 17 more with a knife at a vocational school on November 16.

In another case, a 29-year-old man rammed a car into a group of people at a factory in southeastern China’s Guangdong Province in August due to labor disputes. He injured at least eight people.

Slaten said there are mechanisms designed to address grievances over pay and other issues in China, but Chinese people often are unable to resolve their problems through these channels.

“It’s difficult to bring collective cases under China’s court system, and court cases often take a long time, so for vulnerable communities that don’t have the time or resources to deal with the court system, they can’t rely on it,” Slaten said.

In his view, while some Chinese citizens will try to highlight their cases through public advocacy, “anger and desperation could motivate mass violence too.”

Some experts say working-class people are often the group affected the most by China’s ongoing economic downturn.

“For hundreds of millions of migrant workers, there is not an adequate social safety net, and things like unemployment insurance are not really in place,” Eli Friedman, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told VOA by phone.

An existing trend

VOA researched online reports of violent attacks in China between February and November of this year in which more than one person was killed or injured. Combined, some 120 people were killed and more than 213 were injured in those attacks.

November marks the deadliest month in China.

VOA’s data analysis shows knives were used in most of the attacks. Vehicles directed at people were also used.

Since information about the attacks is often instantly removed from social media platforms by Chinese authorities, it can be difficult to understand the motives of the attackers or the scale and frequency of the incidents.

Experts say Chinese authorities want to prevent information about violent attacks from spreading in society. Soon after each event, the government will try to censor discussions on social media platforms related to the incidents, said Dali Yang, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Chicago.

“They don’t want other people to think this is something to resort to if they can’t express their grievances, but such actions also make it very difficult for authorities to understand the underlying causes of such cases, resulting in their failure to address these causes,” Yang told VOA by phone.

When VOA tried to search for posts about the car-ramming incident in Zhuhai on China’s microblogging site Weibo, which is similar to social media platform X, no relevant results were found.

Despite Chinese authorities’ efforts to limit the spread of information about these attacks, Yang said, Chinese citizens are still expressing concerns about the surge of random acts of violence.

“Even without much information, I do get a sense in chat rooms on messaging apps that there is anxiety about these attacks in China. Part of the reason is because these are indiscriminate attacks happening in places with a lot of people,” he told VOA.

Chinese government’s response

Following the attack in Zhuhai, President Xi Jinping urged relevant authorities to “strengthen their prevention and control of risks at the source” and “emphasized the importance of resolving disputes in time.”

China’s top prosecutorial office also pledged “stern, strict and swift punishment for major vicious crimes to maintain social stability” and reiterated its “zero-tolerance approach toward crimes targeting students and compromising school safety.”

Local media reports revealed that some local authorities in China have started to identify specific types of high-risk individuals who might carry out indiscriminate violent attacks against the public. These include the unemployed, people who have recently ended relationships, people with low incomes and those with no channels to express their feelings.

China’s basic medical insurance for city dwellers and guaranteed minimum living standards for rural residents usually provide subsidies to individuals who fit the high-risk criteria, analysts said. However, the economic downturn and lack of financial resources may make it difficult for the Chinese government to maintain these social programs.

“Their measures to identify individuals who are at risk of carrying out violent attacks against the public may be a short-term strategy to deal with social discontent, and it remains to be seen whether they resort to more repressive measures, such as using centralized ways to manage these individuals,” Lin Thung-Hong, a research fellow at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, told VOA.
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Washington — Several of Beijing’s leading trading partners are urging Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more to pressure North Korea to stop or reverse its deployment of troops to Russia, where more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers have joined the front lines in the war against Ukraine. 

The appeals at the past week’s twin summits in Brazil and Peru reflect the awkward position in which the Chinese leader finds himself as he attempts a delicate balancing act between Russia and the West.  

At a joint press conference with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in Brasilia on Thursday, Xi called for bringing together “more voices of peace” in Ukraine. He pushed for a six-point consensus on Ukraine first put forward by China and Brazil in May that stresses dialogue and negotiations leading to a political settlement.  

Before his bilateral meeting in the Brazilian capital, Xi was told by world leaders on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro and the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, that Beijing needs to persuade North Korea to stop sending more troops to fight for Russia.  

German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz warned Xi on Tuesday at the G20 that the deployment of North Korea troops to fight against Ukraine amounted to an escalation of the war. 

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol asked Xi last week at APEC to play a “constructive” role on North Korea’s deepening ties with Russia. Yoon used the global gatherings as an opportunity to consolidate the West’s condemnation of Pyongyang-Moscow military ties. 

U.S. President Joe Biden also told Xi at APEC that Beijing has influence and capacity to prevent the conflict in Ukraine from expanding through the presence of more North Korean troops, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a press briefing Sunday. 

Biden pointed out China’s position calling for the de-escalation of the conflict and said the presence of North Korean troops runs counter to that stance.  

Balancing act 

China has been reluctant to call out North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for providing troops and munitions to help Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war efforts.  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Tuesday that North Korea could deploy up to 100,000 soldiers, and the U.S. estimates that about 11,000 North Korean troops have been mobilized in the Russian border region of Kursk. 

“Beijing currently finds itself in a tricky situation,” said Patricia Kim, a fellow at Brookings Institution where she leads the Global China Project.  

“It is uncomfortable with North Korea’s growing military cooperation with Russia that has extended into the Ukrainian battlefield. Putin is now indebted to Kim, and this may embolden Pyongyang to engage in risky behavior at home that can have blowback effects on China,” she told VOA. 

“At the same time, Beijing believes it cannot afford to alienate Pyongyang or Moscow, especially as the potential for a U.S.-China confrontation grows with [President-elect Donald Trump’s] return to office,” she said. 

Despite the discomfort, it is unlikely that Xi will confront Moscow or Pyongyang about sending more North Korean troops, said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. 

Glaser suggested that China is less concerned about the North Korean troops in Russia than about responses by the U.S., Japan and South Korea that could “negatively impact Chinese interests.” 

Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on Wednesday that China’s position on both Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula remains “consistent,” and that Beijing has been “making efforts toward de-escalation of the situation” in Ukraine. 

While being silent on North Korean troops, China is accused of providing dual-use goods that Russia needs to produce weapons. The European Union has also warned Beijing that the attack drones that Russia is producing in China’s Xinjiang Province would have consequences. 

China has been trying to support Russia’s war in Ukraine without angering the West out of concern over any economic backlash it could trigger — including trade restrictions and sanctions that could further cripple its struggling economy, analysts said.  

“China is skilled at playing this role” of ambiguity, “given its history of nonalignment, while knowing its economy relies on good trade relations with the U.S. and the EU,” said Joseph DeTrani, who served as the special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks that included North Korea and China, from 2003 to 2006.  

“China appears reluctant to use its limited leverage with North Korea due, in part, to the tension in the U.S.-China relations,” he said.  

At the same time, DeTrani said, the Chinese president will not openly support Russia’s war for fear that would undermine his government’s credibility with the Global South, where Xi is trying “to prove that China’s system of governance is far superior to the liberal democracy in the U.S.” 

In October, the U.S. sanctioned Chinese companies for directly helping Russia build long-range attack drones. In response, China’s Foreign Ministry urged the U.S. to stop using the Ukraine issue to “smear or put pressure” on China.

Aligned against US 

Richard Weitz, senior fellow and director at the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, said China views its partnership with Russia as more important than any differences it has over North Korea.  

China does not “want to antagonize Russia” over North Korea,” he said. 

“Despite their differences on particular issues,” including North Korea, “they are fundamentally aligned globally against the U.S. and the Western order. So, they’re not going to let these specific differences over narrower issues interfere with that global alignment,” said Weitz. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil on Monday that Beijing is ready to cooperate closely with Russia within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, according to Russian news agency TASS. 

They also stressed the importance of strengthening foreign policy coordination between Moscow and Beijing at international venues, including the U.N., BRICS and the G20, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. 

“By failing to condemn Russian aggression, China threw away any claim to neutrality,” said John Erath, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.  

“It is unlikely, however, that Beijing believes Russia-DPRK [North Korea] military cooperation to be in its interest. If China has objected to the partnership, it does not seem to have produced much of an effect on Putin or Kim,” said Erath.
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MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The death toll from Super Typhoon Man-yi in the Philippines has risen to 12, the national disaster agency said Thursday as widespread flooding subsided.

Man-yi submerged villages and smashed flimsy buildings in the archipelago nation over the weekend, packing maximum sustained wind speeds of 185 kilometres (115 miles) an hour.

It was the sixth major storm in a month to strike the Philippines.

Together they have killed at least 175 people and displaced thousands, as well as wiping out crops and livestock 

Most of the Man-yi deaths were in mountainous areas north of the capital Manila, including seven people killed after a landslide buried their house in Nueva Vizcaya province. 

A boulder also crushed a house, burying three people alive, in the coastal town of Dipaculao, where Man-yi had made a second landfall, Ariel Nepomuceno, a senior official with the government’s civil defence office, told AFP. 

Four people remain missing, he added.

“We are now in the recovery period, people have started to fix their houses,” Nepomuceno said. 

“Construction materials have been arriving in hard-hit provinces.”

In the northern city of Tuguegarao, floodwaters induced by a dam release and a swollen Cagayan River have started to subside, after swamping thousands of houses in the days after the typhoon exited the country.

“The water level has subsided and is now just one foot (0.3 metres) high. Some evacuees have also gone back to their homes,” city disaster official Ian Valdepenas told AFP on Thursday. 

Schools and government offices have reopened.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.

               
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washington — Wearing a gray jacket and flanked by prison officers, pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai smiled and waved to supporters Wednesday as he entered the Hong Kong courtroom.

For his son, Sebastien, Lai’s testimony at his national security trial hearing was a chance to see — from afar — how his 77-year-old father is doing.

Sebastien Lai followed the hearing from Washington, where he has been advocating for his father’s release.

Lai’s international legal team says the publisher has been denied access to specialized medical care for diabetes. Based on Wednesday’s court appearance, Sebastien said it’s clear that his father’s physical health has worsened.

“It’s incredibly heartbreaking that he spent the last almost four years in solitary confinement,” he said Wednesday during a press conference.

After the press conference, Lai told VOA that it was “bittersweet” to see that his father’s mental health has remained strong, even as his physical health has worsened.

“His spirit is holding strong. His mind is holding strong,” Sebastien told VOA.

Lai accused of sedition

Jimmy Lai’s court appearance on Wednesday marked the first time the former publisher provided testimony in a high-profile trial that started nearly one year ago. The case was initially expected to last about 80 days. His international legal team now expects the trial to continue into 2025.

Lai is accused of collusion with foreign forces and sedition. The British national rejects the charges, but if convicted, he faces life in prison.

Rights groups and foreign governments have condemned the case against Lai as politically motivated, which Hong Kong officials dispute.

In a more than 700-word statement to VOA, a Hong Kong government spokesperson said it was “inappropriate” to comment on the case because legal proceedings are ongoing.

The spokesperson said that Hong Kong “rejected any fact-twisting remarks and baseless smears against the legal system and safeguarding of rights and freedom in Hong Kong.”

Publisher strived to deliver ‘freedom’

A one-time billionaire, Lai founded the Apple Daily newspaper in 1995. The newspaper closed in 2021 after authorities jailed its staff, raided its office, and froze millions of its assets.

In court, Lai said he decided to get into the media business “to participate in delivering information, which is delivering freedom.”

“The more information you have, the more you are in the know, the more you’re free,” Lai said.

“The core values of Apple Daily are actually the core values of the people of Hong Kong,” Lai added. These values, he said, include the “rule of law, freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly.”

Lai told the court that he opposed violence and “never allowed” his newspaper’s staff to advocate for Hong Kong independence, which he characterized as a “conspiracy” and “too crazy to think about.”

Earlier in the trial, prosecutors alleged that Lai had requested that foreign governments, including the United States, impose sanctions or “engage in other hostile activities” aimed at the Hong Kong or Chinese governments.

In court, Lai testified that he had “never” used his foreign contacts to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong.

Lai’s plight illustrates how press freedom and broader civil liberties have declined in Hong Kong following the implementation of Beijing’s national security law in 2020, according to Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, the head of Lai’s international legal team.

“Jimmy Lai is on trial in Hong Kong, but journalism is on trial in Hong Kong, too,” Gallagher said Wednesday at the Washington press conference.

Earlier this year, Hong Kong introduced a new law known as Article 23 that rights experts say will erode civil liberties even more. In September, two journalists from Hong Kong’s now-shuttered Stand News were sentenced to jail for sedition. And this week, 45 pro-democracy activists were sentenced to prison under the national security law.

Lai’s case symbolizes the broader assault on freedoms taking place in Hong Kong, according to Gallagher.

“His case was designed to send a chill down the spine of anyone who might want to wear a T-shirt or sing a song or post a Tweet or say anything which might stand up to Hong Kong or Beijing’s leaders,” Gallagher told VOA at the press conference.

Lai’s son ‘cautiously optimisic’

There are currently more than 1,900 political prisoners jailed in Hong Kong, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Hong Kong Democracy Council.

Diplomatic pressure will be the key to securing Lai’s release, Gallagher said.

She cited this past August’s historic prisoner swap between Russia and the United States, which included the release of American journalists Alsu Kurmasheva and Evan Gershkovich, as an example of the kind of creative thinking that is needed to help Lai.

“With creativity and political will, you can do what might seem impossible,” Gallagher said.

Lai’s son Sebastien said he remains “cautiously optimistic” about the prospect of his father’s freedom.

“I’m incredibly proud of what he’s doing, and I think he knows that he’s also doing the right thing,” Sebastien said.
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China has surpassed the United States and regained its place as the second-largest bilateral donor to the Pacific Islands, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Lowy Institute. Australia remains the largest donor.

Every year, the Lowy Institute, an Australia-based research group, releases a Pacific Aid Map that tracks loans and grants to the region in detail. The 2024 map includes spending in the Pacific from 2008 to 2022.

Over the past decade, China has invested billions of dollars in Pacific Island nations in a bid to increase influence in the region amid competition with the U.S. and its allies.   Following a reduction in investment during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, China resumed its focus on projects in the Pacific Islands in 2022, the last year covered in the report.

“Beijing has emerged from a pandemic-induced lull with a more competitive, politically targeted model of aid engagement,” reported Lowy Institute in its annual Pacific Aid Map. “China’s ODF [overseas development finance] has acquired a more targeted focus on winning influence in specific countries, involving more grants and community-level outreach.”

While total development finance from all countries to the islands fell by 18% in 2022 in the midst of the global pandemic, according to the report, China increased its financing that year by 6% with support of $256 million dollars. That was up nearly 14% from three years earlier.

“The uptick in Chinese spending has been accompanied by a resurgence in new Chinese project commitments, signaling a revival in its ambition to engage in major infrastructure works in the Pacific,” the report said. 

Australia is the largest financier for the Pacific Island nations, contributing $1.5 billion, while the United States ranks third, allocating $249 million.

From 2008-2016, Chinese banks lent more than $1.1 billion to the region, which raised concerns that the area may become increasingly vulnerable to diplomatic pressure from Beijing.

The report says, recently, China has taken a more strategic approach toward their financing, shifting away from funding through debt towards financing through large grants and community-level projects.  

“China has opted for a new double-pronged approach relying on large-scale grant financing, rather than loans, and high-frequency embassy activity in priority countries,” the report said. “This reflects a more competitive and politically attuned method to regional engagement.”

China sees itself as a development partner with Pacific Island nations and has previously stressed that its aid comes with no political conditions attached.

Examples of community-level projects cited in the report include “vehicle donations to local governments, cash grants to schools, and the gifting of agricultural equipment to local farmers.”

Despite this shift in aid strategies, China has still engaged in potentially risky debt financing such as in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, where, according to the report, “debt risks have significantly worsened over the past five years.”

“The lack of transparency around these loans [to the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu] and uncertainty regarding the efficacy of the projects they finance undermine aspects of China’s own debt sustainability frameworks and risk further degrading the political economy of many Pacific Island countries,” the report said.

The report says geopolitical motives were a factor in how China decided to provide aid.

“China’s aid involvement in the Pacific has grown to pursue various objectives but reinforcing the ‘One China’ policy remains a key motivating factor in its regional engagement, emphasizing that Taiwan is part of China, with Beijing as the sole legitimate government,” the report added.

“Consequently, countries can only diplomatically recognize — and thus receive aid and development funding from — one of the two governments.”

In 2022, self-ruled Taiwan dropped out of the top 10 donors to the Pacific Islands, spending $7.2 million, after several nations severed diplomatic ties with Taipei and switched to Beijing, according to the report.

Some material in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Brasilia, Brazil — China’s President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Brazil Wednesday, fresh off a warm reception at summits of the G20 and APEC groups, both held under the cloud of Donald Trump’s White House return.

Xi has said he would seek to “further enhance” ties with Brasilia when he meets counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, host of the G20 summit that closed in Rio Tuesday.

The bilateral comes as China is looking with trepidation to a future after U.S. President Joe Biden, with whom Xi had led efforts to ease tensions over issues from trade to Taiwan.

Trump, who will be sworn in on January 20, has signaled a confrontational approach to Beijing, threatening tariffs of up to 60% on imports of Chinese goods.

China and Brazil have sought to position themselves as leaders of the Global South at a time of great global uncertainty, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“The Global South is on a collective rise,” Xi wrote in an article published in Brazilian media ahead of his visit.

Both China and Brazil have sought to mediate in the Ukraine war while declining to sanction fellow BRICS member Russia for its invasion.

Value-added exports

China is Brazil’s biggest trading partner overall, with two-way commerce exceeding $160 billion last year.

Xi looked forward to talks with Lula “on further enhancing China-Brazil relations, promoting synergy of the two countries’ development strategies, international and regional issues of common interest,” state news agency Xinhua forecast.

Brazil, in turn, will push for increasing exports of value-added products, said secretary for Asia Eduardo Paes.

The South American agricultural power sends mainly soybeans and other primary commodities to China, while the Asian giants sells it semiconductors, telephones, vehicles and medicines.

Since returning to power last year, Lula has sought to balance efforts to improve ties with both China and the United States.

A visit to Beijing this year by Vice President Geraldo Alckmin was seen as paving the way for Brazil to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative to stimulate trade — a central pillar of Xi’s bid to expand China’s clout overseas.

South American nations that have signed up include Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

Xi inaugurated South America’s first Chinese-funded port while in Lima last week for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, where he also met with Biden.

The port opening prompted senior U.S. officials to warn Latin America to be vigilant of Chinese investment.

“We encourage Brazil and our allies in general to evaluate with open eyes the risks and benefits of a rapprochement with China,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Natalia Molano told AFP.

Wednesday’s meeting between the leaders of the second- and seventh-most populated countries of the world, comes as Brazil and China mark 50 years of diplomatic ties.

Evan Ellis, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told AFP Lula will likely discuss with Xi how to adjust their economic relationship “to give more advantage to Brazilian companies.”

He would also be interested “in seeing how Brazil can continue to posture itself as an international player in the context of a possibly diminished U.S. role in Latin America and globally” under Trump.

To address trade imbalance concerns, China “will need to make good on its commitment to supporting re-industrialization,” added Margaret Myers of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.
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