Day: November 12, 2021

Biden and China’s Xi Will Hold Virtual Summit on Monday

Chin@Strategy

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the diplomatic conversations, said the president would make clear that the United States was ready to engage in stiff competition, but did not want open conflict with China and was eager to cooperate in areas where the two countries’ interests aligned. Those areas are likely to include discussions of efforts to limit nuclear proliferation and counter global warming. But the meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi could also be tense, as the two leaders deal with more contentious issues,…

China will stick to a zero-covid policy, for now

Chin@Strategy

Nov 12th 2021 NEARLY TWO years into the covid-19 pandemic, China’s propaganda machine is locked in a futile argument with the outside world. The row is about whether this giant country is paying too high a price for its “zero-covid” policy. China’s attempts to eliminate the virus, rather than merely manage it, are certainly costly. They have largely closed China’s borders for 19 months. Dozens of city districts, towns and counties are enduring lockdowns as the highly contagious Delta variant and an early cold snap cause a flare-up of infections.…

The Biden Doctrine Won’t Win the 21st Century for Humanity

Chin@Strategy

The frameworks, paradigms and doctrines of that era, of any kind, are simply insufficient to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Bolder thinking is required, thinking that shifts away from states, whether great powers or lesser powers, democracies or autocracies. It is time to put people first, to see the world first as a planet of eight billion people rather than as an artificially constructed system of 195 countries and to measure all state actions in terms of their impact on people. Instead of competing with China today on…

Beijing urges US businesses to lobby against China-related bills in Congress

Chin@Strategy

China has been pushing US executives, companies and business groups in recent weeks to fight against China-related bills in the US Congress, four sources familiar with the initiative told Reuters, in letters to and meetings with a wide range of actors in the business community. Letters from China’s embassy in Washington have pressed executives to urge members of Congress to alter or drop specific bills that seek to enhance US competitiveness, according to the sources and the text of a letter sent by the embassy’s economic and commercial office seen…

Honduras’ President Is in Taiwan for a Surprise State Visit

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement Outgoing Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez started a three-day surprise visit to Taiwan on Friday as Taipei worries that the next president of the Central American nation may break off relations and switch to diplomatic ties with Beijing. Hernandez and his wife will meet President Tsai Ing-wen on Saturday as part of a celebration of 80 years of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and Honduras. He will also visit the Central American Bank for Economic Integration office in Taipei, a Honduran development bank. Hernandez has visited Taiwan three times before,…

RTHK’s Swift Turn From Maverick Voice to Official Mouthpiece

Chin@Strategy

HONG KONG — Not long after Patrick Li took over as the government-appointed director of Hong Kong’s public broadcaster, a digital lock pad appeared outside his office entrance. In the past, the director’s office had been where staffers at the broadcaster, Radio Television Hong Kong, gathered to air grievances with management decisions: programming changes, labor disputes. Now, the lock pad signaled, such complaints were no longer welcome. For many employees, the closed room was an emblem of the broader transformation sweeping through RTHK, the 93-year-old institution venerated by residents as…

Winter Olympics top sponsors ‘silent’ over China’s human rights record

Chin@Strategy

Corporate sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics have been accused of “squandering the opportunity” to pressure China to address its “appalling human rights record”. The Games’ top level sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Procter & Gamble, Intel and Visa, were on Friday accused of ignoring China’s alleged “crimes against humanity against Uyghurs” and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang as well the repression of free speech in Hong Kong. Human Rights Watch (HWR), the New York-based campaign group, said it had written to all 13 of the Olympics top corporate partners…

The US-China climate agreement is imperfect – but reason to hope | Sam Geall

Chin@Strategy

It could have been so much worse. At this critical juncture, talks between the world’s two carbon superpowers – together accounting for some 40% of global greenhouse-gas emissions – could easily have collapsed into a blame game, and a standoff that would have seriously set back global efforts. Instead, the surprise China-US agreement announced on Wednesday night offers renewed hope for joint leadership at last. After the bruising years of the Donald Trump presidency, and the impact of Covid-19 on the negotiations themselves and those poor countries most vulnerable to…

China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Efforts Come With a Cost

Chin@Strategy

China’s top leader has declared that the country has “overcome” the impact of the coronavirus, even as sporadic lockdowns continue in various areas and officials order greater scrutiny of imported frozen food and children’s clothes — both extremely unlikely sources of contagion. The stringent, if sometimes impractical, restrictions stem from China’s struggle to maintain its “zero Covid” strategy. Other nations have gradually loosened restrictions as they vaccinate more people, allow more gatherings with limits and bolster their health care systems for those who get sick. By contrast, the Chinese Communist…