Beijing has fined and issued a warning to 7-Eleven over its website listing Taiwan as a country and displaying maps it said contained erroneous borders for Xinjiang and Tibet. The Beijing municipal government fined the company 50,000 yuan ($7,842) for the “errors” including “wrongful act of assigning Taiwan province as an independent country”. It said the 7-Eleven website also failed to use China’s names for some disputed islands in the South China Sea, including the Japanese-administered Senkakus which China calls the Diaoyu islands. The punishment was issued in December, but…
Day: January 6, 2022
North Korea Says It Will Skip Beijing Olympics Because of the Pandemic
SEOUL — North Korea said on Friday that it would not participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics because of the coronavirus pandemic and moves by “hostile forces.” Its no-show at the Beijing Games would deprive South Korea of a rare opportunity to establish official contact with the North. Officials from the South had hoped that the Olympics would provide a venue for official delegates from both Koreas to meet to discuss issues beyond sports. In a letter hand-delivered on Wednesday to China by the North’s ambassador, the country’s Olympic Committee…
Fuzzy Logic: China’s Second Order Foreign Policy
Advertisement Diplomats the world over are familiar with the basic tenet of Chinese foreign policy: non-interference. For China, that means any issues surrounding Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, the South China Sea, and a growing number of other areas that China claims as integral parts of its territory, are purely domestic in nature. These are China’s first-order foreign policy concerns, and the bellicosity of the country’s “wolf warrior” diplomats ensures that all are aware of its intentions in this regard. Then there are China’s second-order foreign policy objectives: think its representative to…
Supply Chain Woes Prompt a New Push to Revive U.S. Factories
Called near-shoring, the move to Mexico is paralleled in Europe with factories opening in Eastern Europe to serve Western European markets like France and Germany. “We’re starting to see it in Mexico as well as in the U.S.,” said Theresa Wagler, chief financial officer of Steel Dynamics, a steel maker based in Fort Wayne, Ind. “Many companies now prefer security of supply over cost.” Mr. Knizek of EY-Parthenon expects industries with complex and more expensive products to lead the resurgence, including automobiles, semiconductors, defense, aviation and pharmaceuticals. Anything that requires…
China Looks to Play More Active Role in Horn of Africa Conflicts
Advertisement China is poised to take a more active role in the Horn of Africa’s security issues, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi announcing the creation of special envoy post for the region. Wang made his announcement from Kenya, the second stop on his three-country tour of Africa. His visits to Eritrea, Kenya, and Comoros is in keeping with China’s tradition of sending its foreign minister to visit Africa as his first trip of each new year. Although Wang did not specify any issues the new special envoy would be working…
MI6 chief thanks China for ‘free publicity’ after James Bond spoof
The head of MI6 has thanked China’s state news agency for “free publicity” after it posted a James Bond spoof video in response to a statement he made last year that Beijing was the spy agency’s “single greatest priority”. Richard Moore, codenamed C, intervened after Xinhua released an extraordinary four-minute English-language video featuring a pair of supposed British spies, James Pond and an apparent Marvel universe recruit, Black Window. Xinhua said the video, entitled No Time to Die Laughing, was leaked footage of a secret meeting between the British spies…
Xi’an Is China’s Biggest Covid Challenge Since Wuhan
Every two days at the University of Xi’an in China, cleaners dressed in white hazmat suits taped tight to their bodies disinfect the dormitory hallways. Zhang Shengzi, a 24-year-old student, said the smell is so pungent she has to wait some time after they’ve gone before she will open her door again. She can barely leave her room, let alone campus, and all her classes are online. Ms. Zhang’s university, like the rest of Xi’an, has been under a citywide lockdown since Dec. 22. It is the longest lockdown in…
Xi’an: The messy cost of China’s Covid lockdown playbook
“There has never been any serious discussion on what lessons we have learnt from Wuhan, there has been no debate. The narrative has just been about the success of the Chinese model versus the ineffectiveness seen in Western democracies,” Professor Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow in global health with the Council of Foreign Relations, told the BBC. BBC