The world is “bloody messy” but must take a step back from polarisation and black-and-white approaches to conflict, Jacinda Ardern has said in a wide-ranging speech in which she addressed the war in Ukraine and rising tensions with China. In a speech to foreign policy thinktank the Lowy Institute in Sydney, the New Zealand prime minister decried Russia’s “morally bankrupt” war in Ukraine – but also argued against the hardening of alliances, saying that the war should not be presented as a conflict of “democracy v autocracy” or be seen…
Day: July 6, 2022
Ahead of G-20 Ministers’ Meeting, China Slams US, NATO
Advertisement China launched a scathing attack on the U.S. and NATO on Wednesday, days before a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s comments underscore the increasingly fractious relationship, along with China’s increasingly confrontational approach to foreign relations that heatedly rejects criticism. At last week’s NATO summit in Spain, Blinken accused China of “seeking to undermine the rules-based international order.” In his comments Wednesday, Zhao said the “so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by…
China: MI5 and FBI heads warn of ‘immense’ threat
“That’s where we stepped in,” said McCallum. He also said one engineering firm had been approached by a Chinese company which led to its technology being taken before the deal was then called off, forcing the company, Smith’s Harlow, to go into administration in 2020. BBC
China’s Main Food Security Challenge: Feeding Its Pigs
Advertisement Amid the worsening global food crisis, there are mounting domestic and international concerns regarding food security in China, the world’s most populous country and largest food importer. The Chinese government has pointed to its bumper grain harvests and massive grain reserve systems to reassure its public and international audiences that the country will not face imminent grain security risks. At present, China holds significant quantities of the world’s grain reserves. According to a report in the Nikkei Asia, by mid-2022, China is expected to hold 69 percent of the…
Penny Wong says she is open to meeting with Chinese counterpart at G20
Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, has signalled she is open to meeting her Chinese counterpart at a looming meeting of G20 foreign ministers, but she has warned any diplomatic thaw will require the removal of Beijing’s “coercive” trade sanctions against a variety of exports. Wong was asked during a visit to Singapore on Wednesday to disclose whether or not arrangements were now in place for a conversation at the G20 meeting in Indonesia later this week – and if so, what her message would be to China’s Wang Yi. Australia’s…
China suspends officials for ‘ignoring’ alleged baby abduction
Earlier this week, a letter from the local health bureau in Quanzhou county went viral on Chinese social media. The letter was written in response to a couple’s request for an investigation to be opened into the case of their seventh child, whom they suspected had been abducted in the 1990s. BBC