Major setbacks for Moscow’s forces in Ukraine will further test the “limitless partnership” between China and Russia when their leaders meet this week for the first time since the invasion, analysts have said. The meeting of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, scheduled for Thursday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, is likely to involve jostling for influence in central Asia, where the two global powers have long waged a “quiet rivalry”. The SCO summit, an annual meeting of Eurasian leaders on regional politics, economics and security, occurs…
Day: September 13, 2022
China’s Xi to meet Putin in first foreign trip since pandemic
Mr Xi will begin his three-day trip in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. He will then meet Mr Putin on Thursday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Samarkand, which will run from 15-16 September. Central Asian countries – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan – and fellow members Iran, India and Pakistan are also due to attend. BBC
China’s government is mass-collecting DNA from Tibetans
In one image Tibetan monks, clad in burgundy and orange robes, gather around a table as a police officer pricks a monk’s finger. In another image children at a kindergarten line up to have their blood taken by officers sitting at a rainbow-coloured table. The pictures, posted by the authorities on WeChat, a social-media platform, show an official campaign to collect the dna of Tibetans. It is often as casual as it is invasive. Many of the posts suggest police are pricking fingers while completing other tasks, such as registering…
Is Xi’s Trip Abroad the Beginning of the End for China’s Zero-COVID Policy?
Advertisement Later this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading out on his first international trip since January 2020. He’ll be paying a state visit to Kazakhstan, followed by a state visit to Uzbekistan, where Xi will also attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand. All eyes are on the geopolitical implications of the trip, not least because Russia has announced that Xi will be holding a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the SCO summit. That will be their first in-person meeting since…
Lithuania’s office in Taipei begins operations, Taiwan confirms
“Once Mr Lukauskas officially assumes his post, the Lithuanian office stationed in Taiwan is basically considered in operation,” Chen said. Lukauskas recently accompanied a group of senior Lithuanian officials on a weeklong visit to Taiwan, Chen said. Advertisement A 28-member delegation from laser and biotechnology firms led by Karolis Zemaitis, Lithuania’s vice-minister of economy and innovation, arrived in Taiwan on Saturday, marking the fourth delegation from the European country to visit the island in the past four months. 02:27 Latest US delegation to visit Taiwan pushes for closer economic ties…
Challenges for Russia and China Test a ‘No-Limits’ Friendship
BEIJING — The summit this week between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China is a show of force by two autocratic leaders united against what they consider American hegemony. It is also a moment of mutual weakness as Russia suffers losses in Ukraine and China endures an economic slowdown. They come to the meeting, expected to take place later this week in Uzbekistan, with their own agendas and their own challenges that will test an important relationship both have described as a friendship with “no…
China tells banks to check exposure to debt-laden Fosun conglomerate
China’s biggest banks and state-owned companies have been told to check their financial exposure to Fosun, the sprawling conglomerate that owns assets including the Premier League football club Wolverhampton Wanderers, as the heavily debt-laden group struggles from the impact of downturn in the property sector in its home market. The financial strength of the Shanghai-based group, co-founded in 1992 by the billionaire Guo Guangchang and built into one of China’s largest non-state-owned conglomerates, has come under scrutiny after a huge sell-off in property bonds that began in June. Dollar bonds…
Chinese pork prices surge to new high prompting authorities to act
The price of Chinese pork surged to a new high in August, prompting authorities to take the year’s first dip into national meat reserves to ensure supply for the holidays. Pork costs in China rose an average of 22.5% last month, compared with last year. It followed the highest recorded month-on-month increase of 25.6% in July, as CPI also hit a two-year high of 2.7%. August’s rise occurred despite an unexpected slowdown of CPI inflation to 2.5%. China is the world’s biggest consumer of pork, and the country’s government maintains…