Day: March 18, 2023

NKorea Launches Missile Into Sea Amid US-SKorea Drills

Chin@Strategy

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA —  Japan says North Korea has launched a suspected missile toward the sea. Japan’s coast guard said it confirmed that what appeared to be a North Korean missile was fired Sunday morning. Further launch details were not immediately available, it said. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency cited the South’s military as saying that North Korea had fired a ballistic missile toward its eastern waters. Calls to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff were not immediately answered Sunday. The launch, if confirmed, would be the North’s fourth round…

Japan, German Agree to Strengthen Ties, Supply Chain

Chin@Strategy

TOKYO —  German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held the first round of government consultations in Tokyo Saturday and agreed to strengthen economic and defense ties to better cope with China’s growing influence and global security concerns. Kishida told a joint news conference after the talks that the sides agreed to strengthen supply chains in minerals, semiconductors, batteries and other strategic areas, in order to “counter economic coercion, state-led attempts to illegally acquire technology and nonmarket practices,” apparently referring to China. “Japan and Germany, both industrial…

West Spotlights North Korea Rights Abuses; China Opposes

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UNITED NATIONS —  The United States, its Western allies and experts shone a spotlight on the dire human rights situation and increasing repression in North Korea at a United Nations meeting Friday that China and Russia denounced as a politicized move likely to escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula. China blocked the U.S. from broadcasting the informal Security Council meeting globally on the internet, a decision criticized by U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield as an attempt to hide North Korea’s “atrocities from the world.” Webcasting requires agreement from all 15 council…

Chinese football stars and officials held in Xi’s corruption crackdown

Chin@Strategy

Sergio Agüero may be one of the greatest strikers of his generation, but he won an even rarer accolade in 2015, when he became the first – and last – Premier League footballer to take a selfie with Xi Jinping, China’s football-loving leader. The photo, taken at Manchester City’s stadium – with then prime minister David Cameron – comes from an era when Xi was fostering warm relations with the UK and pushing China to become a world football superpower by 2050, both ambitions that seem distant possibilities today. In…

INTERVIEW: ‘You have to keep doing what you think is right’

Chin@Strategy

Taiwanese wildlife cinematographer and film director Chieh-te Liang, whose work has appeared on TV networks around the world and garnered Golden Horse nominations at home, has spent the last three decades following and filming the black-faced spoonbill, an endangered migratory wading bird that winters on his doorstep. The result, a feature-length documentary titled “Caring for the Black-faced Spoonbill Together,” is an impassioned call for governments and communities to do everything they can to preserve the wetland habitats that are so crucial to the birds’ survival. Much of the footage is…

Pessimistic about future, young Burmese rush to get passports to go abroad

Chin@Strategy

Ohnmar Myint is in her 20s and doesn’t think she can pursue her dreams – or make much of a living – in Myanmar anymore. So she’s applying for a passport in hopes of moving to Japan, where she hears there are many jobs – away from the political and economic turmoil at home. “They are all preparing to go abroad to improve their lives,” Ohnmar Myint says of all the applicants. “But they face a lot of difficulties in the application process.” She’s one of thousands of people, many…

The strategic dilemma for China as neighbours move closer to the US

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George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, said it was understandable that Beijing was deeply concerned about “an increasingly militarised Asia, and one in which it had few friends that really mattered”. Advertisement Noting the recent unusually harsh remarks by President Xi Jinping about US-led “containment, encirclement and suppression”, Magnus said it had become increasingly untenable for China’s neighbours to “stay aloof or profess neutrality”. “But it is a delicate balancing act for China, to publicly castigate the US without offending those countries in Asia which might…

Claims of Chinese Election Meddling Put Trudeau on Defensive

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OTTAWA — The leaked intelligence reports have set off a political firestorm. They describe plans by the government of China and its diplomats in Canada to ensure that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party took power in the last two elections, raising troubling questions about the integrity of Canada’s democracy. But as two prominent Canadian news organizations have published a series of leaks over the past month, Mr. Trudeau has refused calls to launch a public inquiry into the matter, angering political opponents and leading to accusations that he is…

Before Xi Visit, Russia Says It Held Naval Drills With China and Iran in Arabian Sea

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Russia, China and Iran have completed three-way naval exercises in the Arabian Sea that included artillery fire at targets on the sea and in the air, the Russian defense ministry said on Saturday. The exercises, off the Iranian port of Chabahar, took place as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow for a three-day state visit starting on Monday. Russia has continued to stage military exercises with partners, especially China, despite the strain on its armed forces from the year-long war in Ukraine,…

The US was prepared to bomb the Middle East into shape. In Ukraine, it seems no less self-serving | Randeep Ramesh

Chin@Strategy

In the two decades since the second Iraq war, the United States appears like the Bourbon kings who had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq was a story of geopolitical failure and domestic political disaster. To understand the foolhardy decision to launch the war, one must first understand the US grand strategy of global hegemony, which Washington has pursued since 1945. The “war on terror” provided political cover for the further pursuit of supremacy, despite threatening democratic government with lies, fraud and violence. George…