Day: May 4, 2023

Canada Considers Expelling China Diplomats

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TORONTO —  Canada’s foreign minister said Thursday the country is considering the expulsion of Chinese diplomats over an intelligence agency report saying one of them plotted to intimidate the Hong Kong relatives of a Canadian lawmaker. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said her department was summoning China’s ambassador to a meeting to underline that Canada won’t tolerate such interference. She said the intelligence agency report indicated that opposition Conservative lawmaker Michael Chong and his Hong Kong relatives were targeted after Chong criticized Beijing’s human rights record. “We’re assessing different options including…

US, Philippines Issue New South China Sea Defense Guidelines

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WASHINGTON —  The United States and the Philippines this week added new guidelines to a 1951 defense treaty that detail how the U.S. will respond to an attack on the Philippines in the South China Sea. Following a visit by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos to the White House, the U.S. issued the guidelines saying its commitment to defend Manila will apply to the maritime region, where Manila has complained for years about territorial incursions by Chinese ships. Any attack in the South China Sea on Philippine public vessels, aircraft or…

How a galaxy feeds on its own gases to create new stars – and how a China-led team proved it

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“We estimated the galaxy’s star formation rate to be around 80 solar masses a year, so the recycled gas should provide enough materials to bake all the new stars over a long, long time,” Cai said. Illustration: Department of Astronomy, Tsinghua University Astronomer Bjorn Emonts, from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Virginia, said the findings confirmed that the far-off galaxy, whose light takes 11 billion years to reach Earth, did not grow in isolation but evolved with an enormous gas reservoir in which it was embedded. Advertisement Emonts, who…

Experts: China Finds Threat in Latest Move By US-South Korea Alliance 

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washington —  A declaration of intent by Washington and Seoul, South Korea, to boost nuclear deterrence against North Korea has prompted Beijing to lodge criticism that shows China views a stronger alliance as a threat to its sphere of influence, experts say. “We noted the relevant content of the Washington Declaration,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA’s Korean Service on Tuesday. “The U.S. behavior is a result of its Cold War mentality. What the U.S. has done stokes bloc confrontation, undermines the nuclear nonproliferation…

Regional Talks Expected to Highlight China’s Interests in Pakistan, Afghanistan

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washington —  Senior officials from China, Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban will hold two days of talks starting Friday in Islamabad, where observers expect to learn more about Beijing’s priorities in the region. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi will meet with Pakistani officials. The international community has ostracized the Taliban over hard-line policies targeting Afghan women and others. Not only has Beijing encouraged the international community to continue to talk to the Taliban, but it also has said it supports encouraging the Taliban…

FirstFT: Chinese tourist spending rebounds to pre-pandemic levels

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Good morning. This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to get it sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning Good morning. Chinese tourist spending during this week’s labour day holiday has exceeded pre-pandemic levels for the first time, in a sign of economic momentum, authorities have said. Travel this past week was closely watched as an indicator of the Chinese economy’s recovery and as a barometer for consumer spending since the government lifted pandemic restrictions late last year.…

UN working group issues opinion on detention of Vietnamese political prisoner

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A U.N. Human Rights Council working group has issued an opinion on the case of a Vietnamese activist arrested in 2021 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “anti-state propaganda,” saying that his detention was arbitrary. Do Nam Trung, 41, was sentenced in December 2021 to 10 years in prison for “spreading materials against the state” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, frequently used by authorities to restrict freedom of expression and opinions deemed critical of Vietnam’s one-party communist state or government leaders. The activist is known for…

Report: Almost 700,000 people in Myanmar have fled their homes since January

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Intense fighting has caused the number of internally displaced persons in Myanmar to grow by more than 680,000 between January and April 20, according to independent research group ISP-Myanmar. That number is more than a quarter of the total number of people uprooted after the February 2021 military coup d’etat, the group said. More than 2.6 million have fled their homes since the coup, mostly due to armed conflict between military junta troops and the joint forces of the People’s Defense Forces and ethnic armed organizations, according to an April…

Bangladesh delegation with Rohingya to visit Myanmar, see repatriation preparations

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Bangladesh is moving full steam ahead with a China-backed project to begin repatriating Rohingya to Myanmar, a plan that Human Rights Watch warned would put the lives of the persecuted refugees at “grave risk.”  On Friday, a delegation of 27 people, including 20 Rohingya from refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, is scheduled to visit Maungdaw in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, to assess preparations for the planned move this month of about 1,000 refugees. Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner said the trip would be a follow-on action to a visit in March by Burmese officials to verify…

Government study recommends China build second capital in Xinjiang

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A Chinese government-funded study has recommended a second capital in the country’s far-western Xinjiang region to rebalance China’s economy, address ethnic tensions and strengthen ties with Eurasian nations.   Published in the Chinese-language journal “Social Sciences in Xinjiang” on April 21, the report proposes that the purpose-built capital be close to Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or to Kashgar, one of the westernmost cities of China near the border with Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan. The report, based on four years of research by Zhou Wen of Fudan…