Day: May 11, 2023

For Turning ‘Mines to Vines,’ Founder of Roots of Peace Wins World Food Prize

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DES MOINES, Iowa —  A California peace activist who has worked to remove land mines from war-torn regions and replace them with grape vines, fruit trees and vegetables was named the 2023 World Food Prize laureate Thursday at a ceremony in Washington. The Des Moines, Iowa-based foundation awarded its annual prize to Heidi Kuhn, founder of Roots of Peace. Since founding her nonprofit in the basement of her San Rafael, California, home in 1997, Kuhn’s organization has helped remove thousands of mines and assist farmers in more than a half-dozen…

China food security: Beijing puts local cadres in cross hairs to ensure they reap what China needs to sow

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The pandemic has also served as a “warning lesson” to all of Chinese society on the importance of emergency food supplies, said the administration’s director, Cong Liang. He vowed to improve a nationwide emergency response system, which he said has proven to be weak. Overall, however, Cong noted that China is more than 95 per cent self-sufficient in grains and has an annual food-supply allocation of 480kg (1,058 pounds) per person, well above the international standard of 400kg frequently cited by Chinese officials. Advertisement Zheng said the great pressure being…

US and China hold ‘constructive’ talks in effort to move beyond spy balloon incident

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The White House national security adviser met with China’s top diplomat in Vienna as both sides recognised the need to move beyond the spy balloon incident that caused a rupture in relations between the superpowers, a senior US official has said. The meeting between Jake Sullivan and Wang Yi was not publicised by Washington or Beijing ahead of the talks on Wednesday and Thursday in the Austrian capital. The White House described the wide-ranging discussions, in which the two leaders spent more than eight hours together, as “candid” and “constructive”.…

EU moves to recalibrate China strategy with ‘clear-eyed but not confrontational’ approach

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“It is obvious,” the document stated, “that in recent years the rivalry aspect has become more important.” In an accompanying letter sent to the bloc’s foreign ministers, top diplomat Josep Borrell outlined three new prongs that will define the relationship going forward: values, economic security, and strategic security – namely Ukraine and Taiwan. Advertisement The report voiced clear support for the EU’s “de-risking” strategy, and urges the members to prepare for turbulence in the Taiwan Strait. “The EU needs to be prepared for scenarios in which tensions increase significantly. The…

Nato office in Japan risks further entangling ties with China: analysts

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Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said the plan would be seen as another move by Tokyo and its Western allies to dwarf any military ambitions by Beijing over Taiwan. Advertisement “The liaison office could be seen as part of collusion between Japan and its Western allies and partners to deter China from [using force] against Taiwan, and giving Nato an opportunity to intervene in the event of a contingency with real action,” Shi said. Liu Jiangyong, a Japan specialist at Tsinghua University in Beijing,…

FirstFT: US and China hold ‘candid’ talks in effort to defuse tensions

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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. Relations between Washington and Beijing are at their lowest level since diplomatic ties were normalised in 1979. In an attempt to defuse the tensions, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top diplomat Wang Yi have just completed two days of talks in Vienna. The White House said they held “candid, substantive and constructive” discussions on issues…

Italy Reconsidering Investment Pact With China  

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rome / washington —  Italy is having second thoughts on renewing a controversial investment pact with China. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal was on the table during May 5 talks in Rome between Chinese Foreign Ministry official Wang Lutong and his Italian counterparts, according to the Italian news outlet Decode39. It was also under discussion when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Italy in February this year. A senior Italian government official has told Reuters that his country is highly unlikely to renew the agreement when it expires…

U.S. Sen. Rubio introduces bill to beef up air bases that would defend Taiwan

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U.S. Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill Thursday that seeks to strengthen American air bases in the Indo-Pacific region to better respond to mainland Chinese aggression against Taiwan. The Deterring Chinese Preemptive Strikes Act “direct[s] the U.S. Department of Defense to harden U.S. facilities in the Indo-Pacific to help further deter a preemptive strike against U.S. forces and assets in the region by China ahead of an invasion of Taiwan.” War games conducted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that Beijing’s strategy if it were to…

Doing business in Hong Kong is ‘risky,’ Jimmy Lai’s son warns investors, companies

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The suppression of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms under Chinese rule should serve as a warning to the international community that Beijing will continue to export its authoritarian rule far beyond its borders, says the son of jailed Hong Kong media magnate Jimmy Lai. “Hong Kong is a litmus test for how China views the world,” Sebastien Lai told journalists during a visit to Washington. “If they aren’t willing to respect those freedoms in Hong Kong, then the long arm of China is basically everywhere.” “If they’re not willing to do…

Activists burn Chinese flag amid growing anger its support for junta

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Young activists in central Myanmar burned a Chinese flag on Thursday amid growing anger at Beijing’s unwavering support for the military junta. “We want the world to know that the Chinese government is working together with the fascist military junta in Myanmar that abuses and kills our people,” Swan Htet Bo, chairman of the Monywa Youth Association, told RFA Burmese. The protest at a traffic junction in Sagaing region’s Monywa city was the latest outburst of disgust with China, which invested money in factories and mines across the country. In…