The US government on Friday pledged “massive consequences” against Moscow if an upcoming bilateral security dialogue fails to prevent any further build-up by Russia’s military on the border with Ukraine.The massing of troops and military equipment along the Russian side of Ukraine’s Donbass region border will be a key topic during talks next week between US President Joe Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and will include two working groups established as part of the “strategic stability…South China Morning Post
Month: January 2022
Chinese Rover Finds Moon Cube Is Just Rabbit-Like Rock
Last November, China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover spotted something curious on the far side of the moon. The image was blurry, but it was unmistakable: The object looked like a cube sitting on the moon’s surface. Its shape looked too precise to be just a moon rock — perhaps something left by visiting aliens like the monolith in Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” China’s space authorities called it the “mystery hut.” Others called it the “moon cube.” Yutu-2 was sent for a closer look, and at the leisurely speed…
Dozens of Hong Kong officials in Covid quarantine after birthday party
Dozens of senior officials and legislators in Hong Kong have been sent into a 21-day quarantine after they attended a birthday party despite the government’s own pandemic warning. The embarrassing incident came as the city’s new “patriots only” legislature is scheduled to hold its first meeting next week. Concerns had been raised in recent weeks after a number of Omicron cases were identified in Hong Kong. Health officials say they cannot rule out hidden clusters in the community. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, said it was a “deep disappointment”…
Skier Mikaela Shiffrin is Back on Top and Headed to the Olympics
Thursday afternoon, roughly one month from the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, Mikaela Shiffrin was still a bit out of breath from a slalom training session in Austria. But it felt good, and not just because Shiffrin, an eight-time Olympic and world champion, is once again atop the Alpine World Cup overall standings. “I finally feel like myself again,” she said in a phone interview. Ten weeks ago, as she sat in the kitchen of her Colorado home, Shiffrin all but predicted her comeback after nearly two years mourning the accidental…
‘They want to remove us and take the rock’, say Zimbabweans living near Chinese-owned mines
A convoy of trucks laden with huge black granite rocks trundles along the dusty pathway as a group of villagers look on grimly. Every day more than 60 trucks take granite for export along this rugged road through Nyamakope village in the district of Mutoko, 90 miles east of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. The air reverberates with blasts and heavy machinery noises as the mountain above the village is slowly reduced, slab by slab. Quarrying has been happening here since the 1980s. Mutoko stone is sought after for its lustre. It…
Hong Kong quarantines all 100 guests of scandal-hit birthday party
“We have been mounting an all-out effort in fighting the epidemic. As top government officials, there is all the more reason for us to set a good example and avoid attending private gatherings that may pose a major hazard,” Ms Lam said at an earlier briefing. BBC
US sanctioned China’s top facial recognition firm over Uyghur concerns. It still raised millions
SenseTime, China’s largest facial recognition startup, has come under increasing scrutiny by the US government for its alleged role in the surveillance of Uyghurs. Over the past two years, the US has used sanctions to escalate pressure on the company, first by adding it to the government’s entity list, which restricts US exports to the company, and this December, by banning US investment in the firm. But those sanctions have thus far had little effect on the company’s bottom line. SenseTime recently made its debut on the Hong Kong stock…
Beijing fines 7-Eleven for calling Taiwan a country
Beijing has fined and issued a warning to 7-Eleven over its website listing Taiwan as a country and displaying maps it said contained erroneous borders for Xinjiang and Tibet. The Beijing municipal government fined the company 50,000 yuan ($7,842) for the “errors” including “wrongful act of assigning Taiwan province as an independent country”. It said the 7-Eleven website also failed to use China’s names for some disputed islands in the South China Sea, including the Japanese-administered Senkakus which China calls the Diaoyu islands. The punishment was issued in December, but…
North Korea Says It Will Skip Beijing Olympics Because of the Pandemic
SEOUL — North Korea said on Friday that it would not participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics because of the coronavirus pandemic and moves by “hostile forces.” Its no-show at the Beijing Games would deprive South Korea of a rare opportunity to establish official contact with the North. Officials from the South had hoped that the Olympics would provide a venue for official delegates from both Koreas to meet to discuss issues beyond sports. In a letter hand-delivered on Wednesday to China by the North’s ambassador, the country’s Olympic Committee…
Fuzzy Logic: China’s Second Order Foreign Policy
Advertisement Diplomats the world over are familiar with the basic tenet of Chinese foreign policy: non-interference. For China, that means any issues surrounding Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, the South China Sea, and a growing number of other areas that China claims as integral parts of its territory, are purely domestic in nature. These are China’s first-order foreign policy concerns, and the bellicosity of the country’s “wolf warrior” diplomats ensures that all are aware of its intentions in this regard. Then there are China’s second-order foreign policy objectives: think its representative to…