Month: March 2022

What Would China’s Mediation in the Ukraine Crisis Look Like?

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement China’s role in the Russia-Ukraine war has been following its script of a responsible great power, as I wrote recently in an article interpreting China’s views and actions on the conflict. China’s level of mediation activity is unprecedented in its recent diplomatic history, marked by frequent phone calls and online meetings between President Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and their counterparts in Russia, Ukraine, and Europe. As we watch the devastating situation in Ukraine and hope for an end to the tragedy soon, there naturally comes the question…

Genshin Impact, Smash Hit From China, Beats Japan at Its Own Game

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TOKYO — Genshin Impact, one of the world’s hottest mobile video games, has all the characteristics of a Japanese invention: giant robots; human-size swords; characters with huge eyes and spiky, rainbow-colored hair; and a puzzling fixation on women in maid outfits. There’s just one catch: It’s Chinese. Released in late 2020, the game is the first bona fide international smash hit for China’s video game industry. In its first year on the market, it raked in $2 billion, a record for mobile games, according to Sensor Tower, a firm that…

‘I’m on the frontline in Mariupol’: the Chinese reporter embedded with Russian troops

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In a flak jacket and helmet, the Chinese reporter Lu Yuguang stands on the side of a road as a Russian tank roars past. “I’m on the frontline in Mariupol,” he says into the microphone. He then interviews a Russian soldier who says he’s not nervous as he’s been “fighting for eight years”. In another shot, Lu talks with a group of Russian soldiers in the back of a military vehicle. The dispatches are unusual for their extraordinary access – Lu, a veteran war reporter for a Chinese news outlet,…

In Putin’s War on Ukraine, Expect the Unexpected

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Every war brings surprises, but what is most striking about Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine — and indirectly against the whole democratic West — is how many of the bad surprises, so far, have been for Putin and how many of the good surprises have been for Ukraine and its allies around the world. How so? Well, I am pretty sure that when Putin was plotting this war, he was assuming that by three weeks into it he’d be giving a victory speech at the Ukrainian Parliament, welcoming it back…

China’s friendship with Russia has boundaries, despite what their leaders say

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Mar 16th 2022 BEIJING FOR MOST of those involved in Ukraine’s horrors, time is not on their side. Every hour brings new agonies for the Ukrainian government and people. Each passing day exposes, with greater clarity, the miscalculation of Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, when he launched a war of choice against a country he vastly underestimated. For America and its allies, admiration for Ukraine’s resistance is tempered by fears that it cannot last for ever, as Mr Putin escalates the killing. In contrast, one great power, China, is a study…

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Hundreds of Ukrainians held hostage in Mariupol hospital, say officials; Russian TV protester fined – live

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There are reports that Russian forces have taken patients and medical staff of a hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol as hostages. According to the BBC, Mariupol’s deputy mayor Sergei Orlov said: We received information that the Russian army captured our biggest hospital … and they’re using our patients and doctors like hostages. We can confirm this information and also the governor of Donetsk region has confirmed this confirmation. We received information that there are 400 people there. The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) ⚡️Donetsk Oblast Governor: Russia takes patients,…

India Says It’s in Talks With Russia About Increasing Oil Imports

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India is in talks with Moscow about increasing oil imports from Russia in an effort to keep spiraling prices in check, India’s petroleum minister told Parliament this week. The move comes as New Delhi is also striving to preserve its relationship with Moscow, its biggest supplier of weapons, at a time when India faces an aggressive China on its borders. “I myself have had a conversation with the appropriate levels of the Russian federation,” Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s minister of gas and petroleum, told lawmakers on Monday. He said the…

Sullivan, Yang Talk Ukraine, Taiwan in ‘Intense’ China-US Meeting

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Advertisement U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with China’s top diplomat, director of the Chinese Communist Party’s Foreign Affairs Office Yang Jiechi, in Rome on Monday. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine dominated the talks – at least according to the U.S. readout. In announcing the meeting, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne had made clear that Ukraine would be on the agenda, alongside the broader bilateral relationship. “The two sides will discuss ongoing efforts to manage the competition between our two countries and discuss the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine…

China’s COVID-19 Cases Double, Sparking Fears About Economic Fallout

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Advertisement Chinese authorities on Tuesday tightened anti-virus controls at ports, raising the risk of trade disruptions after some auto and electronics factories shut down as the government fights coronavirus outbreaks. Stock prices in China and Hong Kong sank for a second day following the shutdown on Monday of Shenzhen, a tech and finance hub adjacent to Hong Kong in the south, and Changchun, an auto center in the northeast. Bus service to Shanghai, China’s business capital and biggest city, was suspended. China’s case numbers are low compared with other major…

China Covid cases hit two-year high with millions in lockdown as outbreak spreads

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China has posted a steep jump in daily Covid-19 infections with new cases more than doubling from a day earlier to a two-year high as a virus outbreak expanded rapidly in the north-east. A total of 3,507 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms were reported on Monday across more than a dozen provinces and municipalities, the National Health Commission said, up from 1,337 a day earlier. Since the coronavirus first emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, China had successfully suppressed large-scale outbreaks through its strict “zero-Covid”…