China’s ambassador to Tonga has denied engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy in the Pacific, saying in his first press conference in two years that if the heavily indebted country cannot repay its loans, “we can talk and negotiate in a friendly, diplomatic manner”. Cao Xiaolin told Tuesday’s gathering in Nuku’alofa – a rare opportunity for journalists to question Chinese officials – that preferential loans from China came with “no political strings attached” and that Beijing would never force countries to repay the loans. Tonga, which was hit by a volcanic…
Day: June 28, 2022
G7 to back Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’, explore cap on Russian oil price
Clockwise from left, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Castle Elmau, Germany, on Tuesday. Photo: AP South China Morning Post
As censorship in China increases, VPNs are becoming more important
LI JIAQI, a popular Chinese influencer, had a talent for selling lipstick and other cosmetics. But his last performance was an unintentional advertisement for virtual private networks (VPNs), which help Chinese netizens get around strict online censorship rules. On June 3rd Mr Li live-streamed video of himself with an ice-cream cake that looked like a tank. This seemed to anger the authorities, who may have viewed it as a reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre, when soldiers and tanks fired on peaceful protesters in Beijing, killing hundreds, if not thousands,…