Month: July 2022

Fewer people are dying in floods in China

Chin@Strategy

As the waters submerged her village’s ancestral shrine, Yu Jingyu and her family put their chickens upstairs and fled to the upper floor of their neighbour’s taller house. In the bamboo-clad hills of Yingde, in the southern province of Guangdong, locals say these are the worst floods they have ever seen. The nearby river has risen to its highest level since records began in 1951. “Everything is gone,” says Ms Yu, cradling her baby. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not…

The G7 at last presents an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative

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In the nine years since China launched its Belt and Road Initiative (bri), a multi-billion-dollar spree of global infrastructure-building, American efforts to counter the scheme have repeatedly faltered. Barack Obama’s administration failed to persuade allies to boycott the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Mr Obama touted a free-trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but Donald Trump sank it in his first week in the White House. As some countries struggled to repay Chinese loans, the Trump administration got some traction calling the bri “debt-trap diplomacy”. The scheme still accounted for about…

The Hong Kong Government and the Rule of Law

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Advertisement Twenty-five years ago, foreign investors and the international business community had hopes that Hong Kong’s handover from the British government to China would keep this international financial hub vibrant and its independent legal institutions robust under the “one country, two systems” framework. “One country, two systems” was the strongest guarantee of the new authorities’ commitment to defending the rule of law, judicial independence, basic rights and liberties, and good governance with a high degree of autonomy. Unfortunately, such faith in the new regime appears to have faded. The inherent…

FBI and MI5 leaders give unprecedented joint warning on Chinese spying

Chin@Strategy

The head of the FBI and the leader of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency have delivered an unprecedented joint address raising fresh alarm about the Chinese government, warning business leaders that Beijing is determined to steal their technology for competitive gain. In a speech at MI5’s London headquarters intended as a show of western solidarity, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, stood alongside the MI5 director general, Ken McCallum. Wray reaffirmed longstanding concerns about economic espionage and hacking operations by China, as well as the Chinese government’s efforts to stifle dissent abroad.…

China asks New Zealand waste water pipe to be diverted due to security fears

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“If they want it shifted, they will have to organise it and pay for it and we will oversee the project. That’s our bottom line,” MacLean said. “It will be a big project to shift that pipe.” The present building of China’s embassy in Wellington. File photo: Reuters The Chinese ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, told The Dominion Post newspaper that the embassy “was working with the council” on the pipes so the building could proceed. Advertisement The Chinese embassy was not immediately able to provide a comment. China…

‘The world is bloody messy’: Jacinda Ardern urges end to ‘black-and-white’ view of global conflict

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The world is “bloody messy” but must take a step back from polarisation and black-and-white approaches to conflict, Jacinda Ardern has said in a wide-ranging speech in which she addressed the war in Ukraine and rising tensions with China. In a speech to foreign policy thinktank the Lowy Institute in Sydney, the New Zealand prime minister decried Russia’s “morally bankrupt” war in Ukraine – but also argued against the hardening of alliances, saying that the war should not be presented as a conflict of “democracy v autocracy” or be seen…

Ahead of G-20 Ministers’ Meeting, China Slams US, NATO

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement China launched a scathing attack on the U.S. and NATO on Wednesday, days before a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s comments underscore the increasingly fractious relationship, along with China’s increasingly confrontational approach to foreign relations that heatedly rejects criticism. At last week’s NATO summit in Spain, Blinken accused China of “seeking to undermine the rules-based international order.” In his comments Wednesday, Zhao said the “so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by…

China’s Main Food Security Challenge: Feeding Its Pigs

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement Amid the worsening global food crisis, there are mounting domestic and international concerns regarding food security in China, the world’s most populous country and largest food importer. The Chinese government has pointed to its bumper grain harvests and massive grain reserve systems to reassure its public and international audiences that the country will not face imminent grain security risks. At present, China holds significant quantities of the world’s grain reserves. According to a report in the Nikkei Asia, by mid-2022, China is expected to hold 69 percent of the…

Penny Wong says she is open to meeting with Chinese counterpart at G20

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Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, has signalled she is open to meeting her Chinese counterpart at a looming meeting of G20 foreign ministers, but she has warned any diplomatic thaw will require the removal of Beijing’s “coercive” trade sanctions against a variety of exports. Wong was asked during a visit to Singapore on Wednesday to disclose whether or not arrangements were now in place for a conversation at the G20 meeting in Indonesia later this week – and if so, what her message would be to China’s Wang Yi. Australia’s…