She has caused uproar by questioning whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is a trusted ally and pursued a policy in Northern Ireland that has upset the White House. Should Liz Truss become prime minister on 5 September, she will come with some unhelpful baggage to the top table on the international stage at a fraught time. The challenges will come thick and fast. From the war in Ukraine, the global energy crisis and the urgent calls for more and deeper action on the climate crisis, the world is looking…
Month: August 2022
U.S. Warships Sail Taiwan Strait, Defying Chinese Pressure
HONG KONG — The U.S. Navy said that two of its warships were sailing through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, the first such passage by American ships since China began large-scale military exercises in response to a visit to Taiwan by Speaker Nancy Pelosi early this month. The guided-missile cruisers Antietam and Chancellorsville were conducting what the Navy’s Seventh Fleet called “a routine Taiwan Strait transit.” American officials said this month that the Navy would continue to operate around Taiwan, despite China’s claims to control the waterway. China has warned…
The Pelosi effect: foreign delegations queue up to visit Taiwan in defiance of China
Late on Thursday evening a US air force plane touched down at Taiwan’s Songshan airport. Unannounced, it attracted a fraction of the fanfare that greeted the plane carrying US speaker Nancy Pelosi three weeks earlier, but was still broadcast live on television. Traveling solo, senator Marsha Blackburn stepped onto the dark tarmac where she was met by a foreign ministry official, and they quickly moved inside the terminal. “I just landed in Taiwan to send a message to Beijing – we will not be bullied,” Blackburn tweeted. The solo visit…
China’s drought from the air
After more than 70 days of extreme temperatures and low rainfall, China has seen its worst drought on record. Southern China has recorded its longest period of drought since records began, 60 years ago. The country is now using cloud seeding to try and change the amount of precipitation that falls. BBC
China’s Record Drought is Drying Rivers and Feeding Its Coal Habit
HONG KONG — Car assembly plants and electronics factories in southwestern China have closed for lack of power. Owners of electric cars are waiting overnight at charging stations to recharge their vehicles. Rivers are so low there that ships can no longer carry supplies. A record-setting drought and an 11-week heat wave are causing broad disruption in a region that depends on dams for more than three-quarters of its electricity generation. The factory shutdowns and logistical delays are hindering China’s efforts to revive its economy as the country’s leader, Xi…
Chinese city’s residents made to queue for Covid tests in heat above 40C
Residents of the south-western Chinese city of Chongqing have been queueing on the streets to be tested for Covid, despite extreme temperatures that have soared past 40C (104F) this week. Photos posted on Chinese social media also showed health workers testing residents while wearing full hazmat suits in the heatwave. Other images showed that the tests were being carried out while bushfires raged in the background, prompting descriptions of the situation as “apocalyptic”. The city of more than 31 million people reported eight new confirmed Covid cases on Friday. Authorities…
The Dugong ‘Sea Cow’ Has Vanished from China’s Waters, Study Says
The dugong, a species of so-called sea cow that roams the ocean floor in Asia and Africa and is said to have inspired ancient legends of mermaids, has been spotted off China’s southern coast for centuries. Not lately, though. A new study suggests that the dugong has become the first large vertebrate to go functionally extinct in China’s coastal waters, the result of a rapid population collapse there that began in the mid-1970s. “Functional extinction” means that even if some dugongs are still alive off China’s coast, their numbers are…
US ship unable to get Solomon Islands’ permission to dock, says Washington
A United States coast guard vessel was unable to enter Solomon Islands for a routine port call because its government did not respond to a request to refuel and provision, a US official said. The Solomons government did not immediately answer a Reuters request for comment. It has had a tense relationship with the US and its allies since striking a security pact with China in May. The USCGC Oliver Henry was on patrol for illegal fishing in the South Pacific for a regional fisheries agency when it failed to…
China Is Using a UN Resolution to Further Its Claim Over Taiwan
Advertisement At the end of a large-scale military exercise held in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) released a new white paper on its policy toward Taiwan. The white paper, entitled “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era,” is the first white paper on Taiwan affairs in 22 years, following “The Taiwan Issue and Chinese Reunification” (1993) and “The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue” (2000). The new white paper reviews Xi Jinping’s policy…
Tech war: Chinese satellite data company plays down impact of US sanctions
According to the Zhuhai Orbita’s 244-page annual report of 2021, the company was founded in 2000 by Yan Jun, a Canadian citizen at the time who later gained Chinese citizenship. Last year, chip business contributed to 20 per cent of the firm’s total revenue, while 60 per cent came from civilian satellite data obtained by its Zhuhai No 1 low-orbit satellite. Zhuhai Orbita’s revenue in 2021 dropped 20 per cent from a year earlier to 700 million yuan (US$105 million), with profits plunging 60 per cent to 42 million yuan.…