Day: September 9, 2022

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ Diplomatic Efforts During the Latest Taiwan Strait Flare-up

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent high profile and high-stakes visit to Taiwan, which made global headlines, prompted other politicians to take high-level visits of their own to the island. One month ago, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves entered the fray. With no outward signs of hesitation, beginning on August 8 as China was continuing to conduct unprecedented military drills around the island, he led a delegation on a six-day state visit to Taiwan. At a time when cross-strait relations rested on a knife-edge, what…

Volker Türk, an Austrian Diplomat, Takes U.N. Human Rights Post

Chin@Strategy

GENEVA — A week after Michelle Bachelet stepped down as the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, the U.N. has approved Volker Türk, an Austrian who is a trusted adviser to the secretary general, to take on the notoriously challenging job. The secretary general, António Guterres, forwarded the name of Mr. Türk late on Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly, which approved the appointment without a vote on Thursday. Mr. Türk, 57, is not widely known outside the United Nations, but he was seen as the front-runner in a…

Four Years After #MeToo in China: Shrinking Digital Space for Change

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement On August 10, a Beijing court rejected the appeal of Zhou Xiaoxuan, who had accused a star presenter for state television of sexual harassment. The case was considered a landmark for the #MeToo movement in China because it galvanized other women to share their own stories of sexual harassment publicly. The impact was not only online, but it also triggered offline collective activities. For Zhou’s first trial in 2021, dozens of women gathered outside the courthouse to show their support, and the police did not intervene. However, at the…

2 Years After Deadly Fistfights, India and China Pull Back From Border

Chin@Strategy

SRINAGAR, Kashmir — Their soldiers have fought with fists, rocks and wooden clubs along a disputed frontier high in the Himalayas. Both India and China have said they don’t want a war, but the brawls led them to move thousands of soldiers to inhospitable terrain. Now, the two nuclear-armed neighbors appear to be moving toward de-escalation after a conflict that endangered regional stability, with officials from both sides agreeing to pull back soldiers from friction points along their disputed border in the Ladakh region. “The Indian and Chinese troops in…

Indian and Chinese troops pull back from disputed Himalayan border area

Chin@Strategy

Indian and Chinese troops have begun to pull back from another disputed Himalayan border area, as peace talks between senior military officials after deadly clashes in 2020 continue. The two defence ministries confirmed troops were disengaging from respective sides in the area of Gogra-Hot Springs, in a move “conducive to the peace and tranquillity in the border areas”. The withdrawal was according to a consensus reached in July during the 16th and most recent round of bilateral talks between top commanders, both ministries said. It marks the second major act…

How Silicon Chips Rule the World

Chin@Strategy

When I first arrived in Taiwan as a college student in the summer of 1973, there was no ambiguity whatsoever about the American role on the island. Over the previous two years, President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, had opened relations with the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. But a short distance away in Taiwan, which the People’s Republic considers a breakaway province, U.S. Air Force jets soared overhead. There was a U.S. base right in Taipei, within walking distance of my favorite bookstore.…