Day: February 19, 2023

What does China plan to do with mountain of personal health code data amassed during zero-Covid?

Chin@Strategy

The deletion of the data held in Guangdong was completed on Thursday, but other provinces’ approach to the same issue remains unclear, to the consternation of legal experts and members of the public. Some regions, including Beijing, Shanghai and southwestern China’s Guizhou province, have said they will integrate their health codes with government platforms to aid in the provision of other public services, but experts say there is an insufficient legal basis for such moves. Shanghai’s big data centre said in mid-December that there were no plans to make the…

At Job Fairs in China, Employers Are Thrifty, Applicants Timid

Chin@Strategy

Beijing —  China’s job fairs are making a comeback after being forced online by COVID-19 for three years, but subdued wages and less abundant offerings in sectors exposed to weakening external demand point to an uneven and guarded economic recovery. Authorities announced hundreds of such events across the country this month, the latest sign that China is returning to its pre-COVID way of life and that youth unemployment, a major headache for Beijing, may ease from its near 20% peak. In a country of 1.4 billion people, job fairs are…

North Korea Launches More Missiles, Calls Pacific ‘Our Firing Range’

Chin@Strategy

Seoul, South Korea —  North Korea launched at least two short-range ballistic missiles into the waters off its east coast Monday morning, hours after the United States conducted joint aerial maneuvers with Japan and South Korea. Monday’s launch is the third major weapons test by North Korea this year. “We are well aware of the movement of U.S. forces’ strategic strike means recently getting brisk around the Korean Peninsula,” said Kim Yo Jong in a statement Monday that was carried by state media Korean Central News Agency. “The frequency of…

Philippines’ Marcos: China Laser Not Enough to Activate US Defense Pact

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Manila, Philippines —  The Philippine president said Saturday the Chinese coast guard’s use of military-grade laser that briefly blinded some of the crew aboard a Philippine patrol vessel in the disputed South China Sea was not enough for him to invoke a mutual defense treaty with the United States but warned that such aggression should stop. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told a news conference he also reminded China’s ambassador to Manila that escalating aggression and incursions into Philippine waters by Beijing’s coast guard, navy and government-backed civilian fishing fleets violate…

Chinese Balloon Case Reveals Trail of Spy Games, Double Standards in Colombia

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement On February 3, a large unidentified balloon floating at an altitude of 55,000, now confirmed to have originated from China, was detected in Colombia’s airspace through Colombia’s National Air Defense System. The Colombian defense establishment insisted that the balloon represented “no threat to the sovereignty of the country, nor to the air security of the region.” The balloon was spotted near the cities of Valledupar and Cartagena, heading further toward the Southeast into Brazil. As with the Chinese balloon that flew over the United States earlier this month, Mao…

Blinken: China May Consider Providing Lethal Assistance to Russia

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The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern Sunday that China may be contemplating sending lethal assistance to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. He made the comments before landing in Turkey, where he toured the damage caused by the recent earthquakes. As VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, U.S.-China tensions have spiked after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon earlier this month. VOA

US General Warns China Biggest Threat in Space

Chin@Strategy

Munich, Germany —  Space has “fundamentally changed” in just a few years due to a growing arms race, a U.S. general said, singling out China as the “most challenging threat,” followed by Russia. “We are seeing a whole mix of weapons being produced by our strategic competitors,” General Bradley Chance Saltzman, the U.S. chief of space operations, told a group of media, including AFP. “The most challenging threat is China but also Russia,” he said, speaking late Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, listing technologies including anti-satellite…

U.S. Warnings to China on Arms Aid for Russia’s War Portend Global Rift

Chin@Strategy

MADRID — When the top foreign policy officials from the United States and China appeared this weekend at Europe’s premiere global security conference, both stressed that their governments were not seeking a new Cold War. Yet, new warnings by U.S. officials that China may be preparing to give weapons and ammunition to Russia ‌for its war on Ukraine portend the worst of the old Cold War. In that decades-long shadow struggle, the United States, the Soviet Union and occasionally China poured military resources into protracted wars around the globe, engaging…

US: No Apology From China for Balloon Surveillance 

Chin@Strategy

Washington —  U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says his Chinese counterpart, top diplomat Wang Yi, did not apologize during a meeting in Munich for Beijing’s violation of U.S. airspace with its high-altitude surveillance balloon, even as Blinken told him the spying was unacceptable and must never occur again. The two diplomats met for an hour Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. This marked their first face-to-face meeting since the United States shot down the balloon earlier this month over the Atlantic Ocean off the U.S. Eastern…