Asia is experiencing weeks of “endless record heat”, with sweltering temperatures causing school closures and surges in energy use. Record April temperatures have been recorded at monitoring stations across Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, as well as in China and South Asia. On Tuesday, four weather stations in Myanmar hit or matched record monthly temperatures, with Theinzayet, in eastern Mon state, reaching the highest, at 43C (109.4F). On Wednesday, Bago, north-east of Yangon, reached 42.2C, matching an all-time record previously recorded in May 2020 and April 2019, according to Maximiliano…
Month: April 2023
Tense Face-Off: Philippines Confronts China Over Sea Claims
ABOARD BRP MALABRIGO — A Chinese coast guard ship blocked a Philippine patrol vessel steaming into a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, causing a frightening near-collision in the latest act of Beijing’s aggression in the strategic waterway. The high seas face-off Sunday between the larger Chinese ship and the Philippine coast guard’s BRP Malapascua near Second Thomas Shoal was among the tense moments it and another Philippine vessel encountered in a weeklong sovereignty patrol in one of the world’s most hotly contested waterways. The Philippine coast guard had…
BYD profit plunges 43.5 per cent as China’s car-market price war breaks three-quarter winning streak
BYD delivered a total of 508,706 cars in the first three months, down 25.6 per cent from the previous quarter. It dethroned Tesla as the world’s largest electric car builder last year, bolstered by strong sales of its cars in China, the world’s largest EV market. BYD unveils its YangWang U8 luxury electric SUV at the Shanghai Auto Show in Shanghai on April 18, 2023. Photo: Kyodo Since October, 2022, thousands of drivers drifted towards BYD’s cars that are priced below 200,000 yuan – about 30 per cent cheaper than…
China seeks ‘damage control’ on Ukraine with Zelenskyy call
Chinese president Xi Jinping has met or called his Russian counterpart at least five times since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But his first call to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy came just this week, days after a Chinese envoy angered Europe by questioning the sovereignty of post-Soviet states. Chinese officials say the timing was coincidental and have hailed the call as the latest step in Beijing’s push for peace. But in Europe, the call to the Ukrainian leader is viewed by many as an attempt to contain the fallout from remarks…
Chinese Ambassador’s Comments Reveal China’s Willful Misreading of Soviet History
Advertisement Lu Shaye, China’s controversial ambassador to France, caused a diplomatic uproar over the weekend, as he implied that post-Soviet countries did not really have a right to exist in international law. “Even these ex-Soviet countries don’t have an effective status in international law because there was no international agreement to materialize their status as sovereign countries,” Lu said on a French TV program, in the context of rationalizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The statement was called “totally unacceptable” by the Czech foreign minister, and condemned by the Baltic states,…
China’s rulers play the law-and-order card, and lose
Mr Tang, a farmer from central China, bears the marks of hard luck and forces beyond his control. A wiry, shaven-headed man of 57, with red scars on his face and neck, he returned home to the province of Henan two years ago, after growing too old to find migrant work in big cities. Pouring his savings and borrowed money into a smallholding in the village of Niezhang, Mr Tang (not his real name) watched 200 pigs die last year of “the disease”. He means African swine fever, which is…
China’s latest attempt to rally the world against Western values
Thirty years ago, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Samuel Huntington, an American scholar, offered a bleak view of how the world would change. He suggested that a “clash of civilisations” would replace the erstwhile cold-war conflict between West and East. As China’s struggle with America intensifies, President Xi Jinping has recently proposed a different view—that civilisations can live in harmony. It may sound tritely upbeat, but its underlying message is less so. The West must stop promoting its values, or Huntington will be proven right. Since Mr…
The novel ways old people try to find love in China
The man, who must be in his 70s, says he has money, even a pension and a house. The similarly-aged woman looks unimpressed. Across a phone connection they are sizing each other up. But the host senses a lack of interest and, with the tap of a button, the connection is cut. Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. This is a typical scene from the popular live-streams featuring old people looking for love. The set-up is…
China vows to retaliate if US continues case against police officers accused of targeting dissidents in America
Those charged include 40 Chinese police officers and two officials with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the county’s internet watchdog. A statement from the US Justice Department on April 17 announcing the charges said the defendants “allegedly perpetrated transnational repression schemes targeting US residents whose political views and actions are disfavoured by the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government, such as advocating for democracy in the PRC”. The defendants, all of whom are believed to live outside the US, are accused of creating fake social media accounts to harass and…
Xi-Zelenskiy call may have been prompted by ambassador’s undiplomatic comments
A long awaited phone call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been cautiously welcomed, but China analysts say the timing suggests it could be partly an act of damage control after controversial comments by China’s ambassador to France. Ambassador Lu Shaye, one of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats with a history of fiery remarks, sparked outrage across Europe this week when he denied the sovereignty of former Soviet states, saying they “did not have effective status”. The comments were roundly condemned, with several European nations summoning Chinese envoys for rebuke,…