The shadow minister for foreign affairs, Simon Birmingham, says Anthony Albanese should not visit Beijing until all trade sanctions have been lifted. Birmingham, a former trade minister in the Coalition government, said Australia “deserves to have absolute clarity that these sanctions are going to be lifted and that clarity should be there before the prime minister entertains a formal state visit to Beijing”. “Why? Because China is acting very clearly in breach of its commitments to Australia,” Birmingham told the ABC’s Insiders. “China is acting in breach of its commitments…
Day: May 20, 2023
What’s De-risking and How Does It Compare to Decoupling
If diplomats were on TikTok, “de-risk” would be trending. The word has suddenly become popular among officials trying to loosen China’s grip on global supply chains but not cut ties entirely, with the joint communiqué from this weekend’s Group of 7 meeting making clear that the world’s largest democratic economies will now focus on “de-risking, not decoupling.” The former is meant to sound more moderate, more surgical. It reflects an evolution in the discussion over how to deal with a rising, assertive China. But the word also has a vexing history…
Bhutan turns to crypto in search of fast growth
Bhutan is investing in everything from bitcoin mining to drone technology as the Himalayan kingdom turns to new-age businesses in search of fast growth and returns. Druk Holding & Investments, the state-owned commercial holding company, will start pitching to investors this month to raise up to $500mn for a crypto mining business after partnering with Singaporean group Bitdeer, one of the world’s largest bitcoin miners. Bhutan’s bet on crypto, which follows that of other countries such as El Salvador and the Central African Republic, comes despite the sell-offs, contagion and…
What Zelda soup tells us about corporate Japan
For anyone grabbing lunch in Japan, themed temptation beckons from the refrigerators of Lawson convenience stores: branded Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hearty salmon and fresh milk clam chowder. For those that do not yet own the latest $70 Zelda game — declared by some to be the greatest of all time and a breezy seller of 10mn copies in its first three days — a $3.26 bowl of hero-labelled soup that (sort of) appears in the game is a cheap entry point for some precious Nintendo magic. Lurking in…
HRW Calls for Halt to Rohingya Repatriation From Bangladesh to Myanmar
As Bangladesh and Myanmar gear up to repatriate about 1,100 Rohingya refugees in a pilot project, rights group Human Rights Watch, or HRW, says conditions in Myanmar’s state of Rakhine are still not favorable for sustainable repatriation of Rohingya refugees. “Bangladesh and Myanmar are organizing returns of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar’s Rakhine State without consulting the community or addressing the grave risks to their lives and liberty,” the HRW statement released on May 18 said. “Donor governments and United Nations experts should call for a halt to any…
Quad Summit at G7 Reaffirms Support for Indo-Pacific
HIROSHIMA, JAPAN / WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden met on the sidelines of the G-7 meeting Saturday in Hiroshima with the other three heads of state at the Quad Leader’s Summit. The Quad leaders from the United States, Australia, Japan and India quickly rescheduled their talks originally slated for next week in Sydney so Biden could return to Washington for federal debt limit negotiations. In opening comments, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese depicted the region as one “where sovereignty is respected and all countries, large and small, benefit…
Australia, India, Japan and US take thinly veiled swipe at China
The leaders of the Quad group – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – delivered a thinly veiled swipe at Beijing’s behaviour on Saturday at a summit in Hiroshima. The US president, Joe Biden, and his three partners in the group did not mention China by name but the communist superpower was clearly the target of language in a joint statement calling for “peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain”. “We strongly oppose destabilising or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,”…
Can China’s Stand-Up Comedy Scene Survive Joke About Two Dogs?
Taipei, Taiwan — “Good work style and capable of winning battles.” That’s how House, a famous Chinese stand-up comedian, described his two adopted street dogs chasing squirrels at two performances in Beijing. The audience burst into laughter because they, like the comedian whose real name is Li Haoshi, understood the origin of the phrase. It is a training requirement for the People’s Liberation Army set forth by Xi Jinping, who is the president of China, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China and the chairman of the Central…
In joint statement, leaders of Quad nations target China’s ambitions in region
From left, US President Joe Biden, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi hold a Quad meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit, at the Grand Prince Hotel in Hiroshima, Japan on Saturday. Photo: Pool Photo via AP South China Morning Post
INTERVIEW: ‘They threatened to arrest us both together’
A Chinese rights activist who openly supported the “white paper” protest movement of November 2022 has applied for political asylum in the Netherlands after learning that he could be targeted as part of an ongoing case against his dissident father. Zhang Hongyuan, son of veteran Wuhan-based rights activist Zhang Yi, flew from Beijing to Amsterdam on April 13 after learning that he was being named as a co-defendant alongside his father, who is being targeted for giving interviews to overseas media organizations during the Wuhan lockdown of 2020. He spoke…