Day: May 27, 2023

China Issues Eldercare Resource Guide as 60+ Population Balloons 

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taipei, taiwan —  As China yearns for babies, the State Council has issued official “Guidelines for Facilitating the Building of the Basic Elderly Care System” and announced a “List of Basic National Elderly Care Services.” The guidelines for 16 services come as a response to a demographic crisis marked by a ballooning elderly population, a declining birth rate, and a shrinking cohort of working-age citizens. China is not alone in facing this issue. A study published in October 2020 in The Lancet, a medical journal, warned of the “jaw-dropping” economic,…

Saudi Arabia in talks to join China-based ‘Brics bank’

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The New Development Bank, the Shanghai-based lender better known as the “Brics bank”, is in talks with Saudi Arabia on admitting the country as its ninth member, a move that would strengthen its funding options as founding shareholder Russia struggles under the impact of sanctions. The addition of the kingdom would reinforce ties between the bank, which was established by the world’s biggest developing economies as an alternative to western-led Bretton Woods institutions, and the world’s second-largest oil producer. “In the Middle East, we attach great importance to the Kingdom…

US nuclear umbrella for Taiwan: solid cross-strait shield or wishful thinking?

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Strategic ambiguity is a deliberately vague US stand on defending Taiwan should it face armed conflict with Beijing, which sees the island as a breakaway territory that must be reunified – by force if necessay. Pressed by a lawmaker on whether Taiwan had indeed sought US protection given Beijing’s growing nuclear arsenal, Wu said: “Regarding the discussion of this issue with the United States, it is not suitable for me to make it public here.” The “nuclear umbrella” refers to a guarantee by a nuclear-armed state to defend a non-nuclear…

US Commerce Secretary: US ‘Won’t Tolerate’ China’s Ban on Micron Chips

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The United States “won’t tolerate” China’s effective ban on purchases of Micron Technology MU.O memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such “economic coercion,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Saturday. Raimondo told a news conference after a meeting of trade ministers in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks that the U.S. “firmly opposes” China’s actions against Micron. These “target a single U.S. company without any basis in fact, and we see it as plain and simple economic coercion and we won’t tolerate it, nor do we…

Amid Micron ban, US working with allies to beat China’s ‘economic coercion’: commerce secretary

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The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao has expressed Beijing’s willingness to work with Seoul to deepen bilateral trade and investment cooperation. Photo: DFAT via AP Advertisement The pointed remarks came a day after Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met his South Korean counterpart on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) trade ministers’ meeting held May 25-26 in Detroit. “The two sides focused on exchanging views on maintaining the stability of the industrial and supply chains…

Hong Kong Blasts Rights Group Over Missing Uyghur Man Allegation

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Hong Kong on Saturday “strongly condemned” rights group Amnesty International for alleging that a Uyghur man had gone missing after he arrived at the city’s airport. The group said in a statement Friday that Abuduwaili Abudureheman, born in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, traveled from South Korea to Hong Kong on May 10 to visit a friend and had not been heard from since. His final communication was a brief text to his friend while waiting at the airport saying, “Chinese police are asking me questions,” according to the message…

US-Led Indo-Pacific Talks Produce Deal on Supply Chain Early Warnings

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Trade ministers of 14 countries in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks “substantially completed” a deal to make supply chains more resilient and secure, the Commerce Department said on Saturday, marking the first tangible results of the yearlong negotiations. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told a press conference in Detroit that the “first of its kind” agreement calls for countries to form a council to coordinate supply chain activities and a “Crisis Response Network” to give early warnings to IPEF countries of potential supply disruptions. The deal provides an emergency…

Czech Leaders See Democratic Solidarity as Way Forward

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WASHINGTON —  Values-based diplomacy lies at the heart of the Czech Republic’s support for Ukraine and Taiwan alike, the country’s Chamber of Deputies president emphasized this week during a visit to Washington. Newly elected Czech President Petr Pavel sounded a similar note at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit earlier this month as he laid out how Prague views the threat posed by Moscow and Beijing. Marketa Pekarova Adamova was 5 years old when the Velvet Revolution swept the communists out of power in winter 1989. Stories of how people suffered under…

India Opens Myanmar Port with Wary Eye on China

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BANGKOK —  India helped inaugurate a long-awaited seaport in western Myanmar this month amid New Delhi’s efforts to cope with rival China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia and across the Indo-Pacific. A maiden delivery of 1,000 metric tons of cement from the Indian metropolis of Kolkata docked May 9 in Sittwe, Myanmar, at a new port funded by New Delhi. The Sittwe port is the first node in the $484 million Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, aimed at connecting greater India with its landlocked northeast through western Myanmar’s Rakhine and…

Hong Kong’s prominent pro-democracy Civic party votes to disband

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The Civic party, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy groups, has voted to disband because of a leadership vacuum, after its members were squeezed out of local councils and charged under Beijing’s national security law. Nicknamed “the barristers’ party”, it was founded in 2006 by professional elites – mostly from the legal sector – who wanted to promote democratisation and civil society in Hong Kong. The party was among the last few opposition groups, as political dissent has been outlawed under 2020’s national security law, and civil society in…