Day: June 6, 2023

China trade: exports tumble in May, adding to calls for Beijing to boost domestic consumption ‘with worst yet to come’

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China’s weak exports confirmed the need to rely on domestic demand, said Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, as the global economy slows. “There is more pressure for the government to boost domestic consumption in the rest of the year, as global demand will likely weaken further in the second half,” he said. Advertisement Beijing has pledged to shore up trade to support the overall economic recovery, but China’s exports have struggled due to weak global demand. The year-on-year fall in China’s shipments to the United…

VOA Interview: US Intends to Sign More Agreements With Allies to Counter Disinformation

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state department —  The United States is working with allies to detect and counter the violation of what it calls “information space integrity” around the world, a senior State Department official told VOA on Tuesday. Seeking to counter Russian disinformation, Washington has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate with North Macedonia in the fight against the manipulation of information. It says it has the same intent with other countries such as Bulgaria and Slovakia. An example of the need for the policy is expected Sunday (June 11, 2023),…

Thai authority cuts electricity to 2 regions in southeastern Myanmar

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Thailand’s Provincial Electricity Authority cut power to two sections of southeastern Myanmar early Tuesday, leading to threats of retaliation from an ethnic Karen force aligned with the Burmese junta. Somchai Trithipchartsakul, the chief of Mae Sot district in Thailand, said the surrounding Tak province was ready to deal with potential impacts with its border neighbor in Myanmar.  “There was a power cut at 12:05 a.m. The situation at Tha Kham Bridge is still normal – people are still able to send goods across the local two bridges,” Somchai told RFA…

More Muscular US-China Presence Leads to Increasingly Close Encounters in Indo-Pacific

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washington —  South Korea scrambled its fighter jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft entered its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the south and east of the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday — an incident that followed two recent encounters between American and Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. China’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the aircraft that entered Seoul’s ADIZ were participating in an annual joint air exercise with Russia over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea — the sixth…

China has closed unofficial ‘police stations’ in Britain, UK minister says

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The UK security minister, Tom Tugendhat, has said China has closed its reported “police service stations” at sites across Britain, and that an investigation did not reveal any illegal activity by the Chinese state at these sites. Britain has previously said reports of undeclared police stations in the country were “extremely concerning” and that any intimidation on British soil of foreign nationals by China or other states was unacceptable. China has denied operating any such stations and issued a statement contesting Tugendhat’s remarks via its embassy in London, saying the…

EU considers mandatory ban on using Huawei to build 5G

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The EU is considering a mandatory ban on member states using companies deemed to present a security risk in their 5G networks, including Chinese telecoms group Huawei, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions. The move comes as concern rises in Brussels that some national governments are dragging their feet on the issue, the officials told the Financial Times. Only a third of EU countries had banned Huawei from critical parts of the bloc’s 5G communications despite recommendations set out by Brussels to exclude high-risk vendors from technology investments,…

Japan’s supply chain predicament

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In a rare admission for the world’s largest carmaker and Japan’s most powerful company, Toyota’s chief executive Koji Sato admitted last week that there were “limitations” to its ability to provide support to its truck subsidiary Hino Motors. On the same stage in Tokyo, Martin Daum, the head of Daimler Truck, issued a similarly grim warning that the merger of the two groups’ truck units in Japan was essential for survival in the race for carbon neutrality.  “We have to change a system that was successful over the last 120…

Chinese anti-corruption watchdog says crackdown will continue

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“Self-revolution” is a term regularly used by the party to refer to efforts to rid itself of misbehaving individuals. In the piece, the CCDI also said it took pride in “keeping high pressure” on key sectors including finance, state-owned enterprises, universities, sports and agriculture. Advertisement The Tuesday article was among a series of similar pieces published by various top party and government bodies as part of a campaign by the party’s leadership to promote President Xi Jinping’s political ideology. The campaign began in March after Xi secured a norm-breaking third…

Rudd foresees ‘seamless’ AUKUS defense industry

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The long-term goal of the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States is a “seamless” defense and technology industry across the three countries, Canberra’s new ambassador in Washington, Kevin Rudd, said on Tuesday. In his first public remarks since assuming the role, the former Australian prime minister said one of his first tasks would be to help shepherd legislation through Congress to enable the March 13 deal for the United States to sell nuclear submarines to Australia. “Our critical tasks during the course of 2023 is…

US and China can cooperate even in a time of heightened tensions, a House member says

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Kim called rhetoric on China from some fellow legislators that was “unhelpful, untrue and reckless”. Citing the Chinese balloon transit across the US in January, Kim recalled, one Congressional committee chairman had even said on TV “that perhaps there’s a biological weapon flying over the United States”. The US and China, Kim contended, were in the “early stages” of a “new paradigm shift” and that a “tremendous opportunity” existed to redefine the relationship. Advertisement Kim’s remarks struck a different tone from much of the rest of the bipartisan 24-member committee,…