The White House has said it is disappointed the Solomon Islands prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, will not attend a Pacific Islands summit with Joe Biden next week. The US president will host a second summit with leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum at the White House on Monday as part of his efforts to step up engagement with a region where the US is in a battle for influence with China. “We are disappointed that PM Sogavare of the Solomons does not plan to attend,” a Biden Administration official said.…
Day: September 23, 2023
‘Serious hurdles’ to motherhood worsen demographic crisis in China
Serious health and professional hurdles are deterring Chinese women from having babies, worsening China’s demographic crisis, according to research published this month by authorities in the central province of Hunan. The Hunan People’s Congress warned that most cities in the province had failed to urgently address their declining birth rates, with a survey finding that only four out of 14 had rolled out detailed plans to boost births by the end of April – against a previous deadline of end-2022. An inspection team sent out earlier this year to uncover…
Singapore banks tighten scrutiny of clients after money-laundering scandal
Receive free Singapore updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Singapore news every morning. Banks in Singapore are stepping up scrutiny of customers from a range of countries including China and intensifying efforts to identify the sources of wealth as the city-state reels from a ballooning S$2.4bn (US$1.8bn) money-laundering scandal. Financial institutions have warned customers and their advisers that the waiting period to open a private banking account has increased from less than one month to three to four, according to wealth advisers, asset…
Australian government says ‘yeah, no’ to deal with China to drop wine tariffs
The Australian government has said “yeah, no” to a reported package deal offer from China to drop its tariffs on Australian wine in return for more favourable treatment of its wind towers, railway wheels and stainless steel sinks. The agriculture, forestries and fisheries minister, Murray Watt, said on Sunday that the Albanese government regards these as “entirely separate matters” but will seek to resolve remaining trade issues through dialogue. In August, China announced it would remove tariffs on Australian barley, resulting in Australia dropping its dispute in the World Trade…
China’s ‘batwoman’ scientist warns another coronavirus outbreak is ‘highly likely’
In this study Shi’s team from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, evaluated the human spillover risk of 40 coronavirus species and rated half of them as “highly risky”. Of these, six are already known to have caused diseases that infected humans, while there is evidence that a further three caused disease or infected other animal species. Advertisement “It is almost certain that there will be future disease emergence and it is highly likely a [coronavirus] disease again,” the study warned. The study was based on an analysis of viral traits,…
‘I am willing to wait for months’: Chinese Tiananmen critic ready for long haul in Taiwan transit lounge
A Chinese dissident who has taken refuge in a Taiwan airport during a stopover has said he is prepared to wait months if needed, in order to get safe passage to a third country. Chen Siming is known for regularly commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre of 4 June 1989 – an event banned from discussion or acknowledgement inside China – and has been repeatedly detained around the anniversary. In a video posted to social media shortly after his arrival in Taiwan on Friday, Chen said that recently the authorities’ targeting…
‘What adjectives describe Xi Jinping?’ China’s new English textbook asks
Receive free Chinese society updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Chinese society news every morning. Tens of thousands of Chinese college freshmen began their English language classes this month with an in-depth study of “Never Forget Why You Started”, an article in which President Xi Jinping describes his tough working life in the impoverished north-west in his youth. As part of their mandatory English language lessons, Chinese university students were tasked with finding adjectives to “describe Xi during his time as a youth…
Chinese investors scramble to sell overseas properties amid shaky economic conditions
“If we take into account rental returns and changes in exchange rates, most of their property investments overseas are actually profitable in terms of yuan,” Yao said. “But a number of them can no longer afford the final payment for their property investment and desperately need cash to solve their domestic financial problems, such as business failures, lay-offs and mortgage loan defaults,” he said. “Some no longer have the extra funds to continue holding these overseas properties.” 04:49 Anger mounts as China’s property debt crisis leaves flats unfinished Anger mounts…
Crowd Roars as Xi Opens Hangzhou Asian Games
HANGZHOU, CHINA — Chinese President Xi Jinping opened the COVID-19-delayed 19th Asian Games on Saturday in the city of Hangzhou during a shiny and at times raucous opening ceremony on Saturday. Spectators in the city’s 80,000-capacity stadium let out a huge roar as Xi was introduced and walked in to sit with visiting dignitaries, including International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Games, delayed a year because of China’s measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, will be the country’s biggest sporting event in over a…
The east German town at the centre of the new ‘gold rush’ … for lithium
It has been called the new gold rush – a rush to catch up with China in producing and refining the materials needed in everything from computers to cars: but has it come too late to save Europe’s car industry? Deep inside a former East German town lies the first fruits of the EU’s grand plan to “de-risk” and wean itself off dependency on imports for the green revolution. In Bitterfeld-Wolfen, 140km south-west of Berlin, an Amsterdam-listed company is scrambling to complete construction of a vast factory that will be…