Month: September 2023

India, not China, is best suited to lead the developing world, top diplomat tells UN

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India has staked a claim as the leading voice of the developing world in an “emerging multipolar order”, casting itself at the United Nations General Assembly as a better fit for the role than China. Addressing the general assembly in New York on Tuesday, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar cited Sri Lanka’s economic downturn, which India and many Western countries and their allies have blamed on Beijing’s “debt diplomacy”. “When Sri Lanka experienced a severe economic crisis, it was India that first stepped forward,” India’s top diplomat said. Jaishankar said…

US blacklists three more firms for Uyghur slave labor

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The United States on Tuesday blacklisted three more companies located in China’s Xinjiang region due to their use of forced Uyghur labor, banning American companies from importing their goods. A total of 27 companies are now explicitly blacklisted under the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which also includes a general ban on the import of any goods made even in part by the forced labor of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority subjected to internment in China. Goods made by Xinjiang Zhongtai Group, Xinjiang Tianshan Wool Textile and Xinjiang Tianmian Foundation…

If EU wants Australia’s critical minerals, ‘get moving or you will miss the boat’, minister says

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Australia has warned the European Union that it will miss out on bountiful supplies of critical minerals if it does not stop haggling over prices and making “unfair” demands over a trade deal. “Get moving or you will miss the boat” was the message resources minister Madeleine King delivered in Brussels on Tuesday, during an interview with the South China Morning Post and other news outlets. European Union headquarters in Brussels. Photo: AP King is on a tour of European capitals seeking investment that would help bring supplies of processed…

UN: Myanmar Military Ups Airstrikes, Mass Killings to Subjugate Population

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Geneva —  Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, is calling for international action to bring an end to the increasingly brutal, repressive regime of Myanmar’s military, which toppled the country’s democratically elected government February 1, 2021. In a report submitted Tuesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the U.N. rights chief warned that Myanmar’s military junta has “further expanded its assault” against the civilian population. The report covers the period from April 1, 2022, to July 31, 2023. “We are faced here with a system of ruthless…

China still a key market, US businesses say, but hope dims for improved prospects

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The USCBC counts 276 members in its ranks, including influential companies like Nike and Amazon. The survey was carried out between June and July, and closed in early July before the two governments stepped up their economic diplomacy. It was the first survey of members since China began to relax domestic Covid-19 restrictions in December, followed by a major loosening of travel restrictions in March. US firms in China have worst outlook on record, AmCham Shanghai survey reveals But respondents said they had seen few tangible changes in the Chinese…

Head of Hong Kong Journalists’ Association to Appeal Sentence

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A Hong Kong court has sentenced Ronson Chan, the head of a journalists’ association, to five days in prison for obstructing police. The ruling Monday on Chan, who chairs the Hong Kong Journalists Association, was condemned by media analysts as showing a further decline in press freedom in the region. It came as media organizations called on authorities to free former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai, who marked 1,000 days in prison Tuesday. In Chan’s case, undercover police briefly detained him last September after he refused to hand over the…

How China can avoid the Japan trap

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Receive free Chinese economy updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Chinese economy news every morning. Has China’s period of relatively rapid economic growth come to an end? That was the focus of last week’s column. The answer, I argued, was that it still had the potential to catch up on the living standards of the world’s richest countries, because it is relatively poor. But this does not mean it will do so. It confronts big obstacles to continuing success. In this column, I…

North Koreans in Russia received scant medical care during pandemic

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North Korean workers in Russia who contracted serious diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic were unable to receive proper medical treatment, nor were they able to return to North Korea, according to an internal document seen by Radio Free Asia. The three-page document, titled ‘Status of Patients at the First Construction Company in Khabarovsk, Russia’, was written around February 2022, and recorded the details of several medical issues of North Koreans sent to the Russian far eastern city to earn foreign cash for the government.  It says that out of 58…

Asian Games 2023: China wins first esports gold medal in Hangzhou playing Tencent’s Arena of Valor

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China has won the Asian Games’ first ever gold medal in esports after a victory over Malaysia in the title Arena of Valor, the international version of Honour of Kings. The six-player Chinese national team won 2-0 in the esports finals, where the best of three matches takes the crown, at the Hangzhou Esports Centre on Tuesday night. The players use a version of the game that Tencent Holdings created specifically for the Asian Games, which merges elements of both Arena of Valor and Honour of Kings. The six Chinese…