Month: September 2023

When the White House hosts Pacific island leaders on Monday, exactly a year after their first-ever US-led summit in September 2022, President Joe Biden will follow up on his commitment to raise American engagement in the region to the “next level”, according to senior administration officials. “You will see, over the course of a few days, our commitment to reopen embassies,” said one official. “USAID is back in force in the Pacific. The Peace Corps has arrived in many of the islands that they’ve served with in previous periods.” A…

By 2020, its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption had fallen to 30 per cent. But it has since hedged its bets, developing fossil fuel at rates faster than other leading regional economies such as Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, according to research from Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing office. Compared to them, Guangdong is much further along in its energy transition. It has exceeded the renewable energy goals outlined for it in the 14th five-year plan for 2021-2025, with solar power capacity additions putting it comfortably above target and…

At a national conference held in Beijing on Friday and Saturday, Premier Li Qiang pledged to intensify support for modern industries. “China should aim to enhance the resilience and security of industrial and supply chains, improve innovation power, optimise industrial structures, spearhead the integration of digital technology and the real economy, and facilitate the development of green industry,” said Li, according to state news agency Xinhua. China aims to become an advanced manufacturing powerhouse by 2035, backed by smart and green industrial production. This year the leadership has placed a…

China should make better use of its free-trade zones to allow unfettered internet access and data flow beyond its borders to close the widening gap with the United States in the digital economy and break the tech blockade, an outspoken former official has said. Huang Qifan, former mayor of the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, told the Bund Summit in Shanghai on Sunday that China could tap into the free-trade zones scattered across the country in an effort to catch up with tech rival US in the digital economy – a…

A trade fair designed to foster closer ties between China and the Arab world ended on Sunday with companies signing deals worth a total of 171 billion yuan (US$23.4 billion) in sectors such as trade, agriculture, energy, green transition and medical care, state media reported. The sixth China-Arab States Expo in Yinchuan, in the northwestern region of Ningxia, was attended by officials from more than 60 countries and more than 1,000 representatives of foreign agencies in China, according to official news agency Xinhua. It also said that more than 220…