Officially, Vladmir Putin is in China this week to attend the forum considering the progress of Xi Jinping’s pet project, the Belt and Road Initiative. It is a global transport infrastructure programme linking China with countries to its west, but which has been criticised for, at times, locking poorer nations into debt traps. BBC
“As China shifts its growth model towards internal consumption, and there is less capital available to be deployed to South Asia, countries in the region are now rebalancing towards India, Japan, the United States, European Union and other traditional partners. This is apparent in Sri Lanka, where China has been largely missing in action after the country’s financial default,” Mr Xavier said. BBC
Ms Cheng was freed as frosty relations between Canberra and Beijing appear to be thawing. Tensions between the two countries deepened during the pandemic, which led to a Chinese ban on Australian exports like barley, coal, and timber. Those blocks were lifted earlier this year, the first signs of a gradual easing of the diplomatic impasse. BBC
“When officers arrived here on scene, they found the vehicle had come to rest inside the lobby of the Chinese consulate. Officers entered, made contact with the suspect and an officer-involved shooting occurred,” said Kathryn Winters, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department. BBC
China even flew jets to Taiwan’s Pacific coast on the east, suggesting that it was practicing strikes from that direction, instead of west, which faces mainland China. Increasingly, China appears to be rehearsing a blockade of Taiwan. But Pentagon officials say it is unlikely to succeed as this would buy time for Taipei’s allies to mobilise themselves. BBC
Last year, a popular Chinese influencer’s livestream, which took place on the eve of the 33rd anniversary of the massacre, ended abruptly after he showed his audience a vanilla log cake which resembled a tank – a reference to a iconic image of one so-called Tank Man, which shows a civilian with shopping bags standing in front of a queue of tanks, attempting to block them. BBC
Gaoyang, for instance, said he plans to cover nine Chinese cities, clocking 6000km between all of them, in just eight days. He considers himself a “special forces traveller”, a term for roughing it out so you can run through a packed yet cheap holiday schedule. Gaoyang’s itinerary involves scaling four mountains. BBC
China’s property market accounts for a third of its economy, fuelling concerns about the impact on allied industries, from construction materials such as steel and cement, to household appliances. And yet this is one more crisis for Beijing, which is also battling slowing growth, falling exports and a youth unemployment rate that has risen above 20%. BBC
“That could spiral, affecting other indebted companies and further hurt the overall property sector which is very important to the growth of the economy,” Dexter Roberts, director of China affairs at the Mansfield Center at the University of Montana, told the BBC. BBC
It is a grandiose scheme by a Chinese company to build a self-contained tourist city. A Chinese colony, some have called it a venue for “feasting and revelry”, according to the company, complete with international airport, deep-sea port, power stations, hospitals, casinos and luxury villas. BBC