Tag: China News

SEOUL, South Korea —  North Korean and Chinese officials have met in Beijing and committed to further develop bilateral ties, North Korean media said on Sunday, as Pyongyang seeks to expand its diplomatic engagement after COVID-19 lockdowns. A North Korean delegation led by Kim Song Nam, head of the International Department of the ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee, was the among groups visiting countries in the region since last week that Pyongyang has maintained closer ties with. In a meeting Thursday, Wang Huning, China’s fourth-ranked leader, told Kim, “No matter…

jakarta, indonesia —  Indonesia is expanding its use of a payment system that is popular in China as a way for Chinese tourists to spend easily at even the smallest shops. The expanded payment system employs QR codes. Although it is primarily aimed at developing regional interconnectivity with other Southeast Asian nations, it plays into Indonesia’s effort to attract Chinese tourists. The central Bank Indonesia is expanding its QR payment system to include Chinese banks as well as banks in Japan and South Korea, two other tourist sources. QR payments…

HONG KONG —  Hong Kong’s new national security law came into force on Saturday, putting into immediate effect tough penalties of up to life imprisonment for crimes including treason and insurrection. The law — commonly referred to as Article 23 — targets five categories of national security crimes and was swiftly passed by Hong Kong’s opposition-free legislature on Tuesday. The United States, the European Union, Japan and Britain have been among the law’s strongest critics, with British Foreign Minister David Cameron saying it would “further damage the rights and freedoms”…

taipei, taiwan —  Taiwan has been grappling with debates over the last week about a potential visit to an island in the disputed South China Sea by its outgoing president. Some lawmakers from the main opposition party Kuomintang, which advocates friendlier ties with China, have urged Tsai Ing-wen, who will leave office in May, to visit Itu Aba, in the contested Spratly Islands, and assert Taiwan’s sovereignty over the island. Taiwan took control of the 46-hectare islet, which Taiwan and China call Taiping Island, in 1956. China, Vietnam and the…

Hong Kong —  Around 50 people gathered on a cool spring evening outside a bookstore at the end of a quiet alley for a book talk by two authors. The books were about travel but the mood was not lighthearted. The event was the last at Mount Zero, which recently announced it will close by the end of March, after facing a series of warnings from government departments about minor violations, from the use of the alley for book talks to the paving of a small uneven public space in…

SYDNEY —  Australia and Britain on Friday criticized China for its actions in Hong Kong and the South China Sea and its support of Russia, after a meeting in which London and Canberra deepened their security ties. The two countries called out “recent unsafe and destabilizing behavior by China’s vessels against Philippine vessels and crew near Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea,” in a statement that contained unusually direct language on Beijing’s activities in the region. In a joint statement earlier this month with Southeast Asian nations, Australia…