US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers Wednesday that China’s diplomatic and material support for Russia goes against the US interest in ending the Ukraine war. His Capitol Hill testimony comes ahead of a potential call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. State Department bureau chief Nike Ching has more. VOA
WASHINGTON — China is very carefully watching how Washington and the world respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has not yet crossed the line of providing lethal aid to Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. Speaking on the heels of a visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Blinken told a Senate hearing that if Russia was allowed to attack its neighbor with impunity, it would “open a Pandora’s box” for would-be aggressors and lead to a “world of conflict.” “The stakes in Ukraine…
The population of Beijing, China’s capital, has fallen for the first time in two decades, official data show, in line with the general trend of the country’s declining numbers, which has stoked concerns about the nation’s economic outlook. According to statistics the government released Tuesday, Beijing’s population had fallen by 43,000 people to 21.84 million by the end of 2022. Most notably, the death rate in the capital surpassed the birth rate. The death rate in Beijing, one of the country’s most populous urban centers, rose to 5.72 deaths per…
Taipei — Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense is investigating the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of a soldier who was reported missing from his post earlier this month only to be reported found in China by authorities there. The soldier — identified by Taiwanese SET News as Chen Jiaxun, 26 — was stationed on Erdan islet, part of the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen group of islands. Erdan islet is about 4 km to 5 km from the Chinese port city of Xiamen. The post is considered to be on the front line of…
Days after Hanoi released its first white book on religious policies in 16 years, Vietnamese activists are pointing to its similarities to China’s policies. The white book, Religion in Viet Nam, catalogs the religions practiced in the country and outlines the “comprehensive” policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam guaranteeing religious freedom. A white book gathers rules and standards often in the form of an official government report that takes its name from the binding color. Nguyen Tien Trong, deputy head of the government’s Committee for Religious Affairs, said at…
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Tuesday signed a new strategic partnership between their countries and called for a diplomatic solution to Moscow’s war against Ukraine, but Putin said he sees no indication that the Kyiv government and its Western allies are ready for peace talks. After two days of talks with Xi at the Kremlin, Putin accused the United States and Western countries of fighting “to the last Ukrainian,” but praised what he said was China’s “neutral position” on the war. China’s foreign ministry said…
beijing — Experts are still investigating the cause of the crash of a China Eastern Airlines jetliner that killed 132 people one year ago, China’s government said Monday. The March 21, 2022, disaster was a rare failure for a Chinese airline industry that dramatically improved safety following deadly crashes in the 1990s. The Boeing 737-800 en route from Kunming in the southwest to Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, went into a nosedive from 8,800 meters (29,000 feet), appeared to recover and then slammed into a mountainside. Everyone aboard was killed. The…
The self-governing island of Taiwan has one of the world’s most highly educated and skilled workforces — as well as one of the world’s lowest birthrates. Pets are more common than kids in many households, and they take part in human activities such as wearing clothes and dining out. From Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Shelley Schlender takes us to an unusual café. VOA
State Department — Russia’s armed forces have committed “numerous war crimes and other atrocities” since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, said a U.S. Department of State report that documents human rights practices around the world. “There were credible reports of summary execution, torture, rape, indiscriminate attacks, and attacks deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure by Russia’s forces in Ukraine, all of which constitute war crimes,” the State Department said in its 2022 annual human rights report, released Monday. The annual report also underscored cases…
Bangkok, Thailand — Hong Kong and its civil society environment have been downgraded by an international rights group nearly three years since China imposed a national security law on the city. CIVICUS Monitor, a global research group that tracks and rates fundamental freedoms, released its People Power Under Attack 2022 report last Thursday. After the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, Beijing imposed the security legislation in an effort to bring back stability. But the law has since been used by authorities to target dissidents, including lawmakers, journalists, and…