Tag: International Relations

As Xi Heads to San Francisco, Chinese Propaganda Embraces America

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Not long ago, Chinese propaganda was warning that American attempts at easing tensions were mere performance. Its state security agency was urging people to be on guard against American spies. The country’s leader, Xi Jinping, declared that the United States was engaged in a campaign of “all-around containment, encirclement and suppression,” in remarks broadcast across state media. Now, the tone used to discuss the United States has suddenly shifted. Xinhua, the state news agency, on Monday published a lengthy article in English about the “enduring strength” of Mr. Xi’s affection…

What’s at Stake in the President Biden-Xi Jinping Meeting

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Trying to set a floor under U.S.-China relations Nine months after the Chinese spy balloon controversy sent relations between Washington and Beijing to a new low, President Biden and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will meet this week in San Francisco for face-to-face talks. The summit won’t end the standoff between the world’s biggest economies. But it’s a sign that Biden and Xi want to maintain ties, despite trade tensions, tit-for-tat sanctions and questions about the future of Taiwan — and business leaders will be hoping for some sign of…

Behind Public Assurances, Xi Jinping Spread Grim Views on U.S.

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When President Xi Jinping of China made his first state visit to the United States in 2015, he wrapped his demands for respect in reassurances. He courted tech executives, while defending China’s internet controls. He denied that China was militarizing the disputed South China Sea, while asserting its maritime claims there. He spoke hopefully of a “new model” for great power relations, in which Beijing and Washington would coexist peacefully as equals. But back in China, in meetings with the military, Mr. Xi was warning in strikingly stark terms that…

Iran and Saudi Arabia Demand Gaza Cease-Fire

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After the Saudi and Iranian leaders finished their speeches, they left the main conference hall for a bilateral meeting. Prince Mohammed’s welcoming of Mr. Raisi amounted to a remarkable departure for the Saudi leader, who once bluntly warned Iran not to pursue expansionist policies in the region. “We won’t wait for the battle to be in Saudi Arabia,” he said in a televised interview in 2017. “Instead, we will work so that the battle is for them in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia.” He also once likened Iran’s supreme leader,…

Philippine Ship Is an Unlikely Outpost That Is Angering China

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For more than two decades, it has been an unlikely flashpoint in the South China Sea: a rusty, World War II-era ship beached on a tiny reef that has become a symbol of Philippine resistance against Beijing. The Philippine government ran the vessel aground in 1999 on the Second Thomas Shoal, a contested reef 120 miles off the coast of the western province of Palawan. The dilapidated warship, known as the Sierra Madre, will never sail again. But it has remained there ever since, a marker of the Philippines’ claim…

Australia Offers Climate Refuge to Tuvalu Citizens, but Not All

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The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu once comprised 11 islands. It is now down to nine flecks of land totaling less than 10 square miles, which, like their lost siblings before them, risk gradually being eaten away by the rising tides of the world’s warming oceans. For decades, Tuvalu’s leaders have warned about the effects of the world’s emissions on this tiny place. “It’s a matter of disappearing from the surface of this earth,” Kausea Natano, the prime minister, said in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General…

Can the U.S. Handle China While Supporting Israel and Ukraine Wars?

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For some countries, the rekindled conflict over the Palestinian issue has also inflamed old beliefs that the United States is anti-Muslim, or at least too biased toward Israel. After years of watching Washington avoid confronting the often harsh mistreatment of Palestinians by both the Israeli government and extremist Israeli settlers, some no longer trust the United States to be a fair broker. When Mr. Austin, the defense secretary, gets to Indonesia, he is likely to face an angry public, if not anti-U.S. protests, despite his efforts to advise Israel’s military…

China Is Lending Billions to Countries in Financial Trouble

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After lending $1.3 trillion to developing countries, mainly for big-ticket infrastructure projects, China has shifted its focus to bailing out many of those same countries from piles of debt. The initial loans were mostly part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, started in 2013 to build stronger transportation, communications and political links in more than 150 countries. But now the two main Chinese state banks that provided most of the infrastructure loans have reduced their new lending. Rescue loans climbed to 58 percent of…

Japan and Philippines, Wary of China, Look to Expand Military Ties

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Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan said on Friday that his country would start formal talks with the Philippines to allow the deployment of Japanese troops to the Southeast Asian country, further strengthening ties between two countries that have embraced each other as bulwarks against China. “We share serious concerns on the situation in the East China Sea and South China Sea,” Mr. Kishida said, referring to Beijing’s increasingly assertive actions in the region. “The attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force is unacceptable.” Mr. Kishida’s announcement came…

Biden Found Even Modest Israel-Palestinian Peace Steps Impossible

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Some U.S. officials believe that, as a practical matter, Mr. Biden could reopen the office over Israeli objections. Pressed on the consulate’s fate in February, the State Department spokesman at the time, Ned Price, said: “These things take time. Obviously there are various parties that are involved in a process like this.” Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Jerusalem in the George W. Bush administration, called the years before Oct. 7 a missed opportunity. “The question can be asked, ‘Why didn’t Biden act to undo what Trump had…