Tag: International Relations

The U.S. Needs Minerals for Electric Cars. Everyone Else Wants Them Too.

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For decades, a group of the world’s biggest oil producers has held huge sway over the American economy and the popularity of U.S. presidents through its control of the global oil supply, with decisions by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries determining what U.S. consumers pay at the pump. As the world shifts to cleaner sources of energy, control over the materials needed to power that transition is still up for grabs. China currently dominates global processing of the critical minerals that are now in high demand to make…

What’s De-risking and How Does It Compare to Decoupling

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If diplomats were on TikTok, “de-risk” would be trending. The word has suddenly become popular among officials trying to loosen China’s grip on global supply chains but not cut ties entirely, with the joint communiqué from this weekend’s Group of 7 meeting making clear that the world’s largest democratic economies will now focus on “de-risking, not decoupling.” The former is meant to sound more moderate, more surgical. It reflects an evolution in the discussion over how to deal with a rising, assertive China. But the word also has a vexing history…

G7 Countries Borrow China’s Economic Strategy

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Midway through his face-to-face meeting with President Biden in Indonesia last fall, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, offered an unsolicited warning. Mr. Biden had in the preceding months signed a series of laws aimed at supercharging America’s industrial capacity and imposed new limits on the export of technology to China, in hopes of dominating the race for advanced energy technologies that could help fight climate change. For months, he and his aides had worked to recruit allied countries to impose their own restrictions on sending technology to China. The effort echoed…

Liz Truss, Britain’s Briefest Prime Minister, Meets Taiwan’s Leader

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The last former British prime minister to visit Taiwan was Ms. Truss’s political idol, Margaret Thatcher, in 1992. Taiwan was willing to look past contention in Britain over Ms. Truss, said Chen Fang-yu, an assistant politics professor at Soochow University in Taipei. “Taiwan really needs more of this kind of attention from every country, because only if more people visit Taiwan and more speak up for Taiwan, will the Chinese Communist Party realize that many people are paying attention to Taiwan, and so they should not act rashly,” he said…

Ukraine and China Will Dominate G7 Summit, but a New Threat Lurks: A.I.

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President Biden began his foreshortened Asia trip on Thursday in Hiroshima, a city that devotes itself to reminding the world of what happens when a brutal war escalates into a nuclear one. There he prepared for discussions with his closest allies on two crucial issues: how to better arm Ukraine as it enters its counteroffensive against the Russian invaders, and how to slow, or halt, the downward spiral in relations with China. Both are now familiar topics to the leaders of the Group of 7 nations, who have grown far…

As the U.S. Attends the G7, China Hosts a Summit of Its Own

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China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is kicking off a summit on Thursday that the country is heralding as a historic milestone, rolling out the red carpet for five Central Asian countries that are critical to China’s regional ambitions. The inaugural China-Central Asia summit is part of China’s broader aim to strengthen economic and political partnerships with like-minded countries, to counter what it sees as a U.S.-dominated world order that is trying to contain and suppress China. Notably, Mr. Xi’s summit was scheduled on the eve of the annual Group of 7…

Taiwan’s Opposition Picks Hou Yu-ih, a Moderate, for Presidential Race

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Once a dominant political force, Taiwan’s main opposition party lost the last two presidential elections in large part because it has promoted closer ties with China. Now, faced with voters who have been alarmed by Beijing’s aggression toward the island, the Kuomintang is placing its hopes on a new type of candidate: a popular local leader with a blank slate on the thorny question of China. The Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, on Wednesday nominated as its presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih, a 66-year-old, two-term mayor of New Taipei City and former…

China Sentences a U.S. Citizen to Life in Prison for Espionage

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A Chinese court said it sentenced a 78-year-old American citizen to life in prison on Monday on unspecified charges of spying, the latest in a wave of espionage cases the authorities have pursued amid growing wariness of foreign influence in the country. The Intermediate People’s Court in the southeastern city of Suzhou said in a short statement that it pronounced John Shing-Wan Leung guilty of espionage and sentenced him. It said that Mr. Leung was arrested in April 2021 by state security officials, but provided no details about the charges…

Mysterious Killing of Chinese Gold Miners Puts New Pressure on Beijing

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The Chinese embassy in the Central African Republic had a stark warning for its compatriots in the landlocked nation: Do not leave the capital city of Bangui. Kidnappings of foreigners were on the rise, and any Chinese person outside of Bangui was to leave those areas immediately. Less than a week later, on March 19, a group of gunmen stormed a remote gold mine far away from Bangui and killed nine Chinese workers. The Central African government has said that it investigated the massacre and concluded that a leading rebel group had…

Ukraine’s Offensive Could Set Stage for Diplomacy With Russia, U.S. Officials Say

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Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive against Russia has overshadowed talk of a potential negotiated settlement in the conflict, but some U.S. and European officials say the next phase of the war could create momentum for diplomacy. It is unclear how the officials will define success in the counteroffensive, which could last many months, or how its outcome might affect their approach. Opinions range widely among military strategists about whether Ukraine is likely to regain territory after more than a year of war. For now, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has shown no…