Tag: International Relations

Another Chinese Balloon Flew Over Colombia, Officials Confirm

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A Chinese balloon floated over Latin America and the Caribbean, the Chinese government confirmed on Monday, adding that it was for civilian purposes and was being used for flight tests. “Affected by the weather and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course and entered into the airspace of Latin America and the Caribbean,” a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, Mao Ning, said at a news conference on Monday. On Friday morning, before the United States shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had spent the…

China’s Balloon Dispute Aims Attention at Xi’s Leadership

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The Chinese balloon that bumbled its way across the United States has launched a thousand questions about its real intent. But it is also focusing the world’s attention on the prospect that the communications and control within Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government and his vaunted security apparatus may be less coherent — or even less functional — than the image he so confidently projects. The stakes today are high. Relations between Washington and Beijing have frayed, and competition between the two sides has intensified, fueling fears that the wrong move…

China Finds Itself With Limited Options After U.S. Shoots Down Balloon

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After an American fighter jet shot down the Chinese balloon that had floated across the United States, the reaction from Beijing — defensive, angered, yet hedging its options — illustrated the challenges facing China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as he tries to stabilize relations while giving little, if any, ground. Hours after the balloon was struck by a Sidewinder missile and crumpled into the waters off South Carolina, the Chinese foreign ministry declared its “strong discontent and protest” and doubled down on its position that the balloon was a civilian research…

Balloon Incident Highlights Fragile State of U.S.-China Relationship

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After years of deepening mistrust and simmering tensions, ties between the United States and China appeared poised for a modest rebound following the meeting of the two nations’ leaders at a summit last November and recent efforts by Beijing to stabilize its relations with the world. A visit by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to Beijing this weekend was expected to build on that progress. All it took was a balloon to upend everything. The discovery of what American military officials called a “high-altitude surveillance balloon” over Montana this…

Blinken Postpones Trip to China After Balloon Is Detected Over U.S.

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China’s Ministry of National Defense, which usually comments on military issues, did not comment. “China is a responsible country, always strictly abides by international law, and has no intention of violating any sovereign country’s territory or airspace,” Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, told a regular news briefing on Friday afternoon. But she said then that the authorities needed to check the reports. The Global Times, a Communist Party-run newspaper that has become a vehicle for pugnacious, sometimes quasi-official reactions from Beijing, suggested that the balloon reports were…

Military Deal With Philippines Signals U.S. Aim to Defend Taiwan

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WASHINGTON — President Biden and his aides have tried to reassure Chinese leaders that they do not seek to contain China in the same way the Americans did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But the announcement on Thursday that the U.S. military is expanding its presence in the Philippines leaves little doubt that the United States is positioning itself to constrain China’s armed forces and bolstering its ability to defend Taiwan. The announcement, made in Manila by Lloyd J. Austin III, the U.S. defense secretary, was only…

China and the U.S. Are Wooing Indonesia, and Beijing Has the Edge

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When the U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, visited Indonesia in November, he pressed his counterpart there about a deal to buy 36 American fighter jets. He left without an agreement. Just days before, the same Indonesian official, Prabowo Subianto, met with China’s defense minister, and the two countries pledged to resume joint military exercises. Located across the southern edge of the South China Sea, Indonesia, the resource-laden nation with a fast-growing trillion-dollar economy and a large population, is a big prize in the geopolitical battle between Washington and…

Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends

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WASHINGTON — A strange thing happened with smartphones in Armenia last summer. Shipments from other parts of the world into the tiny former Soviet republic began to balloon to more than 10 times the value of phone imports in previous months. At the same time, Armenia recorded an explosion in its exports of smartphones to a beleaguered ally: Russia. The trend, which was repeated for washing machines, computer chips and other products in a handful of other Asian countries last year, provides evidence of some of the new lifelines that…

Your Tuesday Briefing: California Mourns, as Death Toll Rises

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The death toll rises in a mass shooting Another victim of the recent mass shooting in a thriving Chinese American suburb of Los Angeles died at a hospital yesterday, bringing the death toll to 11. Investigators continued to seek the gunman’s motive in the attack, which took place during a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park. Here are updates. The victims of the massacre were in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Officials have identified two victims, My Nhan and Lilan Li, and details about the others are still emerging.…

China’s Mad Dash Into a Strategic Island Nation Breeds Resentment

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Down a dirt road outside the Solomon Islands’ capital city, past Chinese construction projects and shops where Chinese merchants sell snacks, a tribal chief tried to explain what it feels like to have a rising superpower suddenly take an interest in a poor, forgotten place desperate for development. “At first,” said the chief, Peter Kosemu, 50, as he sat in the shade on Guadalcanal, the largest of the Solomon Islands, “most people just wanted to see what was going on.” He and many others have watched China rush headlong into…