Tag: Japan

In a Brother Act with Putin, Xi Reveals China’s Fear of Containment

Chin@Strategy

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, flew into Moscow this week cast by Beijing as its emissary for peace in Ukraine. His summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, however, demonstrated that his priority remains shoring up ties with Moscow to gird against what he sees as a long campaign by the United States to hobble China’s ascent. Talk of Ukraine was overshadowed by Mr. Xi’s vow of ironclad solidarity with Russia as a political, diplomatic, economic and military partner: two superpowers aligned in countering American dominance and a Western-led world…

A tale of two visits: Kishida and Xi tread starkly different paths on Ukraine

Chin@Strategy

On Tuesday, Japan’s prime minister laid a wreath for the dead outside a church in the blasted Ukrainian town of Bucha, while 800km away in Moscow Xi Jinping was treated to an opulent state dinner by Vladimir Putin, underscoring the division in Asia over Russia’s invasion. The first Japanese leader to visit a country in conflict since the second world war, Kishida toured Bucha, a town that has become synonymous with Russian brutality, and where the mayor has said more than 400 civilians were killed. “The world was astonished to…

Xi and Putin Bind China and Russia’s Economies Further, Despite War in Ukraine

Chin@Strategy

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, declared an enduring economic partnership on Tuesday, promising to bring more Russian energy to China and more Chinese companies to Russia as the two leaders sought to insulate their countries from Western sanctions and other consequences of the war in Ukraine. The economic pledges, trumpeted by the leaders on the second day of Mr. Xi’s state visit to Moscow, were a sign that China would continue to do business as normal with Russia and that Moscow…

Putin and Xi prepare for second day of talks in Moscow as Japanese PM heads to Ukraine

Chin@Strategy

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were set to hold a second day of talks on Tuesday, as the internationally isolated Russian leader said he was open to discussing China’s proposals on the fighting in Ukraine and the US called on Xi to press him to “halt the war crimes”. Xi’s trip to Moscow has been viewed as a major boost for his strategic partner Putin, who is subject to an international criminal court warrant over accusations of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children. The Chinese leader is expected to continue to position…

Japan-Korea Relations Improve, but Ties Are Still Fragile

Chin@Strategy

To underscore the celebratory atmosphere surrounding the long-awaited visit by South Korea’s president this week, Japan’s prime minister hosted not just one, but two, dinners on Thursday night in Tokyo. Shortly after Yoon Suk Yeol, of South Korea, told reporters that “frozen ties should be thawed” and Fumio Kishida, of Japan, hailed “a new chapter” in their long-fraught relationship, they went with their wives to a traditional restaurant in Tokyo’s luxury Ginza district. The two leaders then broke off for a more casual meal of “omurice,” a popular dish of…

China and Japan meet for formal security talks to stabilise tensions

Chin@Strategy

Chinese and Japanese officials met in Tokyo on Wednesday for formal security talks for the first time in four years, in a meeting aimed at stabilising increasingly strained relations. In Japan’s national security strategy, released in December, China was described as “the greatest strategic challenge” to Japan’s peace and security. Both sides expressed concerns at Wednesday’s meeting. China said it was troubled by Japan’s military buildup while Tokyo is worried about China’s suspected use of spy balloons as well as Chinese military activities around Japan, including cooperation with Russia. Last…

Are North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Tests as Safe as the Country Claims?

Chin@Strategy

SEOUL — North Korea has long maintained that all six of its nuclear weapons tests were conducted safely. But on Tuesday, a Seoul-based human rights group warned that radioactive contamination may have spread through groundwater from the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, ​potentially jeopardizing the health of people in North Korea and neighboring countries​. The Transitional Justice Working Group said in its report that radioactive materials could have affected tens of thousands of North Koreans living near Punggye-ri and spread to China, South Korea and Japan ​through mushrooms and other…

Truss urges west to safeguard Taiwan security ‘before it’s too late’

Chin@Strategy

Liz Truss has used her first overseas speech since resigning as British prime minister to call on the west to safeguard Taiwan’s security and economy in the face of Chinese aggression “before it is too late”. Speaking in Tokyo at a meeting of mainly conservative lawmakers that included the former Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, Truss said Britain had been naive to court the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in 2015, adding that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should serve as a warning of what happens when democracies fail to stand up…

Liz Truss’s delusional speech about China is digging the trenches of a second cold war | Simon Tisdall

Chin@Strategy

There is a serious, calm and thoughtful discussion to be had about the western democracies’ future security and economic relationship with China, and it is under way in Washington and European capitals. Judging by her confrontational, attention-seeking speech in Tokyo today, Britain’s disgraced former prime minister Liz Truss is not part of it. Truss, short of new ideas and insights, has defaulted to crowd-pleasing, hawkish positions that appear principally designed to facilitate a domestic political comeback at Rishi Sunak’s expense. A “totalitarian” China, she says, poses a global threat to…

Chinese spy balloon may have been blown off intended course – report

Chin@Strategy

The US is reportedly examining the possibility that the Chinese spy balloon was pushed off course by strong winds when it entered US airspace, having tracked it since its launch days earlier. Of the four flying objects shot down by the US in recent weeks, only the first has been attributed to Chinese surveillance efforts. The balloon took off from China’s Hainan island, before travelling on a path which appeared to go over Guam, according to the Washington Post on Tuesday. It then took an “unexpected” turn to the north,…