Tag: Taiwan

Rubio and Chinese Diplomat Make Plans for Trump and Xi’s Washington Summit

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he spoke with China’s top diplomat on Wednesday about a state visit scheduled for September by Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to Washington, where President Trump intends to try to bolster what he sees as a personal friendship the two men are developing. The fact that the two nations’ top diplomats spent much of a meeting in Manila talking about the visit is the strongest sign yet that the summit is on schedule, despite remarks last week from Mr. Trump blaming China for trying to…

Trump Pursues a Deeper Bond With China’s Leader, Despite Hostile Speech

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Just two months ago, President Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, strolled together through a garden of the secretive leadership compound in the heart of Beijing, past rows of bright flowers and leafy plants. The U.S. president toasted Mr. Xi as “my friend” at a state banquet during his visit. He declared that he had received a “magnificent welcome like none other” that had helped smooth the way to “fantastic trade deals.” The stage was set, Mr. Trump said, for Mr. Xi to make a reciprocal state visit to Washington…

Weather tracker: Unusually warm rivers affect French nuclear power plants

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Above average temperatures combined with below average rainfall across much of western and central Europe during June and the first half of July have placed increasing pressure on rivers, ecosystems and energy infrastructure. Persistent high pressure brought prolonged sunshine, suppressed rainfall and enhanced evaporation, causing river levels to fall and water temperatures to increase. These unusually warm rivers are affecting electricity generation in France, as several nuclear power stations rely on river water for cooling. Under French environmental regulations, operators must limit the amount of heat discharged back into rivers,…

Typhoon Bavi Hits China, Causing Evacuations, Floods and Flight Delays

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Typhoon Bavi caused landslides and flooding over the weekend as it made landfall in eastern China, where the authorities evacuated almost two million people in anticipation of the strongest storm to hit the country this year. The typhoon touched down in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang Province at around 11:20 p.m. on Saturday, lashing the area with winds of almost 90 miles per hour. It made a second landfall in the city of Wenzhou, also in Zhejiang, around midnight. Across the province, 1.7 million people were evacuated, many of…

Why China Fired a Long-Range Missile Into the Pacific

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With one missile fired over the Pacific Ocean from a submarine lurking off China’s coast, the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, has proclaimed his determination to build a full suite of nuclear weapons, including sea-based missiles that have long been Beijing’s weak spot. The missile test on Monday came after China’s military has been battered for years by mass removals of commanders accused of corruption and disloyalty. But Chinese media declared that the test showed the country remained on track to create a full nuclear triad; that is, a range of…

China Raises Pressure on Taiwan With Expanded Coast Guard Patrols

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China is opening a new front in its pressure campaign against Taiwan, sending ships to its east to drive home a political point: Beijing claims not only the island itself but also the seas around it. The China Coast Guard announced on Saturday that its ships would conduct “law-enforcement patrols” in the Western Pacific waters east of Taiwan, a self-ruled island of 23 million people that Beijing claims as its territory. The Western Pacific is crowded with commercial traffic and would be a vital arena if Beijing ever tried to…

Taiwan’s President Says He Trusts Trump to Approve Arms Sales

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President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan voiced “high hopes” on Thursday that President Trump would approve $14 billion in arms orders for the island, downplaying concerns raised last month when Mr. Trump suggested U.S. military support for Taiwan was negotiable, unsettling longstanding American policy. Mr. Lai gave an optimistic take on Taiwan’s standing with the United States, which has taken a blow since Mr. Trump said in May that U.S. weapons sales were a “negotiating chip” with China and suggested that Mr. Lai was a source of instability across the Taiwan…

Inspired by Ukraine, and worried by China: Taiwan teaches its citizens how to fly drones

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In a small, crowded room in Taipei, Pan Chien-chin is trying to keep a drone hovering steadily. Imagining himself flying a plane, he gently nudges controller joysticks to guide the insect-like device as it hums through the air. Cheers break out as Pan, who has never flown a drone before, steers it around a rectangular course marked by traffic cones without crashing. Around him are about two dozen fellow trainees, all signed up for the same course: Taiwan’s first civil defence drone training programme. “The war in Ukraine has really…

A.I. Boom Ignites Asian Chip Companies

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At Taiwan’s biggest computing show this month, Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, was mobbed as if he were a rock star, trailed by a crowd from booth to booth as he signed autographs and posed for selfies. At the stand of SK Hynix, one of his most important South Korean suppliers, Mr. Huang picked up a marker and left a message. Atop a reflective wafer of memory — a component of Nvidia’s A.I. supercomputers now in short supply — he wrote: “Please make more :).” It was only…

Girlfriends review – love and growing pains in queer coming-of-age tale that goes from Hong Kong to Taiwan

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It can stretch credibility a little when an actor plays the same character over a long time span in one film. Richard Linklater solved the problem in Boyhood by shooting scenes over succeeding years; AI and de-ageing effects are now an option. With this intimate queer coming-of-age drama, film-maker Tracy Choi instead casts a trio of actors to play one woman from high school to her mid-30s. The three don’t look particularly alike; their temperaments overlap but are by no means identical. The point is perhaps to show how intense…