Tag: United States International Relations

UAE, a US Ally, Looks to China and Russia for Deeper Ties

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The ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, is a key American ally who counts on the United States to defend his country. But he has traveled twice to Russia over the past year to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin, and in June, his country was celebrated as the guest of honor at the Russian leader’s flagship investment forum. Later this month, the Emirati and Chinese air forces plan to train together for the first time, a notable shift for an oil-rich Gulf nation that has…

TSMC Chairman Mark Liu Says Company Will Keep Its Roots in Taiwan

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which is manufacturing the world’s most advanced microchips, conducts business on the island of Taiwan, dead center in one of the most geopolitically volatile places on the planet. That makes people in Washington very nervous. TSMC dominates the semiconductor industry; it’s a company that the United States can’t do without, 80 miles off the coast of China. The U.S. government has appropriated tens of billions of dollars to strengthen America’s own semiconductor sector and help fund TSMC’s nascent operations in the United States, far from China,…

The Chip Titan Whose Life’s Work Is at the Center of a Tech Cold War

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In a wood-paneled office overlooking Taipei and the jungle-covered mountains that surround the Taiwanese capital, Morris Chang recently pulled out an old book stamped with technicolor patterns. It was titled “Introduction to VLSI Systems,” a graduate-level textbook describing the intricacies of computer chip design. Mr. Chang, 92, held it up with reverence. “I want to show you the date of this book, 1980,” he said. The timing was important, he added, as it was “the earliest piece” in a puzzle that came together for him — altering not only his…

The Global Economy Is Fracturing. What Comes Next?

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Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ The world economy has experienced many shocks over the past few years: A pandemic. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Skyrocketing inflation. These are the stories that have dominated headlines — and for good reason. But they’ve also overshadowed a set of deeper, more fundamental shifts — the rise of China as an economic superpower, the fracturing of trade relations, the realities of the climate crisis — that are transforming the global economic order and prompting ambitious policy responses from leaders across the world. [You can…

Quantum Tech Intended for National Security Is Testing U.S. Alliances

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The Australian physicist shook the heavy metal box that resembled a beer cooler but held a quantum sensor. A computer screen showed that the cutting-edge device — with lasers manipulating atoms into a sensitive state — continued functioning despite the rattling. He and his team had built a hard-to-detect, super-accurate navigation system for when satellite GPS networks are jammed or do not work that was robust and portable enough to be used outside a lab. It could potentially guide military equipment, from submarines to spacecraft, for months with a minuscule…

After Ousting Qin Gang, China Erases Him and Evades Questions

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China’s abrupt removal of Qin Gang as foreign minister did not stop the questions that had dogged Chinese officials in the month since he vanished from public view: Where is Mr. Qin? Does he have health issues? Is he under investigation? Representatives of the Foreign Ministry have struggled to respond when pressed by reporters, repeatedly saying that they had no information to provide. After China replaced him on Tuesday, nearly all references to Mr. Qin were scrubbed from the ministry’s website, an unusual erasure that has only deepened the intrigue.…

Senate Targets China, Voting to Restrict Farmland Purchases and U.S. Investment

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The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to block businesses based in China from purchasing farmland in the United States and place new mandates on Americans investing in the country’s national security industries, taking the first legislative steps of the new Congress to counter Beijing’s espionage activities and curtail its economic power. The provisions, which would need to clear the House to become law, are a far cry from more ambitious efforts to target China’s economy through export controls and undermine its intelligence gathering and influence operations in the United States…

Putin Plans China Visit as a Russian Leader Joins a North Korea Celebration

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As part of Russia’s ongoing efforts to strengthen ties with Asian allies, President Vladimir V. Putin will travel to a conference in China in October, while the defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, will join a Chinese delegation at a celebration in North Korea this week, according to Russian state news media. Mr. Putin will meet with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to discuss bilateral trade and economic cooperation at an international forum, according to Tass, a Russian state news agency. The relationship between China and Russia has deepened during the war…

Hacking of Government Email Was Traditional Espionage, Official Says

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The hack of Microsoft’s cloud that resulted in the compromise of government emails was an example of a traditional espionage threat, a senior National Security Agency official said. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Rob Joyce, the director of cybersecurity at the N.S.A., said the United States needed to protect its networks from such espionage, but that adversaries would continue to try to secretly extract information from each other. “It is China doing espionage,” Mr. Joyce said. “It is what nation-states do. We have to defend against it, we need…

Xi Rejects Pressure on China to Do More to Address Climate Change

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During his visit to China this week, John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, pressed the hope that the two powers could work together on the urgent problem of global warming despite their intensifying rivalry on other fronts. But Chinese officials made clear that even as they were willing to restart long-stalled climate talks with the United States, the two countries’ tense overall relationship could constrain cooperation. And China’s leader, Xi Jinping, asserted that his government would pursue its goals to phase out carbon dioxide pollution at its own pace and…