Climate change is a global crisis and cannot be solved by any one country alone. If the United States, China and other industrialized countries do not come together to dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions, the world we leave our children and future generations will become increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable. Tragically, the cooperation required to address this existential threat is being undermined by hawks in both the United States and China who are moving us toward a disastrous cold war. Now is the time for a radical rethinking of geopolitics to…
Tag: US politics
The Camp David summit signals a new cold war – this time with China | Observer editorial
If it sounds like a new cold war and looks like a new cold war, then it probably is a new cold war. For what other interpretation is to be placed on US president Joe Biden’s latest ramping up of diplomatic, economic and military pressure on China? Western officials tend to avoid the term, recalling as it does decades of hair-trigger confrontation with the former Soviet Union. They talk instead about enhanced security and defence cooperation and the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. But such bland generalisations…
Biden’s China investment ban: who’s targeted and what does it mean for the 2024 US election?
Joe Biden has moved to restrict US investment in Chinese technology, signing an executive order which focuses on a few, sensitive hi-tech sectors including semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI). It is the latest in a series of measures taken by the US to restrict China’s access to the most advanced technology and comes as the president has embarked on a multi-state tour of the south-west to tout his plans to revive American manufacturing after decades of decline. The restrictions are expected to take effect next year – and…
US dispatches warships after China and Russia send naval patrol near Alaska
The US dispatched four navy warships as well as a reconnaissance airplane after multiple Chinese and Russian military vessels carried out a joint naval patrol near Alaska last week. The combined naval patrol, which the Wall Street Journal first reported, appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach US territory, according to experts that spoke to the outlet. “It’s a historical first,” Brent Sadler, a retired Navy captain and senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Journal. He also said the flotilla’s proximity to Alaska was a…
Head of US-based thinktank charged with acting as China agent
The head of a US thinktank has been charged with acting as an unregistered agent of China, as well as seeking to broker the sale of weapons and Iranian oil, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said. Gal Luft, a citizen of the United States and Israel, is accused of recruiting and paying a former high-ranking US government official on behalf of principals based in China in 2016, without registering as a foreign agent as required by law. Prosecutors did not identify the former official, but said he was working as an…
Putin ‘Somewhat Weakened’ by Mutiny, Trump Says
WASHINGTON – Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Thursday that Putin has been “somewhat weakened” by an aborted mutiny and that now is the time for the United States to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine. Speaking expansively about foreign policy in a telephone interview with Reuters, the front-runner in opinion polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination also said China should be given a 48-hour deadline to get out of what sources familiar with the matter…
US Not Backing Down on Biden Calling China’s Leader a ‘Dictator’
The US is not backing down on comments made by President Joe Biden likening Chinese President Xi Jinping to a dictator. The remarks, which came a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China to repair bilateral relations, drew sharp criticism from Beijing. White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. Voice of America
US Not Backing Down on Biden’s Xi Dictator Comment
WASHINGTON — The White House is not backing down on comments made by President Joe Biden likening Chinese President Xi Jinping to a dictator. “It should come as no surprise that the president speaks candidly about China and the differences that we have — we are certainly not alone in that,” a senior administration official said in a statement sent to VOA on Wednesday. At a California fundraiser for his 2024 presidential campaign Tuesday, Biden said Xi was unaware and embarrassed over a suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over American…
Biden calls Chinese president Xi a ‘dictator’ a day after Blinken visit aimed at easing tensions
US president Joe Biden has called Chinese president Xi Jinping a dictator and said Xi was very embarrassed when a Chinese balloon was blown off course over the US earlier this year. Biden made the remarks one day after secretary of state Antony Blinken met Xi on a trip to China that was aimed at easing tensions between the two countries. “The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he…
Blinken will seek China’s cooperation in curbing fentanyl at high-stakes visit
US secretary of state Antony Blinken will seek China’s cooperation in curbing the production of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl during his two-day visit to Beijing, one of several contentious issues that the high-stakes diplomatic outreach will touch on. Aides to Blinken have said the issue will feature prominently in discussions between US and Chinese officials during the trip as the US seeks China’s help in curbing Chinese manufacture of precursor chemicals used to create the drug that helped drive more than two-thirds of 100,000 American overdose deaths in each…