U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to China this week for talks with senior officials in Shanghai and Beijing to discuss a range of issues, including Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Middle East crisis, the South China Sea, and human rights. State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching has more. Voice of America
Washington — TikTok on Sunday raised free speech concerns about a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that would ban the popular social media app in the U.S. if its Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its stake within a year. The House passed the legislation on Saturday by a margin of 360 to 58. It now moves to the Senate where it could be taken up for a vote in the coming days. President Joe Biden has previously said he will sign the legislation. The step to…
Islamabad — Pakistan criticized the United States on Saturday for penalizing four international companies on charges they are aiding its ballistic missile program. “Pakistan rejects political use of export controls,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch. The reaction came a day after Washington imposed sanctions on three Chinese companies and one Belarus-based firm for their alleged links to Islamabad’s missile development program. “These entities have supplied missile‐applicable items to Pakistan’s ballistic missile program, including its long-range missile program,” the U.S. State Department said on Friday. It noted that the…
State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to China April 24 through 26 for talks with senior officials in Shanghai and Beijing. Blinken’s second trip to China comes as the United States warns it against enabling Russia in its war on Ukraine, with Chinese firms directly supplying critical components for Russia’s defense industrial base. Other pressing matters on the agenda include counternarcotics, bolstering military-to-military communication, establishing talks on artificial intelligence risks and safety, and exploring ways to strengthen people-to-people ties, according to the State Department. A…
International affairs analysts see a foreign policy shift with far-reaching repercussions for the U.S. and China in Argentina’s decision this week to buy American-made F-16 fighter jets and its early April announcement to partner with the U.S. military on a naval base at the southern tip of South America. Argentina’s decision to purchase 24 F-16s from Denmark rather than go with a competing bid from China led some Chinese commentators to lament the setback. Beijing has been trying for more than a decade to sell Argentina JF-17 fighter jets China…
Two Chinese-linked online marketplaces are shaking up the e-commerce market with extremely low prices, even as the firms face concerns from consumers about labor practices. The rapid rise in popularity of Temu and SHEIN has been so sudden that Amazon now sees the two firms as its biggest rivals, according to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal. China-operated Temu launched in September 2022 and now has 51 million U.S. users, while Chinese-founded fashion and lifestyle retailer SHEIN has almost 14 million U.S. downloads. Christopher Tang, a professor at…
China on Friday imposed a levy on imports of an acid from the United States widely used in food, feed, pesticides and medical fields, amid heightened tensions with Washington over bilateral trade. From Saturday, imports of propionic acid from the United States will be subject to a levy of 43.5%, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement, after a July investigation found the Chinese domestic propionic acid industry was “materially damaged.” A trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies has been intensifying despite recent diplomatic visits. In a…
Beijing officials are decrying the deployment of U.S. medium-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region for the first time since the Cold War. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian, at a regular press briefing Thursday, said China “expresses grave concern” and “strongly opposes the U.S. … strengthening forward deployment at China’s doorstep to seek unilateral military advantage.” The U.S. military on Monday confirmed it had on April 11 placed a mid-range capability missile system on northern Luzon in the Philippines as part of joint military exercises called Salaknib 24. It’s the…
U.S. President Joe Biden wants to triple tariffs on some steel imports from China because he says they are unfairly undermining U.S. jobs. It’s an appeal to American workers in a state that is central to this presidential campaign. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns has the story. Voice of America
washington — Efforts by China-linked hackers to infiltrate computer systems and networks that run key sectors of the U.S. economy — only to lie in wait for an opportunity to strike — appear to predate Chinese cyber operations that sparked warnings by U.S. officials earlier this year. FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday said Chinese government efforts to penetrate critical U.S. infrastructure for the purpose of setting up a possible cyberattack go back more than a decade. “China-sponsored hackers pre-positioned for potential cyberattacks against U.S. oil and natural gas companies…