Tag: Xi Jinping

U.S. Moves to Crack Down on Money Behind Fentanyl Trade

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u s moves to crack down on money behind fentanyl trade

The Biden administration said on Monday that it was creating a “counter-fentanyl strike force” within the Treasury Department to combat trafficking of the drug into the United States by more aggressively scrutinizing the finances of suspected narcotics dealers. The Treasury’s office of terrorism and financial intelligence and the criminal investigation unit of the Internal Revenue Service will lead the new team. It will attempt to find and disrupt money laundering associated with fentanyl trafficking and to more effectively crack down on sanctions violations. Officials from Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network…

Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive worked wonders on his bureaucrats’ waistlines | Torsten Bell

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There’s lots of chat about slimming down the UK’s civil service – it’s grown by 25% since the Brexit referendum (albeit only back to its pre-austerity size). In the UK, this trimming talk doesn’t usually refer to helping Whitehall mandarins drop a dress size. In contrast, a recent study finds that the Chinese government’s anti-corruption campaign is slimming not only bureaucrat’s wallets, but their waistlines. This got at a longstanding problem: in China more than 40% of public sector officials were overweight, according to a 2009 study. The more senior…

Kissinger: A Player on the World Stage Until the Very End

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kissinger a player on the world stage until the very end

When China’s leaders wanted to send a message to the Biden administration last summer, they did what came naturally. They called Henry A. Kissinger. Mr. Kissinger was 100 years old by then and had left the government 46 years earlier. But for as long as anyone could remember, the Chinese had venerated him as the secretary of state who forged the landmark diplomatic opening to Beijing. They had used him as a channel to Washington ever since. Knowing him as they did, the Chinese played to his sense of self…

Can U.S.-China Student Exchanges Survive Geopolitics?

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can u s china student exchanges survive geopolitics

On a cool Saturday morning, in a hotel basement in Beijing, throngs of young Chinese gathered to do what millions had done before them: dream of an American education. At a college fair organized by the United States Embassy, the students and their parents hovered over rows of booths advertising American universities. As a mascot of a bald eagle worked the crowd, they posed eagerly for photos. But beneath the festive atmosphere thrummed a note of anxiety. Did America still want Chinese students? And were Chinese students sure they wanted…

‘Nuclear tinderbox’: Kim’s threats put North Korea on wrong side of history | Simon Tisdall

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For western liberals and progressive champions of open, democratic government, a clutch of recalcitrant regimes around the world seems firmly stuck on what Barack Obama once called “the wrong side of history”. Iran’s misogynistic theocrats and Myanmar’s genocidal generals are among the worst offenders. Then there’s Vladimir Putin’s Russia, harking back to largely illusory former glories. Belarus, Syria, Nicaragua, Cambodia and Eritrea meet the regressive criteria, too. What all these regimes have in common is denial of the basic human right to self-determination – the individual’s right to have a…

Growing Numbers of Chinese Migrants Cross U.S. Southern Border

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growing numbers of chinese migrants cross u s southern border

The surge of migrants entering the United States across the southern border increasingly includes people from a surprising place: China. Despite the distances involved and the difficulties of the journey, more than 24,000 Chinese citizens have been apprehended crossing into the United States from Mexico in the past year. That is more than in the preceding 10 years combined, according to government data. They typically fly into Ecuador, where they do not need a visa. Then, like hundreds of thousands of other migrants from Central and South America and more…

China to rule on appeals in case of detained human rights lawyers

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A Chinese court is to rule in the appeals of detained human rights lawyers Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong, as Ding’s wife called on China’s top judge to “rectify the miscarriage of justice” in their case. Ding and Xu are leading figures in China’s thwarted New Citizens’ Movement, a loose network of activists and lawyers concerned with human rights and government corruption. In April, the men were sentenced to more than a decade in prison for subversion of state power, in a ruling that was criticised by the UN’s human…

Xi critic who fled on jetski to South Korea will die if sent back to China, says father

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The father of a Chinese dissident detained in South Korea said his son will die if he is sent back to China, a country he escaped from on a jetski in a life-threatening journey in August. A court in South Korea will decide on Thursday the fate of Kwon Pyong, who is charged with violating the immigration control act. Kwon, 35, pleaded guilty and appealed for leniency as prosecutors requested a sentence of two and a half years, which experts say is unusually harsh. In the first public comments by…

At BRICS Summit, Countries Diverge Slightly on Israel and War in Gaza

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at brics summit countries diverge slightly on israel and war in gaza

The BRICS group of developing countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — held a virtual summit on the war in Gaza on Tuesday, articulating divergent positions on the conflict that together reflected the reluctance of some nations outside the world’s largest industrialized democracies to fall in behind Washington’s support for Israel. Several other nations that have been invited to join the BRICS group next year also attended the conference — Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates. A joint statement released by the…

Biden’s China summit was a reminder: the US should talk to its rivals more often | Christopher S Chivvis

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Wednesday’s meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping was a lot harder to pull off than the photographs of the two leaders ambling around the gardens of the Filoli mansion outside San Francisco may have made it appear. The White House has spent the last 10 months working to restore dialogue after years of mounting tension that most recently featured an errant Chinese observation balloon and possible Chinese military support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. In the process of working toward the meeting, the White House faced strong domestic political…