Leaders of the Group of 7 nations are to meet in Hiroshima, Japan, to discuss issues including Russia’s war in Ukraine and China. Although there is little disagreement among G7 members on either issue, there is a difference of opinion between the nations and other countries, including Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa. Eight non-G7 guest nations will attend the summit, which will provide an opportunity for Japan to outreach to the so-called Global South. China will also be discussed at the meeting, with Tokyo claiming that it poses the biggest challenge to “the free and open international order based on the rule of law.”
Hong Kong's public libraries will not recommend books featuring "bad ideologies," according to Chief Executive John Lee. He addressed questions from legislators after books concerning the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and those written by pro-democracy politicians and commentators were removed from public libraries. Critics argue that the move undermines Hong Kong's reputation for free access to information and freedom of expression. Following a security law passed in 2020, the city's arts and media communities have been cautious about producing content that might be viewed as challenging China's Communist Party, and an annual vigil for Tiananmen Square no longer exists.
China says Ukraine envoy met with Zelenskyy during talks in Kyiv
The Toronto Star
23-05-18 09:13
China's special envoy Li Hui has met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss ways to resolve the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Li visited Kiev over two days and met with Ukraine's foreign minister to discuss a "stable and just peace based on respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine". Zelenskyy and Chinese leader Xi Jinping previously spoke over the phone. China has proposed its own peace plan in response to the 15-month-long conflict, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin must withdraw his forces. Ukraine has repeatedly emphasised that it will not entertain any proposal related to the loss or freezing of territorial conflict. Despite China's claim of positioning as a mediator, Beijing has often come across as siding with Moscow both politically and economically.
South Korea's finance minister, Choo Kyung-ho, has discussed economic co-operation with China's ambassador to South Korea, as diplomatic tensions – stemming mostly from China's policies towards Taiwan – cast a pall over South Korea's economy. South Korea's sluggish economy and its export industry, which accounts for nearly 40% of its economy, have already been hit by low global demand for Korean technology products. South Korea's ambassador to Washington announced earlier this month that Seoul would soon open senior-level dialogues with Beijing.
Xanana Gusmao, revered for leading the resistance to Indonesia’s quarter-century occupation and creating a permanent sea boundary with Australia that awarded the young country the majority of future oil and gas in the Timor Sea, is pursuing the prime ministership in Sunday’s parliamentary election, hoping to finally realise an ambition to pipe liquefied natural gas from the $71 billion offshore Greater Sunrise fields to the country’s south coast. Under the terms of Timor-Leste’s maritime border agreement with Australia, it would see 70 per cent of the royalties from Sunrise if the gas was piped to its shores, or 80 per cent if the processing took place instead in Darwin, as has been the preference of Woodside, which holds a 33.44 per cent stake in the project alongside Timor-Leste itself (56.56 per cent) and Japan’s Osaka Gas (10 per cent). Amid local enthusiasm, there have been major doubts raised about the flow-on effects from this project and the viability of piping gas to Timor-Leste, since most jobs and contracts would go to foreign workers and companies.
US President Joe Biden's cancellation of his trip to Australia, and the Quad leaders meeting in Sydney, has drawn accusations that the US is unreliable and lacking commitment in the Indo-Pacific. Diplomatically, Beijing might try to make allegations against Biden’s decision to cancel the trip. However, if international relations and strategic policy was based primarily on whether heads of state attend foreign summits, then China would really be in trouble. The Quad will go from strength to strength because there is a strategic need and appetite for it, and Xi Jinping will not be breathing a sigh of relief. Beyond Beijing’s increasing belligerence, China’s aims present a comprehensive challenge to the US-led liberal order in everything from diplomacy, trade, technology, military power to the promotion of authoritarian values and ways of doing business.
Macao has revised its legal system to strengthen national security, echoing the crackdown on freedoms in neighboring Hong Kong. The revision of the Law on Safeguarding National Security was needed to deal with "new adverse challenges" in terms of national security, says its government. The Global Times newspaper, published by China’s ruling Communist Party, said the changes target espionage, foreign interference and Taiwan independence supporters and expand the definition of crimes. Unlike Hong Kong, most of Macao's population is recent migrants from the mainland and appears willing to accept heavy-handed party control.
The Queen is Dead by Stan Grant is an extended reflection on the death of the British Monarch Queen Elizabeth, written by an Indigenous Australian journalist who wrestles with a sense of anger that runs through the book. Grant's work centres on the distinction between the living person who was the Queen and the symbolic power structure that is represented by the 'White Queen', stating "Whiteness is not white people. It is an organising principle. It is a way of ordering the world."
The UK's recent signing of the Hiroshima Accord with Japan demonstrates a commitment to allies in the Indo-Pacific, including defence agreements, trade and semiconductor steps. These partnerships are designed to limit China's disruptive influence in the region. Japan is set to significantly increase its defence budget, mirroring the UK's deployment of a Carrier Strike Group to the Indo-Pacific. This emphasises the importance of maritime heritage and capabilities, and the role of naval power in ensuring free navigation of seas for generations to come.
A Hong Kong court has dismissed a challenge to prevent jailed media baron Jimmy Lai from being represented in a trial by a British lawyer who was barred on national security grounds. Last December, China's top legislative body ruled that foreign lawyers were barred from national security cases. The new development comes after Hong Kong lawmakers passed a bill into law on May 10, allowing the city's leader to have discretionary powers to block foreign lawyers from representing suspects in national security cases.
As Beijing's influence grows, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pledged to build more railway and bolster China's oil and gas footing in Central Asia. Speaking at a summit attended by leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, Xi said there was a need to "expand economic and trade ties". The move follows China's ongoing creation of trade-related infrastructure in the former Soviet states under its Belt and Road Initiative. The projects have alarmed Russia, which views the region as its sphere of influence, but officials from Central Asia see China as an important market.
China has warned against the US playing "geopolitical games" in the South Pacific. At a press conference on Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, said that while China did not oppose "normal exchanges and cooperation between relevant parties and Pacific Island countries, we also oppose any introduction of any geopolitical games into the Pacific Island country region." The comments came after US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, announced plans to visit Papua New Guinea next week amid escalating tensions between the US and China over increasing Chinese influence in the Pacific region.
China and Japan have established an official defence hotline and held a 20-minute long phone call this week, 15 years after starting discussions on such a hotline. The hotline was created to develop communication mechanisms between the two countries, especially relating to managing naval and territorial disputes, despite neither indicating any plans to execute armed attacks on the other. Hotlines enable a direct channel of communication between the designated offices responsible for dealing with particular issue areas in case of a crisis. Hotlines can be the only way of ensuring communication in a situation in which cut off communication could worsen the crisis. The two countries have experienced various disputes related to military or naval activity including the overflight of Chinese helicopters above Japanese vessels and the Senkaku islands being claimed by both countries.
Canada's former Governor General David Johnston is tasked with investigating foreign interference in the country's democracy, but the recent criticisms levelled at him illustrate the increasing partisanship affecting the investigation. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called Johnston's role a "fake job" with a "cosy friendship" with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Trudeau Foundation, which has previously been given $140,000 by Beijing. Johnston's task is to find a way to reassure Canadians that their democracy is free and fair in a political climate where even his own integrity is called into question.
Investors should look beyond a stumbling Chinese economy and take advantage of opportunities in retail and travel services, according to Tiffany Hsiao from Artisan Partners Asset Management. The rebound in China's economy looks to have been hit by the re-emergence of Covid, with consumer retail stocks leading the way down, and some are "completely overlooked", Hsiao said. She's more interested in platform advertising stocks, such as Focus Media Information Technology, and travel shares, arguing that Chinese consumers don't immediately jump back into discretionary spending as quickly as their American counterparts. Hsiao looks at alternative data to guide her decisions, including foot traffic in China's main cities, which suggests the economy is "recovering just fine".
Russian Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is set to visit China for two days, where he will meet with President Xi Jinping, as both nations are increasing their diplomatic efforts to hold talks over the Ukraine war. The visit will also include a stop in Shanghai, where Mishustin will attend a bilateral business forum. The Russian delegation will include Herman Gref, CEO of Russia’s state-owned bank Sberbank, and Mikhail Oseevsky, CEO of telecoms provider Rostelecom, both of whom have been sanctioned by Western countries over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has adopted China’s anti-imperial, anti-colonial stance and has begun touting it in sub-Saharan Africa as it seeks to expand its sphere of influence, according to an op-ed in the Toronto Star. Even as the war in Ukraine rages on, the article argues that Moscow and Beijing have increasingly “tightened and quickened their embrace” by tagging themselves as geopolitical, economic and moral foes of the West. Russian Russian media and propaganda efforts have blossomed in recent years in sub-Saharan Africa with Russian diplomats and business people criss-crossing the continent aided by Wagner troops on the ground. China has provided practical help, with its media rebroadcasting Russian propaganda content across Africa, and RT (formerly Russia Today) establishing a hub in South Africa.
The report suggests this is hardly the first time that Russia and China have teamed up. Throughout the 1950s, the two countries promoted world communism under the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance. Now, it appears, the new partnership provides a worldview that embraces rather than combats capitalism and luxury goods and is seen as a disruption and inversion of the “Western-led international order”.
Finally, the report suggests that Russia has been offered linguistic freedom to manoeuvre by the West, on occasion mimicking the language of Western leftist movements such as post-colonialism. “The Russian recycling of Western language has thus exposed the Western normative discourse,” the article argues.
China's youth unemployment rate has hit a high of 20.4% according to newly released data, with graduate job seekers increasingly "wary" of finding work in their chosen industries. As well as the mismatch between the jobs wanted and jobs available, graduates have also had fewer opportunities to gain internships or the social experiences that recruiters look for, as a result of lockdowns linked to the pandemic. The high unemployment has prompted government subsidies to stimulate youth employment, with state-owned enterprises directed to make more jobs available for those just starting out.
The African mediating mission announced by South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa may merit a mention when historians write about the rise of the post-unipolar world, according to an op-ed in the Financial Times. The author, Alec Russell, argues that the quixotic mediators from Africa underscore the accelerating assertiveness of the countries of the “global south”. Many non-western nations have seen the west's full-throttle support for Ukraine and regard it as hypocritical, with powers once again prioritising their own interests and concerns over other global issues such as health and climate change. The crisis has led to a renewed focus on the idea of six African heads of state criss-crossing the front lines of a European war, which threatens to totally rewrite the post-1945 world order.
The Brics summit in Durban in August will be a cacophonous showcase for the contradictions within the new “non-aligned movement”. The group consists of two autocracies, Russia and China, two big democracies, Brazil and India, and the host, and junior relation, South Africa. Now over a dozen more countries are interested in joining, including Iran. The risk, particularly for India and Brazil, is that the Brics could tilt ever more into becoming a China club.
The author suggests that the west should lead by example, commit finally to reforms of the global order and choose words more carefully. The Biden administration has been building bespoke regional alliances, but China is also busily convening summits of its own. New world orders, it is cautioned, are of course easier to declare than realise. South Africa’s chaotic mediating pas de deux with Russia is seen as an object lesson in how not to play the non-aligned game.
A car accident along the China-Vietnam border has killed 11 people, including nine Vietnamese citizens, in an incident related to human smuggling. The mountainous border region has a long history of trade in agricultural goods and workers coming from Vietnam to the Chinese province of Guangxi. The issue highlights the limited job opportunities in parts of Vietnam, pushing some citizens to seek higher wages in areas of China. In 2019, the bodies of 39 young Vietnamese were found in a container truck in southeastern England in an apparent people-smuggling tragedy.
