White House: The US will stop China from taking over territory in international waters
President Donald Trump’s administration promised on Monday that the US would stop China from taking over land in international waters in the South China Sea, but seemed to back off more hawkish claims made by secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson at a senate hearing. “I think the US is going to make sure that […]
Is China Going To War? Nuclear Missiles Deployed To Russian Border, Putin’s Kremlin Responds
The Chinese government reportedly deployed nuclear missiles to the Russia-China border in the northeast Heilongjiang province, an act Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government described as a nonissue Tuesday, Russian and Chinese media reported. The ballistic missiles, called the Dongfeng-41 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, are capable of traveling up to 15,000 kilometers and was successfully tested with dummy […]
China Daily: Beijing will ‘take off the gloves’ if Trump continues ‘gambit’ over Taiwan
China has shown restraint in the face of provocations by US President-elect Donald Trump over Taiwan, but if he continues after assuming office Beijing will “take off the gloves,” an official Chinese state-run newspaper said on Monday. Trump broke with decades of precedent last month by taking a congratulatory telephone call from Taiwanese President Tsai […]
South China Sea: China media warn US over ‘confrontation’
Blocking China from islands it has built in contested waters would lead to “devastating confrontation”, Chinese state media have warned. The angry response came after secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson said the US should deny Beijing access to new islands in the South China Sea. Two state-run papers carry editorials strongly criticising his comments. […]
Japan is flexing its muscles over an island dispute with China
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday said Tokyo would boost its Coast Guard budget and add more patrol craft, as a long-simmering dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea heats up. “Since the fall of 2012, Chinese government vessels have sailed near the Senkakus almost daily, and have entered Japan’s territorial waters […]
China says it will give drone back, but Trump says ‘keep it’
China says its military seized a U.S. Navy unmanned underwater glider in the South China Sea, but that it will give it back. President-elect Donald Trump, however, says the Chinese government should be told “we don’t want the drone they stole back” and “let them keep it!” This comes after U.S. officials confirmed that they […]
Trump’s and Xi’s Differences Magnify Uncertainties Between U.S. and China
Both came to power vowing to restore their nations to greatness. But America’s loud, ad-libbing president-elect, Donald J. Trump, and China’s guarded, calculating president, Xi Jinping, are glaring contrasts as politicians, and their pairing has injected new unpredictability into relations between their governments. “I could not think of two more different protagonists in the great […]
China’s digital dictatorship
WHEN communism crumbled in the Soviet Union, 25 years ago this week, the Chinese Communist Party seemed to many to be heading irreversibly downwards. Yes, the tanks had left Tiananmen Square after crushing a revolt in 1989, but the war appeared lost. Even China’s breakneck growth, which took off a year after the Soviet collapse, […]
China installs weapons systems on artificial islands
China appears to have installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven of the artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea, a U.S. think tank reported, citing new satellite imagery. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said its findings, made available first […]
Taiwan Is Both Exhilarated and Unnerved by Trump’s China Remarks
Lin Fei-fan led the charge nearly three years ago when hundreds of students occupied Taiwan’s legislature to protest a trade deal with China. With the island’s economy increasingly tied to the mainland’s, and Beijing’s global influence on the rise, he worried that Taiwan’s independence was at stake — and might be a lost cause. Now, […]