China

China’s decision to formally seek to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the world’s most important Asian trade deal, presents the U.S. with an enormous set of economic and diplomatic challenges. China joining CPTPP would deal a significant blow to U.S. economic statecraft and further strengthen Chinese leadership in the Indo-Pacific. Taiwan’s recent announcement that it also wants to join CPTPP further complicates the picture. The CPTPP is what was left of the original U.S.-led 12 nation deal the Trans-pacific Partnership (TPP) that was a priority under Presidents Bush and Obama, but which President Trump Donald Trump Julian Castro knocks Biden administration over refugee policy Overnight Energy & Environment — League of Conservation Voters — Climate summit chief says US needs to 'show progress' on environment Five takeaways from Arizona's audit results MORE pulled the U.S. out of in his first week in office. Since …

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Taiwan's main opposition Nationalist Party chose former leader Eric Chu as its new chairperson Saturday in an election overshadowed by increasing pressure from neighbor China. Four candidates, including incumbent chair Johnny Chiang, had competed for the leadership of the party that has advocated closer relations with Beijing. That means agreeing to Beijing's demand that it regard Taiwan as a part of China, something Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party has refused to do. China has threatened to use force to bring Taiwan under its control and has increasingly mobilized military, diplomatic and economic pressure in an attempt to undermine the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen and sway opinion among the Taiwanese people, who strongly favor the status quo of de-facto independence. Mindful of public sentiments, the Nationalists have advocated a less acrimonious relationship with China, rather than direct moves toward unification between the sides, which are bound by …

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World Iran China Hassan Rouhani Xi jinping As Iran celebrates the lifting of sanctions and cranks up its oil production, the biggest winner may be China, Iran's new best friend. Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to Tehran in January, meeting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and signing a 25-year economic, political and military cooperation pact. The two leaders announced the signing of 17 deals—including agreements on oil drilling, nuclear energy and a vast infrastructure project linking China to the Mediterranean, known as One Belt, One Road. Rouhani predicted the deals would boost bilateral trade tenfold to an annual $600 billion in the next decade. "The end of the sanctions will serve first and foremost to help Chinese energy firms—that is why President Xi Jinping is paying a sudden official visit to Tehran," says Jean-Christophe Iseux, Baron von Pfetten, a French senior adviser to the Chinese government. (He convened a series of back-channel meetings …

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World China U.S. military Missile South China Sea In late 1995, escalating Chinese threats against Taiwan prompted President Bill Clinton to stage a show of American support for the beleaguered island that Beijing's leaders couldn't ignore. Clinton sent two aircraft carrier battle groups steaming into the conflict zone, their heavily armed fighter jets poised on deck for takeoff. One battle group, led by the carrier USS Nimitz , sailed down the middle of the Taiwan Strait, less than 50 miles from the Chinese mainland, while the second stood in reserve off Taiwan's eastern coast. Chinese officials decried what they called "foreign intervention" in their long-standing claim to Taiwan. But lacking the weapons to deter the American warships, they had little choice but to heed Clinton's show of force and back away. China's loss of face in the Taiwan crisis spurred its development of a long-anticipated family of anti-ship missiles unveiled at a military parade in …

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They are three women who have led very different lives, but there is an invisible link between them, forged 25 years ago in China. For, when young British broadcaster Kate Blewett made an explosive documentary uncovering the neglect of millions of Chinese girls in squalid, state-run orphanages, she changed the lives of thousands of children, including Sophie Brook and Tamzin Howard. They were adopted as babies after Kate’s film revealed how China had failed to care for, or about, them. And when Kate finally met Sophie and Tamzin, now young women and living happily in the UK, she described it as “a beautiful moment, off the Richter scale of anything I’ve ever experienced”. Kate’s 1996 documentary, The Dying Rooms, exposed the devastating collision between China’s one-child policy and preference for male heirs. What do you think of the one-baby rule? Have your say in the comment section Orphanage girl tied to toilet bench in squalid conditions ( …

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JOHOR BAHRU (Bernama): The government's move to get in touch with China on the formation of the new Aukus trilateral security pact comprising the United States, United Kingdom and Australia is merely to get the country’s stand on the issue, says Senior Minister (Security) Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein. Refuting allegations from the Opposition that Malaysia was ‘receiving instructions’ from China, the Defence Minister said it was not wrong for Malaysia to find out China’s views and its possible response to the matter. "The statement ( the Opposition's claim) is baseless because what I have informed the Dewan Rakyat is far from getting any instructions from China," he told reporters at the Ulu Tiram Camp here on Sunday (Sept 26). Hishammuddin was asked to comment on a recent statement from the Opposition that Malaysia should remain neutral and not lean towards any world superpower, especially over the Aukus issue. The Sembrong MP explained that having good ties with China did …

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By Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is fortifying its far-flung island chain in the East China Sea under an evolving strategy that aims to turn the tables on China's navy and keep it from ever dominating the Western Pacific Ocean, Japanese military and government sources said. The United States, believing its Asian allies - and Japan in particular - must help contain growing Chinese military power, has pushed Japan to abandon its decades-old bare-bones home island defense in favor of exerting its military power in Asia. Tokyo is responding by stringing a line of anti-ship, anti-aircraft missile batteries along 200 islands in the East China Sea stretching 1,400 km (870 miles) from the country's mainland toward Taiwan. Interviews with a dozen military planners and government policymakers reveal that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's broader goal to beef up the military has evolved to include a strategy to dominate the sea and air surrounding the remote islands. …

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These are 20 photos of the tallest buildings in the world, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in September 2021. Giant skyscrapers are classified officially in two distinct categories: "supertall" 300 meters (984 feet) or taller, and a "megatall," which stand at least 600-meters tall (1,968 feet). As of today, there are 173 supertalls and only three megatalls right now. Take a look at those three and the 17 other tallest buildings in the world. 1. Burj Khalifa (Completed 2010) Height: 828 m/ 2,717 ft Floors: 163 The Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest building, stretching half a mile into the Dubai sky. Construction began in September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed in October 2009. The building officially opened in January 2010 and is part of a development called "Downtown Dubai" near the city's main business district. Chicago-based engineering company Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill played a major part in its design …

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't directly mention Pakistan or China in his Saturday speech to the United Nations General Assembly but the targets of his address were clear. He called upon the international community to help the women, children and minorities of Afghanistan and said that it was imperative the country not be used as a base from which to spread terror. “We also need to be alert and ensure that no country tries to take advantage of the delicate situation there, and use it as a tool for its own selfish interests,” he said in an apparent reference to Pakistan, wedged in between Afghanistan and India. Modi also highlighted what he called the need to protect oceans from “the race for expansion and exclusion.” India and China have long competed for influence in the Indian Ocean. On the heels of waves of coronavirus surges that have ravaged India, Modi made no mention of his own country's death toll. But he reaffirmed last week's announcement …

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Going to the park this weekend? You may be among, what, millions? Despite Boris Johnson ’s standing in front of a board, dribbling a bit, and lowering the national risk level – surely just another piece of theatre from a cut rate Barnum whose act is wearing very thin – much of Britain remains shut down. The shops are mostly open, but there are no cinemas, restaurants, pubs, or bars – at least for the moment – and with another frustrating weekend underway. There are no theatres, no live music, no sports that you can attend in person. Against this backdrop, parks have served as oases, places where we can escape the confines of the four walls that surround us and have been closing in on all too many of us the longer the lockdown has gone on. They are happy places. They are safe(ish) places. There’s sufficient space to socially distance. The rules aren’t always observed. The unwillingness of the able bodied to give me any space at all as a wheelchair user has at …

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