JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER, China — China launched a three-member crew to its orbiting space station on Thursday as part of its ambitious program that aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030. 

The Shenzhou-18 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China atop a Long March 2-F rocket at 8:59 p.m. (1259 GMT). 

The spacecraft’s three-member crew will relieve the Shenzhou-17 team, which has been staffing China’s Tiangong space station since last October. 

The China Manned Space Agency, or CMSA, held a send-off ceremony — complete with flag-waving children and patriotic music — for the Shenzhou-18 crew earlier on Thursday, as the three astronauts prepared to enter the spacecraft. 

The trio is made of Commander Ye Guangfu, 43, a veteran astronaut who took part in the Shenzhou-13 mission in 2021, and fighter pilots Li Cong, 34, and Li Guangsu, 36, who are spaceflight rookies. 

They are expected to reach the space station about six-and-a-half hours after liftoff. 

China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely because of U.S. concerns over the Chinese military’s involvement in the program. This year, the Chinese station is slated for two cargo spacecraft missions and two manned spaceflight missions. 

The Shenzhou-18 crew will spend about six months on the space station. They will conduct scientific tests, install space debris protection equipment on the station, carry out payload experiments, and popularize science education, among other things, according to Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the CMSA. 

Lin also said China was working toward eventually offering access to its space station to foreign astronauts and space tourists. 

“We will accelerate the research and promotion of the participation of foreign astronauts and space tourists on flights on China’s space station,” he said in a press conference Wednesday. 

The country is planning a mission to bring back samples from Mars around 2030 and three lunar probe missions over the next four years. It also wants to put astronauts on the moon by 2030. 

China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, becoming the third country after the former Soviet Union and the U.S. to put a person into space using its own resources. 

The U.S. space program is believed to still hold a significant edge over China’s due to its spending, supply chains and capabilities. However, China has broken out in some areas, bringing samples back from the lunar surface for the first time in decades and landing a rover on the less explored far side of the moon. 

The U.S. aims to put a crew back on the lunar surface by the end of 2025 as part of a renewed commitment to crewed missions, aided by private sector players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.
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BRUSSELS — Chinese security equipment company Nuctech’s Dutch and Polish offices were raided by EU competition regulators, the company said on Wednesday, as the European Commission cracks down on companies receiving unfair state subsidies which put EU peers at a disadvantage.

The European Commission has launched four investigations against Chinese companies since its foreign subsidies regulation introduced in July 2023 allowed the executive to assess whether subsidies allowed companies to submit overly advantageous offers in procurement tenders to edge out EU rivals.

“Nuctech offices in the Netherlands and Poland are being inspected by the European Commission in relation to the Foreign Subsidies Regulation,” partly-state owned Nuctech said in a statement.

“Nuctech is cooperating with the European Commission and is committed to defending its reputation of a fully independent and self-supporting economic operator,” the maker of security inspection scanners for airports and ports said.

The Commission on Tuesday announced dawn raids at an unnamed company in an unnamed EU country, which could lead to another investigation if the executive finds sufficient evidence of distortive subsidies.

“The Commission has indications that the inspected company may have received foreign subsidies that could distort the internal market pursuant to the Foreign Subsidies Regulation,” the Commission said in a statement.

Nuctech was blacklisted by the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, Commerce in 2020.

An official from China’s commerce ministry earlier condemned the raid, saying it interfered with the normal order of fair competition.

The China Chamber of Commerce to the EU said it was told that IT equipment and employees’ mobile phones were seized by regulators who also demanded access to data.

“The EU’s actions send a detrimental message not only to Chinese enterprises but to all non-EU companies conducting business in the bloc,” it said in a statement.

A Chinese Ministry of Commerce official said in a statement the raid undermined the confidence of all foreign enterprises in their operations in Europe and said China would take all necessary measures to safeguard the rights of its firms.
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State Department  — While Washington and Beijing are divided over a range of thorny issues, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began his second visit to China this week focusing first on the importance of direct engagement. It is something, he says, that is essential for addressing key issues affecting people from both countries and the world. 

People-to-people ties 

In a relaxed setting Wednesday, amid efforts to strengthen people-to-people ties, Blinken attended a playoff game between the Chinese Basketball Association’s Shanghai Sharks and Zhejiang Golden Bulls. 

Earlier, a crowd of people gathered to watch as the motorcade of the U.S. delegation left its hotel for a local eatery, the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant. There were more onlookers who gathered when Blinken sat at a table in the restaurant’s gallery, which overlooks a courtyard. 

Blinken said on social media that his “intensive face-to-face diplomacy” with officials from the People’s Republic of China is part of an “ongoing, direct engagement” that is “vital for making progress on issues that matter most to the American people and the world.” 

In Beijing, Chinese officials said Blinken’s visit is part of the ongoing efforts of both nations to maintain dialogue, manage differences, promote cooperation, and enhance coordination in international affairs.

Potential sanctions on Chinese banks

The United States has warned China against its support for Russia in its war on Ukraine, as Chinese firms directly supply crucial components to Russia’s defense industry. This month, foreign ministers from the Group of Seven jointly called on China to cease transferring dual-use materials and weapons components aiding Russia’s military production.

A senior State Department official told VOA that the United States is “prepared to take steps” when necessary against Chinese firms that “severely undermine security in both Ukraine and Europe.” But he declined to give any details about those potential further U.S. sanctions.  

What is clear is that the United States is considering sanctioning Chinese banks that facilitate the transfer of those materials.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said Washington stands ready to impose sanctions on Chinese banks and companies and Beijing’s leadership if they assist Russia’s military in its invasion of Ukraine. 

Officials in China have dismissed Washington’s concerns. 

“We firmly oppose the U.S.’s hypocritical moves of fanning the flames while deflecting the blame on China. China’s right to normal trade and economic cooperation with Russia and all other countries should not be violated. We will firmly safeguard our lawful rights and interests,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a briefing this week. 

Counternarcotics 

China-based companies remain the largest source of precursor chemicals used to manufacture illicit fentanyl that affects the United States. 

Immediately after U.S. President Joe Biden’s face-to-face talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Woodsides, California, in November, the Beijing government started to take action to curtail the flow of fentanyl precursors and equipment. 

For the first time in nearly three years, China submitted information related to 145 incidents to the International Narcotics Control Board’s global IONICS database, which supports global law enforcement coordination efforts to disrupt illicit synthetic drug supply chains, according to the State Department. 

While the initial Chinese actions were a positive step, Washington underscored the need for continued and sustained progress.

China can strengthen coordination with the U.S. and other international partners with law enforcement information sharing, regular contributions to international databases tracking synthetic drug threats, and monitoring emerging trends, said the U.S. State Department. 

Level 3: Reconsider travel to China 

Despite the increase of commercial flights between the United States and China, the U.S. government has advised Americans to reconsider travel to China due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans, and the risk of wrongful detentions. 

The State Department also advised Americans to exercise increased caution when traveling to Hong Kong and Macao due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws.

A senior State Department official downplayed the possibility of immediately easing warnings by lowering the travel advisory from level 3 to level 2 for China.

“We’ll, of course, re-evaluate and, as appropriate, adjust. But really, this is a pretty rigorous process,” said the official during a recent briefing.

The senior official said Washington has raised concerns with Chinese counterparts regarding specific cases of detentions and exit bans, as well as the opaque and arbitrary application of certain national security laws.

To “ensure the safety and security of American citizens” traveling abroad is among the most important responsibilities of the U.S. government, said the official.

In Beijing, Chinese officials criticized the U.S. State Department’s travel warning, calling it “unwarranted” and the “stumbling block” in people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. They urged the U.S. to revise the advisory level “as soon as possible.”
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In a dramatic surge, U.S. border patrol authorities detained more than 24,000 Chinese citizens crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2023, a 12-fold increase from the previous year. Many come seeking asylum, and among those that do, a small group of China’s ethnic Hui Muslims stands out. Aron Ranen brings us the story from the Big Apple.
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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.
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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 include TikTok in a broader foreign aid package may fast-track the timeline on a potential ban after an earlier separate bill stalled in the U.S. Senate. 

“It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans,” TikTok said in a statement.  

Many U.S. lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties and the Biden administration say TikTok poses national security risks because China could compel the company to share the data of its 170 million U.S. users. TikTok insists it has never shared U.S. data and never would. 

Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Sunday said TikTok could be used as a propaganda tool by the Chinese government. 

“Many young people on TikTok get their news (from the app), the idea that we would give the (Chinese) Communist Party this much of a propaganda tool as well as the ability to scrape 170 million Americans’ personal data, it is a national security risk,” he told CBS News. 

Some progressive Democrats have also raised free speech concerns over a ban and instead asked for stronger data privacy regulations.  

Democratic U.S. Representative Ro Khanna said on Sunday that he felt a TikTok ban may not survive legal scrutiny in courts, citing the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections. 

“I don’t think its going to pass First Amendment scrutiny,” he said in an interview to ABC News. 

The House voted on March 13 to give ByteDance about six months to divest the U.S. assets of the short-video app, or face a ban. The legislation passed on Saturday gives a nine-month deadline which could be further extended by three months if the president were to determine progress toward a sale. 

TikTok was also a topic of conversation in a call between Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping earlier this month. The White House said Biden raised American concerns about the app’s ownership.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s defense ministry said Sunday it will discuss with the United States how to use funding for the island included in a $95 billion legislative package mostly providing security assistance to Ukraine and Israel. 

The United States is Taiwan’s most important international supporter and arms supplier despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties. 

Democratically governed Taiwan has faced increased military pressure from China, which views the island as its own territory. Taiwan’s government rejects those claims. 

The defense ministry expressed thanks to the U.S. House of Representatives for passing the package on Saturday, saying it demonstrated the “rock solid” U.S. support for Taiwan. 

The ministry added it “will coordinate the relevant budget uses with the United States through existing exchange mechanisms and work hard to strengthen combat readiness capabilities to ensure national security and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” 

Taiwan has since 2022 complained of delays in deliveries of U.S. weapons such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, as manufacturers focused on supplying Ukraine to help the country battle invading Russian forces. 

Underscoring the pressure Taiwan faces from China, the ministry said Sunday morning that during the previous 24 hours 14 Chinese military aircraft had crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait. 

The median line once served as an unofficial border between the two sides, which neither military crossed. But China’s air force now regularly sends aircraft over it. China says it does not recognize the line’s existence. 

On Saturday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said China had again carried out “joint combat readiness patrols” with Chinese warships and warplanes around Taiwan. 

China’s defense ministry did not answer calls seeking comment outside of office hours Sunday. 

The island’s armed forces are dwarfed by those of China’s, especially the navy and air force. 
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BEIJING — China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said Saturday the South Pacific region should not become an arena for major power rivalries and that its assistance to countries there is free of political conditions.

The Pacific has become a source of intense competition for influence between Washington, which has traditionally viewed it as its backyard, and Beijing, which has targeted Taiwanese diplomatic allies there.

Wang made the comments at a joint news conference with his Papua New Guinea counterpart during a visit to the country.

“The South Pacific region should not become an arena for great powers to play games, and no country should treat the island countries as its own ‘backyard’ or engage in zero-sum games and exclusionary arrangements,” Wang said.

He said any attempt to provoke confrontation in the South Pacific region does not serve the needs of its people.

“China’s engagement and cooperation with the South Pacific island countries is dedicated to mutual support and assistance to achieve common development, without any geopolitical self-interest,” Wang said.

He added that China is willing to maintain high-level exchanges with Papua New Guinea and open negotiations for free trade agreements as soon as possible.

State media Xinhua reported Wang saying that all parties should respect the choice of the people of the Solomon Islands and refrain from interfering in their internal affairs.

The Solomon Islands’ pro-China Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has retained his seat in a national election, local media reported late Friday.

Wednesday’s election was the first since Sogavare struck a security pact with China in 2022 and drew the Pacific Islands nation closer to Beijing, in moves that concerned the U.S. and Australia because of the potential impact on regional security.
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washington — This month, when a story claiming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had secretly purchased a $24 million castle from the British royal family went viral on China’s Weibo social media platform, something interesting happened.

A fake-news function on the platform debunked it as misinformation.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Chinese social media platforms have been full of pro-Russia false claims and conspiracy theories, some of which the Chinese government has endorsed.

Influential Chinese nationalist bloggers, as well as Russia’s state media RT, regularly post and spread misinformation on Weibo.

Less than 20 hours after RT posted the misinformation about Zelenskyy, Weibo attached a fact-checking note to the post.

Public criticism of Russian state media is rare in China, but the fact-check function is part of Weibo’s latest effort to regulate misinformation on the site.

Weibo rolled out the feature, called Side Note, last August. Side Note allows qualified users to submit fact-checking notes on others’ posts for Weibo to review.

Over the past few months, users have added Side Note to posts from high-profile Weibo bloggers and foreign government-backed accounts, including RT and the U.S. Embassy in China.

Weibo has tried to appear neutral when deciding what kind of misinformation to fact-check, debunking false claims from both liberal and nationalist influencers.

But it has also used the feature to push Beijing’s talking points on international issues. So far, Chinese government and state media accounts have not been subject to any fact-checking.

Weibo’s version of Community Note

In July 2023, China’s internet regulator told social media companies to crack down on false information.

” ‘Personal media’ that create and publish rumors, stir up hot societal topics or matrix [linked cross-platform] publish and transmit illegal or negative information, creating a vile impact, are all to be closed, included in the platform database of blacklisted accounts, and reported to the internet information departments,” said a memo from Central Cyberspace Administration of China.

A month later, Weibo, one of China’s biggest social media apps with a focus on news and current issues, came out with the Side Note feature.

Like the Community Note function on X, Side Note lets qualified users take on the job of fact-checking, with Weibo getting the final say on approval or rejection.

Other U.S. social media firms offer similar features. Facebook and Instagram offer “community standards” and “community guidelines,” respectively, which flag posts containing disinformation.

But unlike these firms, Weibo itself decides which posts stay up.

The company says it selects qualified users from those with verified identities or high Weibo credit scores and is gradually expanding the feature to include more users.

Side Note targets US Embassy

Since January, posts by the U.S. Embassy in China have been tagged with Side Note at least three times.

A post detailing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s expressed concerns about China’s religious freedom received two notes, one accusing Blinken of having “no regard for facts.”

A February post sanctioning 17 Chinese companies for helping Russia’s war effort in Ukraine got a note that included a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s public remarks.

And a post last month condemning Beijing for a collision between Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels got a Side Note message from Shen Yi, a prominent Chinese international relations professor with a strong nationalistic leaning. 

In the note, Shen accused the U.S. of spreading misinformation on multiple “global social media platforms” to “smear China’s national image.”

Chinese government accounts immune

Most posts tagged with Side Note belong to influencers, including nationalist bloggers.

For example, Shu Chang, who runs the popular nationalist account Guyan Muchan, saw a Side Note added to a post last week claiming that schoolchildren in the U.S. have to learn how to use “bulletproof boards” in classrooms. The Side Note clarified that the photos were from a hurricane self-protection exercise.

In recent years, nationalist bloggers like Shu have become some of the most traffic-drawing opinion leaders on Weibo.

Eric Liu, who analyzes Chinese censorship at China Digital Times, says one shouldn’t read too much into Weibo fact-checking Shu’s post.

“A lot of her stuff isn’t state narratives. She sensationalized it herself,” Liu told VOA. “Weibo doesn’t really have to protect her. Plus, [fact-checking her posts] adds to the credibility of the Side Note feature.”

Liu, who worked as a censor for Weibo and other Chinese internet companies before moving to the U.S., pointed out that Weibo has not used Side Note to fact-check government accounts or false information from state media.

In a November post, Weibo thanked users for submitting Side Notes.

“Ever since Side Note went online, active participation from every Side Note-er has effectively lowered the negative impact of controversial content and biased information, helping all users access information that’s truer and more comprehensive,” the post said.

But Liu doesn’t think of Side Note as a feature that truly gives users the power to regulate speech on the platform, because Weibo remains the final arbitrator of what notes can be added to what posts.

“Weibo’s Side Note isn’t something that netizens can fully edit, as it’s still user-generated content,” he said. “In the end, it still needs to be reviewed by censors.”

Weibo did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Evie Steele contributed to this report.
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washington — China is challenging Japan’s latest analysis of the threat posed to the Indo-Pacific region by Beijing as a hyped-up threat and false accusation.

In the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s annual Diplomatic Bluebook that was published Tuesday, China’s military moves are described as posing “the greatest strategic challenge,” according to Japanese media. An official English version has not been published.

The Bluebook reportedly condemns China’s actions in the South China Sea and its attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China Sea.

At the same time, according to Japanese media, it says for the first time since 2019 that Japan seeks to build “a mutually beneficial relationship” with China “based on common strategic interests.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian rejected Japan’s criticisms at a news briefing on Tuesday. “Japan has resorted to the same old false accusations against China and hype of ‘China threat’ in its 2024 Diplomatic Bluebook,” he said.

He continued: “We urge Japan to change its wrong course of actions, stop stoking bloc confrontation, truly commit itself to advancing a strategic relationship of mutual benefit with China and work to build a constructive and stable China-Japan relationship fit for the new era.”

Yuki Tatsumi, director of the Japan Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, said, “Japan’s concerns about Chinese behavior, both military and paramilitary, have been intensified for the last few years due to the acceleration of Beijing’s aggressive behavior in East and South China Sea.”

She continued, “In addition, Tokyo has been put on alert about Beijing’s increasingly hostile and aggressive rhetoric and behavior toward Taiwan.”

Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin could meet in early May in Hawaii, according to a Thursday report by The Japan Times citing unnamed Japanese officials.

Kihara and Austin would discuss setting up a proposed allied command and control structure and a body to identify kinds of weapons the two countries will develop and produce together, said the report. These plans were announced April 10 at a bilateral summit in Washington.

The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) announced on Tuesday that it will conduct a naval deployment including six surface ships, submarines, and two air units starting May 3 to support a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The deployment includes visits to more than a dozen countries including the U.S., the Philippines, India, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Marshall Islands, Fiji and Palau. It is meant “to strengthen cooperation with the allied partner navies through conducting exercises,” said JMSDF.

Daniel Sneider, lecturer in international policy and East Asia Studies at Stanford University, said even as Tokyo is building its defenses and is concerned about Beijing’s assertiveness and especially its relations with Moscow, its mention in the Diplomatic Bluebook of wanting to build relations with Beijing reflects Tokyo’s balanced approach toward China.

“The Bluebook reflects a balance between, on one hand, some degree of warning the Chinese off doing things that disrupt the order” in the region “and, on the other hand, making it clear that Japan really is not interested in some type of full-scale confrontation with China,” including economic warfare, said Sneider.

As to China, it tends to see “any attempts on the part of the Koreans and the Japanese to engage and improve relations as a sign of weakness,” continued Sneider.

China, Japan and South Korea plan to hold trilateral talks in May for the first time since 2019. They will meet in Seoul ahead of a Washington-Seoul-Tokyo trilateral summit expected in July.
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The Chinese-operated online markets Temu and Shein are shaking up e-commerce with their extremely low prices. But the firms are facing concerns from consumers and Congress. Evie Steele has the story from Washington.
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jakarta, indonesia — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized the United States on Thursday for its votes on previous United Nations resolutions for a Gaza cease-fire, following talks in Jakarta with his Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi.

During the talks, Wang highlighted the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East, and he called on all parties to exercise restraint in the conflict.

“The conflict in Gaza has lasted for half a year and caused a rare humanitarian tragedy in the 21st century. The United Nations Security Council responded to the call of the international community and continued to review the resolution draft on the cease-fire in Gaza, but it was repeatedly vetoed by the United States,” Wang said at a news briefing at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry.

Wang acknowledged the passage of a Security Council cease-fire resolution in March, saying, “This time, the U.S. did not dare to stand in opposition to international morality and chose to abstain.”

He added that the U.S. claimed the resolution was not binding and said, “In the eyes of the United States, international law seems to be a tool that can be used whenever it finds useful and discarded if it does not want to use it.”

The United States has said it vetoed previous resolutions for not being linked to the release of Hamas hostages.

Both ministers expressed frustration over the humanitarian disaster caused by the Palestinian-Israel conflict. “We agree that the U.N. Security Council resolution on a cease-fire must be fully implemented and without any condition,” said Wang.

China and Indonesia both support full Palestinian membership in the United Nations. Currently, the Palestinian Authority is a nonmember observer state, but it has sought full membership since 2011.

Indonesia does not recognize Israel and has strongly supported the Palestinian cause.

Meeting with Widodo

At a meeting with President Joko Widodo, Wang expressed China’s interest in deepening cooperation and investment in energy transition, infrastructure, and the production and marketing of refined petroleum products.

Widodo highlighted bilateral trade between Indonesia and China and expressed hopes that China will further open its market for Indonesian goods, including by resolving disputes over Indonesian agricultural and fishery products.

Widodo also urged the construction of a strategic petrochemical project in Northern Kalimantan and further collaboration on food security, including replicating Chinese-style cultivation methods in growing rice, horticultural crops and durian fruit.

China is Indonesia’s biggest trade partner, with a yearly trade volume reaching more than $127 billion. China is also one of Indonesia’s biggest foreign investors, with an investment value of more than $7.4 billion in 2023.

Indonesia and China will discuss the details of increasing cooperation on Friday in Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara province.

Apart from economic cooperation, Marsudi said that efforts to tackle cross-border crimes, including online fraud, will be discussed at the event.

Wang will also visit Papua New Guinea and Cambodia.

Later Thursday, Wang met with Widodo and his soon-to-be successor, President-elect Prabowo Subianto, the current defense minister of Indonesia.

Prabowo won the presidential election in February, and like his predecessor, he supports close ties with Beijing while seeking to balance diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China.

The Indonesian Defense Ministry said Thursday that Wang and Prabowo discussed plans for joint military exercises.

Some information for this report came from Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
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washington — A senior U.S. intelligence official is casting doubt on China’s ability to make good on plans to possibly reunify Taiwan by force by its self-imposed deadline.

Various U.S. military and intelligence officials have testified publicly in recent years that Beijing’s own planning documents show President Xi Jinping has ordered the Chinese military to be ready to take Taiwan by force should efforts to reunify the island by other means fail.

They also have said China’s unprecedented military modernization and expansion efforts have been in line with the order to have an invasion plan ready to go by 2027 at the latest.

But Dave Frederick, the U.S. National Security Agency’s assistant deputy director for China, is not sure they can meet that deadline.

“It’s a pretty ambitious goal, so [I] won’t make any predictions on whether they hit it or not,” Frederick said at a security conference in Nashville, Tennessee. He added that China “remains focused on that 2027 capabilities” goal but that obstacles remain.

One of those challenges, he said, is the ability of China’s military to land troops on the island of Taiwan.

An amphibious landing “would be a really, really challenging military problem for them,” Frederick said. “[A] very difficult military problem for them to pull off.”

However, he acknowledged that China is building a fourth amphibious landing craft and that “history’s got many examples of [a] government deciding to pursue a policy that may not even be in their best self-interest, and certainly in cases where military victory isn’t guaranteed.”

Chinese officials dismissed the talk, though, telling VOA by email the situation with Taiwan is “a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese [people].”

“If the U.S. truly hopes for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, it should abide by the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiqués,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

Washington should “stop meddling in the Taiwan question and stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Liu added.

Frederick is not the first U.S. official to caution that China’s military expansion, buoyed by new equipment and weapons systems, may be outpacing its actual capabilities.

The U.S. Defense Department’s annual China Military Power Report issued late last year cautioned that Beijing itself believes it still faces some deficits as it tries to field a force capable of fighting and winning wars against other capable adversaries.

“They still have a long way to go in terms of having the level of military capability that we judge that they think that they need to advance their global security and economic interests,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters at the time.

The official called the lack of combat experience “one of the shortcomings that the PRC highlights in a lot of their own self assessments.”

Top U.S. intelligence officials have said that despite China’s desire to be able to take Taiwan by force, perhaps as early as next year, they believe Xi has not decided whether to use that option.

“Beijing will continue to apply military and economic pressure as well as public messaging and influence activities while promoting long-term cross-Strait economic and social integration to induce Taiwan to move toward unification,” according to last month’s annual threat assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

A separate assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency published last week concluded that “Beijing appears willing to defer the use of military force as long as it calculates that its unification with Taiwan ultimately can be negotiated.”

“The costs of armed conflict would outweigh the benefits, and its stated red lines have not been crossed by Taiwan, the United States, or other countries,” the DIA report added.
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Washington — China is bolstering its space capabilities and is using its civilian program to mask its military objectives, the head of the U.S. space agency said Wednesday, warning that Washington must remain vigilant.

“China has made extraordinary strides especially in the last 10 years, but they are very, very secretive,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“We believe that a lot of their so-called civilian space program is a military program. And I think, in effect, we are in a race,” Nelson said.

He said he hoped Beijing would “come to its senses and understand that civilian space is for peaceful uses,” but added: “We have not seen that demonstrated by China.”

Nelson’s comment came as he testified before the House Appropriations Committee on NASA’s budget for fiscal 2025.

He said the United States should land on the moon again before China does, as both nations pursue lunar missions, but he expressed concern that were Beijing to arrive first, it could say: “‘OK, this is our territory, you stay out.'”

The United States is planning to put astronauts back on the moon in 2026 with its Artemis 3 mission. China says it hopes to send humans to the moon by 2030.

Nelson said he was confident the United States would not lose its “global edge” in space exploration.

“But you got to be realistic,” he said. “China has really thrown a lot of money at it and they’ve got a lot of room in their budget to grow. I think that we just better not let down our guard.”
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taipei, taiwan — A Vietnamese delegation’s visit to China last week has underscored increasingly close economic ties between the territorial rivals, which analysts say is posing a challenge to the dominance of South Korean investment in Vietnam.

Vietnam’s National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue led the high-level delegation from April 7 to 12 and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Hue proposed the two countries create a new push for trade development and “connect Vietnam to China’s large development strategies.”

He also met with the heads of many large Chinese companies that want to participate in Vietnam’s infrastructure construction.

China is Vietnam’s largest trade partner and on the way to becoming its biggest foreign direct investor.

A representative of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, or KCCI, in Vietnam last week told Nikkei Asia that Chinese companies are pushing back South Korean firms as China steps up investment in Vietnam.

“Looking at the cumulative amount of investment in Vietnam since 1988, South Korea ranks first with $85.8 billion, ahead of Singapore and Japan. However, in recent years, Korea has been in a neck-to-neck competition with China,” Kim Hyong-mo told the Japan-based Asia news magazine.

More current figures provided by Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment put South Korean foreign direct investment since 1988 at $87 billion, accounting for more than 18% of the total, followed by Singapore at $76 billion, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

But in 2023, South Korea ranked fifth after Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and China, which led in terms of newly registered projects.

According to Joeffrey Maddatu Calimag, an assistant professor at the Department of Global Business Management at Kyungsung University in Busan, South Korea, competition between South Korean and Chinese companies is increasingly fierce.

“South Korean conglomerates like Samsung Electronics Limited have notably ramped up or increased their investment or R&D spending to counter the investments of China’s in terms of this sector, the mobile technology,” he told VOA.

“And Chinese companies have demonstrated impressive R&D growth, which can heighten the competition for South Korean firms in Vietnam. These combined with China’s technological advancements, presents a formidable challenge to South Korean companies operating in the region,” he said.

South Korea’s Samsung is by far the largest single foreign investor in Vietnam.

Vietnam’s Hanoi Times newspaper reports Samsung invested more than $1 billion in Vietnam in 2023, for a total of more than $22 billion, and is expected to invest a further $1 billion per year.

South Korean lens module manufacturer LG Innotek announced last year that it would invest an additional $1 billion in capital in Haiphong City, bringing the company’s total investment in Vietnam to more than $2 billion.

But China’s investment is heating up.

Vietnam’s Trade Ministry said this month that Chinese automaker Chery signed a joint venture agreement with a Vietnamese company to build a factory in Vietnam at an investment of $800 million, becoming the first Chinese EV manufacturer in Vietnam. China’s BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, also plans to set up a factory in Vietnam.

Reuters reported in November that Chinese solar panel manufacturer Trina Solar, one of five Chinese solar firms the U.S. says used plants in Southeast Asia to avoid duties on panels made in China, plans to nearly double its investment in Vietnam to almost $900 million.

China-based economist and finance commentator He Jiangbing notes that since U.S.-China trade tensions erupted in 2018, many Chinese companies have invested in Southeast Asia to avoid made-in-China tariffs. He says China’s domestic overcapacity has also forced Chinese companies to accelerate their overseas deployment.

“The focus of Southeast Asia is Vietnam because [China and Vietnam] are geographically closer. Vietnam also has a large population, with more than 100 million people. It also hoards a large part of the industrial chain transferred from mainland China,” He said. “Wherever the industrial chain moves, Chinese companies will follow.”

Nguyen Tri Hieu, a Vietnamese American economist, says Vietnam is politically closer to China, a fellow one-party communist state, than democratic South Korea.

“In Vietnam, there is a saying that the relationship between China and Vietnam is just like the teeth and the lips,” he told VOA. “South Korea is politically more remote. I would say [South] Korea is important but is not in the same position as China.”

But unlike Hanoi, Seoul has no territorial dispute with Beijing that could threaten to upend the relationship.

China’s and Vietnam’s competing claims to areas in the South China Sea have not halted trade and investment but they have at times slowed it down amid clashes and tensions.

Beijing claims most of the South China Sea as its own, putting it in conflict with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

  Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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SCRANTON, Pa. — President Joe Biden is calling for a tripling of tariffs on steel from China to protect American producers from a flood of cheap imports, an announcement he planned to roll out Wednesday in an address to steelworkers in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

The move reflects the intersection of Biden’s international trade policy with his efforts to court voters in a state that is likely to play a pivotal role in deciding November’s election.

The White House insists, however, that it is more about shielding American manufacturing from unfair trade practices overseas than firing up a union audience.

In addition to boosting steel tariffs, Biden also will seek to triple levies on Chinese aluminum. The current rate is 7.5% for both metals. The administration also promised to pursue anti-dumping investigations against countries and importers that try to saturate existing markets with Chinese steel, and said it was working with Mexico to ensure that Chinese companies can’t circumvent the tariffs by shipping steel there for subsequent export to the U.S.

“The president understands we must invest in American manufacturing. But we also have to protect those investments and those workers from unfair exports associated with China’s industrial overcapacity,” White House National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard said on a call with reporters.

Biden was set to announce that he is asking the U.S. Trade Representative to consider tripling the tariffs during a visit to United Steelworkers union headquarters in Pittsburgh. The president is on a three-day Pennsylvania swing that began in Scranton on Tuesday and will include a visit to Philadelphia on Thursday.

The administration says China is distorting markets and eroding competition by unfairly flooding the market with below-market-cost steel.

“China’s policy-driven overcapacity poses a serious risk to the future of the American steel and aluminum industry,” Brainard said. Referencing China’s economic downturn, she added that Beijing “cannot export its way to recovery.”

“China is simply too big to play by its own rules,” Brainard said.

Higher tariffs can carry major economic risks. Steel and aluminum could become more expensive, possibly increasing the costs of cars, construction materials and other key goods for U.S. consumers.

Inflation has already been a drag on Biden’s political fortunes, and his turn toward protectionism echoes the playbook of his predecessor and opponent in this fall’s election, Donald Trump.

The former president imposed broader tariffs on Chinse goods during his administration, and has threatened to increase levies on Chinese goods unless they trade on his preferred terms as he campaigns for a second term. An outside analysis by the consultancy Oxford Economics has suggested that implementing the tariffs Trump has proposed could hurt the overall U.S. economy.

Senior Biden administration officials said that, unlike the Trump administration, they were seeking a “strategic and balanced” approach to new tariff rates. China produces around half of the world’s steel, and is already making far more than its domestic market needs. It sells steel on the world market for less than half what U.S.-produced steel costs, the officials said.

Biden’s announcement follows his administration’s efforts to provide up to $6.6 billion so that a Taiwanese semiconductor giant can expand facilities that it is already building in Arizona and better ensure that the world’s most-advanced microchips are produced in the U.S. That move could be seen as working to better compete with China chip manufacturers.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, during a recent visit to China, warned against oversaturating the market with cheap goods, and said low-cost steel had “decimated industries across the world and in the United States.” The Chinese, in turn, expressed grave concern over American trade and economic measures that restrict China, according to the China’s official news agency. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also has an upcoming visit to China.

Also potentially shaking up the steel industry is Japanese Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel. Biden said last month that he opposed the move.

“U.S. Steel has been an iconic American steel company for more than a century, and it is vital for it to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated,” Biden said then.

At a rally last weekend in Pennsylvania, Trump tore into Biden over Nippon Steel’s efforts to buy U.S. Steel, ignoring the president’s objections to the merger.

“I would not let that deal go through,” Trump said.
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Vienna, Austria — Next week, China will mark the 12th anniversary of a group for central and eastern European countries it established to grow its influence in the EU. But when it does, there will be no high-level activities or celebrations to mark the group’s creation.

Since 2019, the frequency of meetings between China and central and eastern European leaders has decreased, and one after another, members have withdrawn.

Matej Simalcik, executive director at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, told VOA Mandarin that when the China-Central and Eastern European Countries Cooperation Mechanism was launched on April 26, 2012, central and eastern European, or CEE states “were largely motivated as a reaction to the global financial crisis. Cooperation with China was seen as a means to provide new stimuli for economic growth.”

Since its inception, however, the initiative has been riddled with problems. 

“From the very beginning, agenda-setting within the format was largely dominated by the Chinese side. At the same time, CEE capitals often failed to not just promote, but also come up with their own ideas about what kind of cooperation with China would best serve their interests,” Simalcik said.

“With this, the format’s annual summits were reduced to mere talk shops, which also served Chinese domestic propaganda purposes.”

Also known as the 16+1, the group has included Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. When Greece joined in 2019, it was renamed 17+1.

From 2013 to 2019, seven meetings were held: six in the capitals of Romania, Serbia, Latvia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Croatia and one in Suzhou, China.

Members have not held an in-person leadership meeting since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, and it has been three years since Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a video conference.

During that same period, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania announced their withdrawal, while China’s relations with the Czech Republic and other central and eastern European countries deteriorated.

Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore, tells VOA’s Mandarin service that many central and eastern European states have grown more cautious — even suspicious — of Beijing and its projects, “especially after seeing Moscow’s aggression toward Ukraine and Beijing’s continuing support for Russia.”

China’s outward investment projects have started to decline and the economic incentives for cooperation are now no longer as great, Chong adds. 

China’s “transnational repression within Europe and diplomatic spats with Czechia and Lithuania that came with economic punishment further reduced appetite for cooperation with Beijing,” he said.

Simalcik said China’s sanctions of members of the European Parliament over the Xinjiang issue and its interference in central and eastern European states’ interactions with Taiwan, especially Taiwan-Czech Republic relations, have also made cooperation between the two sides more difficult.

Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to unify it with the mainland.

Xinjiang is a region of China where Beijing is accused of human rights violations against Uyghur Muslims. Beijing denies the accusations.  

Filip Sebok, a China researcher at the Association for International Affairs in Prague, told VOA Mandarin that much has changed since China initiated the 16+1 mechanism in 2012. 

While China could present itself at that time as a mostly economic actor, “It is now clear for most European nations, including those in CEE, that China also presents certain security and geopolitical challenges,” he said.

“At the same time, the authoritarian turn within China, human rights abuses, and the spillover of its authoritarian outreach abroad have also changed perceptions of China,” he added. 

However, cooperation between China and CEE countries has not been fruitless, Chong said.

“In essence, CEE states that are more authoritarian and have friendlier ties with Russia tend to be more positive about the cooperation with the PRC,” he said.

Sebok said if Beijing wants to win the support of CEE countries, it should meet these countries’ expectations for economic cooperation. The mismatch between expectations and results led to the decreasing profile of the China-CEE cooperation format. 

“However, we might yet see a reinvigoration of the format in some form. An important factor is the rising Chinese investment in electromobility supply chains, which we are seeing mainly in Hungary, but also in Slovakia and Poland. This might give the cooperation a new impetus,” he said.

Changes in the political situation in Europe and the United States may also create opportunities for restarting cooperation. 

Sebok said that Slovakia, after parliamentary elections in 2023 and presidential election this year, “is exhibiting signs of seeking a closer relationship with China, which might enlarge the group of China-enthusiastic countries.”

If the United States elects a new president and changes its approach to the EU, that “might also create new opportunities for China to take advantage of the uncertainty in the region and increase its influence,” he said.

The United States holds its presidential election this November.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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