US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Dong Jun, in person for the first time Friday on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the details.
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STATE DEPARTMENT — Senior officials from the United States and the People’s Republic of China held diplomatic talks in Washington on Thursday to try to defuse tensions, to discuss efforts to maintain military-to-military communication, and to advance cooperation.

Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Kurt Campbell hosted China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu at the State Department for talks aimed at maintaining open communication to prevent miscalculations and unintended conflicts, especially during times of tension. 

Following two hours of face-to-face discussions, U.S. and Chinese officials had a working lunch at the State Department. Later in the afternoon, U.S. deputy national security adviser Jon Finer continued discussions with Ma.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also stopped by the meeting to greet Ma and exchanged views on key issues.

“The two sides discussed ongoing work to continue military-to-military communication and advance cooperation in areas where our interests align, such as counternarcotics,” the White House said in a statement, ahead of the expected meeting between U.S. and China defense chiefs during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

They also discussed areas of disagreement.

“Finer affirmed the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. He underscored U.S. support for international law and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. The two sides also discussed Russia’s war against Ukraine, challenges in the Middle East, and efforts to advance the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” the White House statement said.

The visit by Ma follows U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Shanghai and Beijing in April.  Officials said it builds on the U.S.’s intensive diplomacy with the PRC to responsibly manage competition in the relationship, even in areas where the two countries disagree. 

The State Department has said the U.S. is engaging in face-to-face diplomacy with China to clearly and directly communicate Washington’s positions and intentions, aiming to make progress on bilateral, regional and global issues.

A spokesperson from PRC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Ma would also “interact and communicate with representatives from various sectors in the U.S.” during his visit to the country Thursday to Sunday.

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Thursday that the U.S. would continue its engagement with China at senior levels while raising concerns over contentious issues, including Beijing’s support for Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine. 

“If China does not curtail its support for Russia’s defense industrial base, the U.S. would be prepared to take further steps,” Patel told reporters during a briefing.

He added, “The PRC’s reconstitution of the Russian defense industrial base not only threatens Ukrainian security but also threatens European security,” a view held by the United States, the G7, the European Union and NATO countries.

However, Patel declined to preview any potential U.S. sanctions.

While in Beijing last month, Blinken voiced “serious concern” regarding China’s support for Russia’s defense industry, warning Chinese leaders that Washington could impose sanctions over the matter. 

China has defended its approach to Russia, saying it is engaged only in normal economic exchanges with a major trading partner. 

On Wednesday, Campbell renewed the U.S. warnings, saying Chinese support was helping to revitalize Russia’s military capabilities, including long-range missiles, artillery, drones and battlefield tracking.

During his visit to Brussels, Campbell emphasized the urgent need for European and NATO countries “to send a collective message of concern to China about its actions, which we view are destabilizing in the heart of Europe.” 

The latest U.S.-China talks occur just days after China conducted a large-scale, two-day military exercise involving 111 aircraft and 46 naval vessels around Taiwan. Washington has strongly urged Beijing to exercise restraint and has reaffirmed the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Mark Lambert, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan, met virtually on May 23 with Hong Liang, the PRC’s director-general for boundary and ocean affairs. During the meeting, Lambert expressed profound concerns regarding People’s Liberation Army joint military drills in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan.  
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ISLAMABAD — A high-level Pakistani delegation met with Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities on Thursday and urged “decisive action” against militants who allegedly used Afghan soil to orchestrate cross-border attacks, including a recent suicide car bombing that killed five Chinese engineers. 

Kabul hosted the meeting several days after Islamabad revealed it had apprehended about a dozen suspects in connection with the deadly assault on Chinese civilians in March, saying an Afghan national carried out the bombing with the support of his handlers sheltering in Afghanistan. The victims were working on a China-funded hydropower project in northwestern Pakistan. 

Officials said Deputy Taliban Interior Minister Muhammad Nabi Omari and his Pakistani counterpart, Muhammad Khurram Agha, led their respective delegations at Thursday’s meeting in the Afghan capital. 

A post-visit Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement said discussions focused on the March 26 “terrorist attack” against Chinese nationals. It added that the Pakistani side shared the findings of their investigation into the bombing with Taliban officials and “sought Afghanistan’s assistance in apprehending the perpetrators.” 

The Afghan side “agreed to examine the findings of the investigation and expressed the resolve to work with the Pakistan side to take the investigation to its logical conclusion,” the statement added. 

Officials privy to the talks told VOA that the Pakistani side highlighted the involvement of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, in the attack on Chinese workers and other acts of terrorism being committed against Pakistan.  

“Mr. Khurram Agha talked about the attack on the 26th of March this year … and hoped for the Afghan government’s help in the security sector,” Abdul Mateen Qani, Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman, said while sharing details of Thursday’s meeting between the two countries. 

He quoted Omari as describing the “terrorist attack” on Chinese nationals “as a tragic incident.” The minister stated, “Our intentions and actions are to promote peace in the region for the benefit of ourselves and everyone.” 

Omari renewed Afghanistan’s commitment “to not allowing others to use its territory against anyone, and we wish the same from others.”  

TTP, a globally designated terrorist organization, has for years waged deadly attacks in Pakistan, targeting security forces and civilians. 

Officials in Islamabad maintain that fugitive TTP leaders and combatants relocated to sanctuaries in Afghanistan after the Taliban retook control of the country nearly three years ago and have since intensified cross-border attacks with “greater operational freedom.” 

Taliban authorities reject the charges, saying neither TTP nor any other militant group is based on Afghan soil. 

“The two sides agreed to remain engaged to confront the threat posed by terrorism to regional countries and to address the concerns raised by Pakistan,” said the Pakistani statement Thursday. 

The Pakistani military said Thursday that a meeting of its leadership reviewed the security situation and the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghan soil. 

“The forum expressed serious concerns over continued cross-border violations from Afghanistan and terrorism being orchestrated using Afghan soil, noting that Pakistan’s adversaries were using Afghanistan to target security forces and innocent civilians inside Pakistan,” said a post-meeting military statement. 
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Seoul, South Korea — Tensions between North Korea and China surfaced publicly this week for the first time in years, after Pyongyang lashed out at a joint statement signed by Beijing mentioning the possibility of denuclearization.

The apparent rift between the two allies emerged as North Korea’s latest attempt to launch a military spy satellite interrupted a major diplomatic initiative by China.

North Korea announced that it would conduct the launch as China’s premier, Li Qiang, was in Seoul preparing to meet the top leaders of Japan and South Korea as part of a trilateral dialogue that had not occurred in almost five years.

The launch, which ended in a fiery explosion just after liftoff, occurred several hours after the trilateral dialogue wrapped up late Monday.

Although not unprecedented, it was a rare North Korean disruption of a major political event involving China, which has long been the main ally and economic lifeline for the isolated North.

The developments suggest fissures in a relationship that both sides have long insisted is “as close as lips and teeth,” according to Jean Lee, a Korea specialist at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

“I think what we’re seeing is that those fissures can break wide open with just a little bit of pressure,” she said.

Uncomfortable spot

North Korea’s actions left China’s Li in an awkward position, standing alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who both condemned the impending launch.

Things got more uncomfortable from there. After the three men released a joint statement calling, among other things, for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, North Korea erupted.

In a statement posted in the state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s foreign ministry accused the three countries of “mockery and trickery,” denouncing what it described as a “blatant challenge” to its sovereignty and “wanton interference” in its internal affairs.

Though the North Korean statement was primarily directed at summit host South Korea, it was also a “veiled but undeniable swipe” at China, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a North Korea watcher and senior fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center.

“The North’s relations with China have looked to be cooling over the last year, but this is the first time in recent years any signs of trouble have broken into the open,” she wrote in a blog post on 38 North, a North Korea-focused website.

China has long called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula – a formulation often embraced by other countries, including the United States and its allies.

North Korea has also accepted the idea of denuclearization in some settings, including perhaps most notably the joint statement signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and former U.S. president Donald Trump following their first summit in 2018.

However, North Korea last year enshrined nuclear weapons in its constitution – a status Kim now calls “irreversible.”

North Korea’s moves have sparked major concerns among the U.S. and its allies, which have responded by ramping up their own displays of military strength.

In public settings, Chinese officials have called for all sides to show restraint, even while pressing the United States to make concessions in order to advance the denuclearization process.

Ups and downs

North Korea has not criticized China so blatantly since 2017, when Beijing backed United Nations Security Council sanctions over the North’s nuclear and missile tests.

Since then, North Korea-China ties have improved. China now opposes new sanctions, even as North Korea dramatically expanded its ballistic missile tests that are banned by the U.N. resolutions it once supported.

But there have been signs of trouble beneath the surface. For instance, Chinese leader Xi Jinping hasn’t met with Kim in over five years.

Meanwhile, Kim in September traveled to Russia’s far east, where he agreed to expand military cooperation with President Vladimir Putin. According to Kremlin officials, plans are underway for Putin to soon visit North Korea.

Putin now uses North Korean missiles and other weapons to wage war in Ukraine. In return, Putin may be aiding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, according to some U.S. officials, who have not provided evidence.

Some analysts say China may be uncomfortable if Russia is enabling a significant nuclear buildup on its border — which may explain some of the current tensions.

China may also be trying to show that it is not as close to North Korea – and to Russia – as some Western nations imply, according to Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London.

“Kim Jong Un would have been invited already – or would have essentially been dragged to China to meet Xi Jinping. And this hasn’t happened,” said Pacheco Pardo.

That stands in contrast to the past, when Xi went out of his way to demonstrate that he was the world leader with the closest relationship to Kim, Pacheco Pardo added.

North Korea’s actions this week suggest it has been emboldened by its cooperation with Russia and now wants to demonstrate some level of independence from Beijing, he said.

However, analysts have questioned whether Russia’s current level of support for North Korea will outlast its war in Ukraine.

While North Korea appears to be less reliant on China for now, Pacheco Pardo said, “in the future, it might be different.”
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Tensions between North Korea and China surfaced publicly this week for the first time in years. The apparent rift between the two allies emerged as North Korea’s attempt to launch a spy satellite interrupted a major diplomatic initiative by Beijing. VOA’s William Gallo has more from Seoul, South Korea. (Camera: William Gallo)
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Taipei, Taiwan — Hong Kong’s High Court found 14 prominent pro-democracy figures guilty of conspiracy to subvert state power Thursday, as diplomats, foreign media outlets, and civil society organizations closely followed the verdicts in the biggest trial since China imposed the controversial national security law on Hong Kong in 2020.

Ahead of Thursday’s verdicts, 16 defendants in the subversion case, which involves 47 prominent pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, had not pleaded guilty while 31 defendants had pleaded guilty in the hope of receiving more lenient sentences. In the end, two defendants were acquitted.

The verdicts come more than three years after police arrested the 47 prominent pro-democracy activists in a city-wide pre-raid at dawn for taking part in an unofficial primary election organized by the pro-democracy camp to select candidates running for the 2020 legislative council election.

They were later charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the national security law that China imposed on Hong Kong in 2020. Authorities accused the defendants of trying to topple the Hong Kong government but the defendants argued that they were only trying to secure a majority in the legislature and used the power to veto government budgets to force the city’s chief executive to resign.

Most defendants have been denied bail and have been in detention since the trial began in March 2021. While 31 defendants in the case, including prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, legal scholar Benny Tai, and former pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo, had already pleaded guilty, 16 of them didn’t plead guilty, including prominent journalist-turned-activist Gwyneth Ho and former lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung.

The prosecution of the 47 prominent figures has dealt a serious blow to the once-vibrant political activism in Hong Kong and dampened hopes of pursuing democracy in the city.

Some activists said Thursday’s verdicts didn’t come as a surprise.

“We have expected most defendants to be found guilty while maybe around two would be cleared of the charges because the government wants to offer an impression that they have considered all the evidence and handed down the verdicts in a fair manner,” Patrick Poon, a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo, told VOA by phone.

Some analysts say the verdicts Thursday show that it’s becoming extremely difficult and risky for Hong Kong’s civil society to organize activities similar to the unofficial primary. The verdicts show that “the use of peaceful means to pressure the Hong Kong government could become a criminal activity,” Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asi Law in the United States, told VOA by phone.

Due to the huge amount of attention on the case, Hong Kong authorities deployed heavy police presence to areas around the court. Despite that, dozens of people, including family members and friends of some defendants, lined up outside the court since early hours on Thursday.  

Several prominent activists, including veteran activist Alexandra Wong and members of the League of Social Democrats, one of the last remaining pro-democracy organizations in Hong Kong, staged brief protests near the court.

Diplomats from several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, and members of several foreign media outlets were also present at the scene.

While the court determined that the defendants were plotting a conspiracy to subvert state power through the unofficial primary, some participants in the primary said the pro-democracy camp was merely trying to “create some opportunities” to force the Hong Kong government to respond to some demands made by Hong Kong people during the months-long anti-government protest in 2019.

“I think it’s absurd for the government to accuse people who took part in the primary for trying to subvert state power when they were simply planning to exercise a legislative power protected under Hong Kong’s Basic Law,” Sunny Cheung, an associate fellow for China studies at the Jamestown Foundation and participant in the 2020 primary, told VOA by phone.

Given the prominence of the 47 defendants and the fact that they represent a wide swath of Hong Kong’s civil society, some observers say the Hong Kong government is warning the rest of the city not to engage in activities that would be deemed subversive in the future.

“Due to the prominence of these defendants, today’s verdicts will set a precedence for other national security cases in Hong Kong,” Maya Wang, the interim China director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA by phone.

Lai at Georgetown said the case of the 47 pro-democracy activists reflects the dramatic changes that Hong Kong’s civil society has undergone since Beijing imposed the national security law on the former British colony in 2020.

“The Hong Kong government has instrumentalized the courts to punish opposition forces, a method widely used by other autocratic regimes,” he told VOA, adding that authorities have imposed a new order on the city that forces the defense of human rights, the defense of the rule of law, and independent watchdogs to disappear.

According to data collected by the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, 286 individuals were arrested under the national security law and 156 have been charged under that law or a seditious law dating back to the British colonial era.

Following Thursday’s verdicts, the 45 defendants found guilty under the subversion charges must wait for their final sentences in custody. The maximum punishment they could face is life imprisonment.

While dozens of them, including Joshua Wong and Benny Tai, had pleaded guilty before Thursday’s verdicts, Poon in Tokyo said the new national security legislation that the Hong Kong government passed in March could prevent defendants who have pleaded guilty from receiving early releases from prison.

“I don’t expect the 45 defendants to receive short sentences and for some of the main defendants, I think they might be given really long sentences as a way for the government to create a chilling effect in Hong Kong’s civil society,” he told VOA. 
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — At least four people have been reported dead in a building collapse in the eastern province of Anhui, Chinese state media reported.

The western side of the five-story building collapsed about 1:40 p.m. Monday, the district government confirmed. And a section of the 10-unit apartment block in the city of Tongling, located in Datong township in the Jiaoqu district, fell onto its occupants.

That led to an hourslong search for survivors. A 12-year-old girl was found alive and was undergoing emergency treatment, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Cranes and backhoes were brought in to stabilize the parts of the building left standing.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the collapse, although the city has recently seen days of heavy rains that have inundated underground structures, CCTV said.

Poor construction quality and illegally built additions and modifications are becoming increasingly apparent as buildings erected quickly during the economic boom years of the 1980s and 1990s begin to age.
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Seoul, South Korea — Top leaders from South Korea, China and Japan discussed regional stability in their first meeting in five years on Monday, as they vowed to ramp up three-way cooperation.

The summit brought together South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Seoul for the countries’ first trilateral talks in nearly five years, partly due to the pandemic, but also once-sour ties.

While North Korea was not officially on the agenda for the talks, Kishida said after the meeting that the three countries confirmed that its denuclearization would be in their “common interest.”

Hours before the talks, North Korea announced that it planned to put another spy satellite into orbit imminently, which would violate rafts of U.N. sanctions barring it from tests using ballistic technology.

Yoon and Kishida urged Pyongyang to call off the launch, with the South Korean leader saying it would “undermine regional and global peace and stability.”

He also called for a “decisive” international response if Kim goes ahead with his fourth such launch — aided by what Seoul claims is Russian assistance in exchange for sending arms for use in Ukraine.

“We once again confirmed that North Korea’s denuclearization and stability on the Korean Peninsula are in the common interest of our three countries,” Kishida said after the meeting, with Yoon adding that the issue was a “shared responsibility and interest” for the trio.

Analysts say there is a significant technological overlap between space launch capabilities and the development of ballistic missiles.

China is North Korea’s largest trading partner and a key diplomatic ally, and it has long resisted condemning Pyongyang for its weapons tests, instead criticizing joint U.S.-South Korea drills for raising tension.

Chinese Premier Li said in his opening remarks that the three countries were willing “to seek mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation,” Xinhua reported.

“Li called for opposing turning economic and trade issues into political games or security matters, and rejecting protectionism as well as decoupling or the severing of supply chains,” the news agency said.

Yoon added that the three countries had “decided to create a transparent and predictable environment for trade and investment, and to establish a safe supply chain.”

Tilted diplomacy?

After their talks, Yoon, Li and Kishida joined a business summit aimed at boosting trade between the countries, which was also attended by top industry leaders.

Experts have warned that, due to the three countries’ starkly divergent positions on key issues including Pyongyang’s nuclear threats and growing ties with Russia, it is tricky for them to form a consensus on sensitive geopolitical issues.

Yoon, who took office in 2022, has sought to bury the historical hatchet with former colonial power Japan in the face of rising threats from nuclear-armed North Korea.

South Korea and Japan are key regional security allies of China’s arch-rival the United States but are eager to improve trade and ease tensions with Beijing, experts say.

After their talks, the three leaders said they had decided to ramp up three-way cooperation, including holding summits more regularly.

“The trilateral cooperation system should be strengthened. We have decided to hold trilateral summits on a regular basis,” Yoon said.

President Xi Jinping is China’s top leader, with Li serving under him as premier.

Nuclear-armed North Korea successfully launched its first reconnaissance satellite last November in a move that drew international condemnation, with the United States calling it a “brazen violation” of UN sanctions.

Seoul said on Friday that South Korean and US intelligence authorities were “closely monitoring and tracking” presumed preparations for the launch of another military reconnaissance satellite — which could come as early as Monday, according to the launch window Pyongyang gave to Tokyo.

“North Korea, China, and Russia have effectively claimed that launching reconnaissance satellites does not breach U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Pyongyang,” Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.

“However, considering China’s involvement, it appears the North will likely hold off on any launches during the trilateral meeting, convened after a significant break, in deference to Beijing’s stance.” 
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Taipei, Taiwan — A bipartisan congressional delegation from the United States met Taiwan’s new president in Taipei Monday, and reiterated Washington’s strong support for the democratic island. 

During the meeting with the U.S. delegation Lai Ching-te, who took office on May 20, promised to keep pushing for defense reform in Taiwan and show the world that “Taiwanese people are determined to defend their homeland.” 

He hopes that “the U.S. Congress will continue to help strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities and increase exchanges and cooperation between Taiwan and the U.S. through a variety of legislative actions.” 

At a news briefing following the meeting with Lai, Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the U.S. remains committed to supporting Taiwan’s efforts to strengthen its defense capabilities as China increases military pressure on the island. 

“We will support you, and we will get the weapons you purchased to you as soon as possible,” he told dozens of journalists, adding that strength and deterrence are key to ensuring the Taiwan Strait remains peaceful and prosperous. 

The visit comes three days after the Chinese military staged a two-day, large-scale military exercise encircling Taiwan. Describing the Chinese war game around Taiwan as “an intimidation tactic to punish democracy,” McCaul said there is more urgency to ensure Taiwan receives the weapons that it has bought from the United States. 

“We are moving forward on [the delivery] of these weapons systems, but I’d like to see it faster,” he said during the news conference, noting that the $95 billion foreign aid package that the U.S. passed last month, which includes a $8 billion package for the Indo-Pacific region and Taiwan, is a sign of Washington’s support for Taiwan. 

While he promises to help accelerate the pace of weapons delivery to Taiwan, McCaul admitted that the backlog of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which is about $19 billion, is partially caused by the limited military industrial capacity in the U.S. 

“We have to wait a period of two to five years for the weapons to go into the country and that is way too long,” he said, vowing to push U.S. defense contractors and the Biden administration to address the issue. 

Since China focused on simulating a maritime blockade around Taiwan through its latest military exercise, McCaul said Taipei and Washington should focus on helping the island acquire more maritime assets to deal with a potential Chinese attack. 

“What they did the last couple of days was essentially a preview of what a blockade would look like [and] by looking at what type of military assets would likely help deter Beijing from [imposing] a blockade around Taiwan, my view is that maritime assets are key here,” he told journalists. 

Bipartisan support for Taiwan 

Some analysts say the U.S. Congressional delegation’s visit shows that the support for Taiwan in Washington is consistent and bipartisan. “There have been many U.S. congressional delegations in Taiwan over the last few years and one feature to highlight is that all these delegations are bipartisan,” Chen Fang-yu, a political scientist at Soochow University in Taiwan, told VOA by phone. 

Despite the stern warning from Beijing, other experts say the visit shows both Taipei and Beijing that the U.S. is committed to deepening ties with Taiwan. “The delegation sends a message that the United States is not afraid of angering China by maintaining its engagement with Taiwan,” said Li Da-Jung, director of the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Taiwan’s Tamkang University. 

Since the delegation will spend four days in Taiwan, Li thinks it could give U.S. lawmakers more opportunities to meet more Taiwanese officials and visit specific places of their interests. “I believe the delegation will meet Taiwanese officials in charge of national security and cross-strait relations,” he told VOA by phone. 

In addition to military sales and weapons delivery, Chen said the U.S. delegation will likely discuss topics related to bilateral trade relations and Taiwan’s divided legislature. 

“I believe the U.S. lawmakers will try to talk about the ongoing trade negotiation between Taipei and Washington and the potential impact of Taiwan’s divided legislature on Taiwan’s defense and foreign policies when they meet Lai and other Taiwanese officials,” he told VOA. 

Earlier this month, Taiwan and the U.S. held a new round of trade negotiations focusing on potential cooperation in areas such as labor, environmental protection, and agriculture. Taiwan’s deputy trade representative Yang Jen-ni said Taipei hopes to increase the volume of Taiwanese agricultural exports to the U.S. through the trade talks. 

As Taiwan’s new government looks to deepen ties with the U.S., the Chinese government has repeatedly warned Washington not to use the democratic island, which Beijing views as its territory, to contain China. 

“China firmly opposes official interaction in any form between Taiwan and the United States and opposes U.S. interference in Taiwan affairs in any form or under any pretext,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during the daily news conference on May 21. 

Since relations between Taiwan and China are unlikely to improve in the short term, Li at Tamkang University said the Lai administration may try to double down on Taipei’s relations with like-minded democracies around the world, especially the U.S. 

“At a time when there is very little room to improve cross-strait relations, Lai may consider putting the focus of his foreign policy agenda on the U.S. and rely more on Washington’s support for Taipei,” he told VOA. 
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Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwan President Lai Ching-te extended goodwill toward and offered cooperation with China on Sunday following two days of Chinese war games near the island, as a group of U.S. lawmakers arrived in Taipei.

China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, carried out the military drills Thursday and Friday, calling them “punishment” after Lai’s inauguration speech on Monday which Beijing called another push for the island’s formal independence.

China has repeatedly lambasted Lai as a “separatist.” Lai rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. He has repeatedly offered talks but been rebuffed.

Speaking at a meeting of his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the southern city of Tainan, Lai called on China to “share the heavy responsibility of regional stability with Taiwan,” according to comments provided by his party.

Lai, who won election in January, said he also “looked forward to enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation with China via exchanges and cooperation, creating mutual benefit and moving towards a position of peace and common prosperity.”

He thanked the United States and other countries for their expressions of concern about the Chinese exercises.

“The international community will not accept any country creating waves in the Taiwan Strait and affecting regional stability,” Lai added.

The first group of U.S. lawmakers to visit Taiwan since Lai took office arrived on the island Sunday for a four-day visit, led by Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

McCaul, joined by a bipartisan group of five other lawmakers, will meet Lai on Monday morning to “exchange views on peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” Taiwan’s presidential office said.

“Taiwan is a thriving democracy. The U.S. will continue to stand by our steadfast partner and work to maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait,” McCaul said in a statement.

Taiwan’s government has condemned China’s war games.

Over the past four years, China has staged regular military activities around Taiwan as it seeks to pressure the island’s government.

On Sunday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said the garrison on Erdan islet, part of the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands that sit next to China’s Xiamen and Quanzhou cities, had discovered a “crude” cardboard box containing paper with political slogans on it, written in the simplified Chinese characters used in China.

The ministry said the box was suspected of being dropped by a drone outside the line of sight, adding, “It is a typical cognitive operation trick.”

In 2022, Taiwan shot down a drone off Kinmen after complaining of days of harassment.

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

China’s military has kept up a barrage of propaganda videos and animations directed at Taiwan since the exercises began.

Its Eastern Theater Command, which ran the drills, showed a video Sunday of rockets firing in what it referred to in English as “cross-strait lethality.”
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HONOLULU, HAWAII — A former CIA officer and contract linguist for the FBI accused of spying for China for at least a decade pleaded guilty Friday in a federal courtroom in Honolulu.

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 72, has been in custody since his arrest in August 2020. The U.S. Justice Department said in a court filing it amassed “a war chest of damning evidence” against him, including an hourlong video of Ma and an older relative — also a former CIA officer — providing classified information to intelligence officers with China’s Ministry of State Security in 2001.

The video shows Ma counting the $50,000 received from the Chinese agents for his service, prosecutors said.

During a sting operation, he accepted thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for past espionage activities, and he told an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese intelligence officer that he wanted to see the “motherland” succeed, prosecutors said.

The secrets he was accused of providing included information about CIA sources and assets, international operations, secure communication practices and operational tradecraft, the charging documents said.

As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Ma pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to gather or deliver national defense information to a foreign government. The deal calls for a 10-year sentence, but a judge will have the final say at Ma’s sentencing, which is scheduled for September 11. Without the deal, he faced life in prison.

Ma was born in Hong Kong, moved to Honolulu in 1968 and became a U.S. citizen in 1975. He joined the CIA in 1982, was assigned overseas the following year and resigned in 1989. He held a top-secret security clearance, according to court documents.

Ma lived and worked in Shanghai, China, before returning to Hawaii in 2001. He was hired as a contract linguist in the FBI’s Honolulu field office in 2004, and prosecutors say that over the following six years, he regularly copied, photographed and stole classified documents. He often took them on trips to China, returning with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts, such as a new set of golf clubs, prosecutors said.

In court Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson revealed that Ma’s hiring as a part-time contract linguist was a “ruse” to monitor his contact with Chinese intelligence officers.

The FBI had been aware of Ma’s ties with the intelligence officers and “made the determination to notionally hire the defendant to work at an FBI off-site location in Honolulu,” the plea agreement said.

In 2006, while Ma was living in Hawaii, Chinese intelligence officers sent him photos of people they were interested in, Sorenson said, and Ma contacted the co-conspirator relative and persuaded him to reveal at least two of the identities.

Ma, in pleading guilty, said everything Sorenson described is true. Ma said he had signed nondisclosure agreements that he knew would be in effect even after leaving the CIA and that he knew the information he was providing to the Chinese intelligence officials could harm the United States or help a foreign nation.

In 2021, Ma’s former defense attorney told a judge Ma believed he was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and was having trouble remembering things.

A defense motion noted that Ma’s older brother developed Alzheimer’s 10 years prior and was completely disabled by the disease. The brother is referred to as the co-conspirator in the indictment against Ma, but prosecutors didn’t charge him because of his incompetency due to Alzheimer’s, the motion said.

The co-conspirator is now dead, Sorenson said in court Friday.

Last year a judge found Ma competent and to not be suffering from a major mental disease, disorder or defect.

Ma’s plea agreement with prosecutors also says he will “provide more detailed facts relating to this case during debriefings with Government representatives,” and submit to polygraph examinations.

“The defendant understands and agrees that his cooperation obligation represents a lifetime commitment by the defendant to the United States to cooperate as described in this agreement,” the court document said.
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Beijing — China has ended two days of military drills around Taiwan that saw jets loaded with live munitions and warships practice seizing and isolating the self-ruled island.

The exercises simulated strikes targeting Taiwan’s leaders as well as its ports and airports to “cut off the island’s ‘blood vessels,'” Chinese military analysts told state media.

Beijing considers the democratic island part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring it under its control.

The war games kicked off Thursday morning, as aircraft and naval vessels surrounded Taiwan to conduct mock attacks against “important targets,” state broadcaster CCTV said.

Codenamed “Joint Sword-2024A,” the exercises were launched three days after Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te took office and made an inauguration speech that China denounced as a “confession of independence.”

Beijing’s defense ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said Friday that Lai was pushing Taiwan “into a perilous situation of war and danger.”

“Every time ‘Taiwan independence’ provokes us, we will push our countermeasures one step further, until the complete reunification of the motherland is achieved,” he said.

Taiwan has been self-governed since 1949, when nationalists fled to the island following their defeat by the Chinese Communist Party in a civil war on the mainland.

The drills are part of an escalating campaign of intimidation by China that has seen it carry out a series of large-scale military exercises around Taiwan in recent years.

Beijing has also amped up its rhetoric, with its foreign ministry Thursday using language more typical of China’s propaganda outlets.

“Taiwan independence forces will be left with their heads broken and blood flowing after colliding against the great… trend of China achieving complete unification,” spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters.

On Saturday, Taiwan’s presidency said the public could be assured it had “a full grasp of the situation and appropriate responses to ensure national security.”

“China’s recent unilateral provocation not only undermines the status quo of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait but it is also a blatant provocation to the international order,” Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo said.

‘Closer than ever’

A total of 111 Chinese aircraft and dozens of naval vessels took part in the drills over two days, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry.

On Friday evening, China’s army published images of the drills’ “highlights,” featuring missile-launching trucks ready to fire, fighter jets taking off and naval officers looking through binoculars at Taiwanese ships.

Meng Xiangqing, a professor from Beijing-based National Defense University, told state news agency Xinhua that People’s Liberation Army vessels “were getting closer to the island than ever before.”

Beijing launched similar exercises in August and April last year after Taiwanese leaders visited the United States.

China also launched major military exercises in 2022 after Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan.

The scale of the most recent drills was “significant, but is nowhere near as big, it seems, as last August’s,” Wen-Ti Sung, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told AFP.

Sung and other analysts told AFP that the geographic scope of the exercises had increased, with a new focus on isolating Taiwan’s outlying islands.

The drills took place in the Taiwan Strait and to the north, south and east of the island, as well as areas around the Taipei-administered islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin.

Tong Zhen, an expert from the Academy of Military Sciences, told Xinhua the drills “mainly targeted the ringleaders and political center of ‘Taiwan independence,’ and involved simulated precision strikes on key political and military targets.”

Calls for restraint

The dispute has long made the Taiwan Strait one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints.

The United Nations called for all sides to avoid escalation.

The United States, Taiwan’s strongest partner and military backer, on Thursday “strongly” urged China to act with restraint.

The Pentagon announced Friday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would meet his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun at the end of the month at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of defense officials from around the world.

“Beijing is trying to use this very high-profile show of force to not only show displeasure against Taiwan, but also… to deter and dissuade other countries and partners from contemplating further cooperation or engagement of Taiwan,” said the Atlantic Council’s Sung.

“That furthers isolation of Taiwan, which allows Beijing to negotiate with Taiwan going forward from a position of strength.”

Chinese military analyst Meng noted that the drills to the east — considered by the PLA the most likely direction from which external intervention could come — was designed to reinforce that message.

“’Taiwan independence’ separatists have long considered the island’s eastern direction to be their backyard and ‘shelter,’ but the drills have shown that we can control that eastern area,” Meng told Xinhua.
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washington — China promotes its help to Southeast Asian countries in modernizing their digital landscapes through investments in infrastructure as part of its “Digital Silk Road.” But rights groups say Beijing is also exporting its model of authoritarian governance of the internet through censorship, surveillance and controls.

China’s state media this week announced Chinese electrical appliance manufacturer Midea Group jointly built its first overseas 5G factory in Thailand with Thai mobile operator AIS, Chinese telecom service provider China Unicom and tech giant Huawei.

The 208,000-square-meter smart factory will have its own 5G network, Xinhua news agency reported.

Earlier this month, Beijing reached an agreement with Cambodia to establish a Digital Law Library of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Inter-Parliamentary Assembly. Cambodia’s Khmer Times said the objective is to “expand all-round cooperation in line with the strategic partnership and building a common destiny community.”

But parallel to China’s state media-promoted technology investments, rights groups say Beijing is also helping countries in the region to build what they call “digital authoritarian governance.”

Article 19, an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting freedom of expression globally and named after Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in an April report said the purpose of the Digital Silk Road is not solely to promote China’s technology industry. The report, China: The rise of digital repression in the Indo-Pacific, says Beijing is also using its technology to reshape the region’s standards of digital freedom and governance to increasingly match its own.

VOA contacted the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. for a response but did not receive one by the time of publication.

Model of digital governance

Looking at case studies of Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand, the Article 19 report says Beijing is spreading China’s model of digital governance along with Chinese technology and investments from companies such as Huawei, ZTE and Alibaba.

Michael Caster, Asia digital program manager with Article 19, told VOA, “China has been successful at providing a needed service, in the delivery of digital development toward greater connectivity, but also in making digital development synonymous with the adoption of PRC [People’s Republic of China]-style digital governance, which is at odds with international human rights and internet freedom principles, by instead promoting notions of total state control through censorship and surveillance, and digital sovereignty away from universal norms.”

The group says in Thailand, home to the world’s largest overseas Chinese community, agreements with China bolstered internet controls imposed after Thailand’s 2014 coup, and it notes that Bangkok has since been considering a China-style Great Firewall, the censorship mechanism Beijing uses to control online content.

In Nepal, the report notes security and intelligence-sharing agreements with China and concerns that Chinese security camera technology is being used to surveil exiled Tibetans, the largest such group outside India.

The group says Malaysia’s approach to information infrastructure appears to increasingly resemble China’s model, citing Kuala Lumpur’s cybersecurity law passed in April and its partnering with Chinese companies whose technology has been used for repressing minorities inside China.

Most significantly, Article 19 says China is involved at “all levels” of Cambodia’s digital ecosystem. Huawei, which is facing increasing bans in Western nations over cybersecurity concerns, has a monopoly on cloud services in Cambodia.

While Chinese companies say they would not hand over private data to Beijing, experts doubt they would have any choice because of national security laws.

Internet gateway

Phnom Penh announced a decree in 2021 to build a National Internet Gateway similar to China’s Great Firewall, restricting the Cambodian people’s access to Western media and social networking sites.

“That we have seen the normalization of a China-style Great Firewall in some of the countries where China’s influence is most pronounced or its digital development support strongest, such as with Cambodia, is no coincidence,” Caster said.

The Cambodian government says the portal will strengthen national security and help combat tax fraud and cybercrime. But the Internet Society, a U.S.- and Switzerland-based nonprofit internet freedom group, says it would allow the government to monitor individual internet use and transactions, and to trace identities and locations.

Kian Vesteinsson, a senior researcher for technology and democracy with rights group Freedom House, told VOA, “The Chinese Communist Party and companies that are aligned with the Chinese state have led a charge internationally to push for internet fragmentation. And when I say internet fragmentation, I mean these efforts to carve out domestic internets that are isolated from global internet traffic.”

Despite Chinese support and investment, Vesteinsson notes that Cambodia has not yet implemented the plan for a government-controlled internet.

“Building the Chinese model of digital authoritarianism into a country’s internet infrastructure is extraordinarily difficult. It’s expensive. It requires technical capacity. It requires state capacity, and all signs point to the Cambodian government struggling on those fronts.”

Vesteinsson says while civil society and foreign political pressure play a role, business concerns are also relevant as requirements to censor online speech or spy on users create costs for the private sector.

“These governments that are trying to cultivate e-commerce should keep in mind that a legal environment that is free from these obligations to do censorship and surveillance will be more appealing to companies that are evaluating whether to start up domestic operations,” he said.

Article 19’s Caster says countries concerned about China’s authoritarian internet model spreading should do more to support connectivity and internet development worldwide.

“This support should be based on human rights law and internet freedom principles,” he said, “to prevent China from exploiting internet development needs to position its services – and often by extension its authoritarian model – as the most accessible option.”

China will hold its annual internet conference in Beijing July 9-11. China’s Xinhua news agency reports this year’s conference will discuss artificial intelligence, digital government, information technology application innovation, data security and international cooperation.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Private land in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard is being auctioned off by its owner, with strong interest from Chinese buyers, according to a lawyer responsible for the auction. Such a sale would likely cause geopolitical headaches for Norway and NATO because of Svalbard’s strategic location in the Arctic Ocean. Henry Wilkins has more.
Camera: Henry Wilkins
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As a new president takes office in Taiwan, the island’s residents have mixed views on how well the new administration will handle Taipei’s relationship with Beijing. VOA’s William Yang reports from Taipei. Camera: William Yang.
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LONDON — Chinese President Xi Jinping is not known for public displays of affection.

So Xi’s double embrace of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, last week — broadcast by Chinese and Russian state television — was widely seen as a calculated signal to the world of a blossoming personal and geopolitical relationship.

Putin’s visit to China underlined burgeoning economic ties between Moscow and Beijing as the two countries signed a series of agreements aimed at forging closer cooperation, even as the West tries to isolate Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine.

Personal warmth

The show of personal warmth was matched by a series of lavish state ceremonies, ostensibly marking the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

“It is a shared strategic choice of both countries to deepen strategic cooperation, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and follow the general historical trend of multipolarity in the world and economic globalization,” Xi told Putin during the talks in Beijing on May 16.

Putin praised increased bilateral trade between Russia and China, which had, he said, reached an annual $240 billion — and touted his ambitions to sell more oil and gas to Beijing.

“Russia is ready and capable of uninterruptedly and reliably supplying the Chinese economy, enterprises, cities, towns with environmentally friendly, affordable energy, light and heat,” Putin said following a visit to the northern Chinese city of Harbin.

Deepened cooperation

The Russian leader’s visit to China achieved its aims, according to Liana Fix of the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.

“(Coming) shortly after Putin’s inauguration, it had a legitimizing effect for his fifth term as president on the international stage, demonstrating that even if the West does not accept his elections as free and fair, China sees him as the legitimate leader.

“Second, it served the purpose of deepening defense cooperation between these two countries, especially by circumventing U.S. sanctions on Chinese financial institutions for financing Russia‘s war effort, and by facilitating further Chinese deliveries to Russia‘s war machine,” Fix told VOA in an email.

European snub

Putin’s visit to China came days after Xi traveled to Europe, where EU leaders tried to persuade him to end support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It’s clear they failed, said analyst Velina Tchakarova, founder of the FACE geopolitical consultancy.

“China provides the main lifeline for Russia. But China also practically set the stage for Russia to not get internationally isolated. Russia officially has announced that it’s going in the direction of a long war that it wants to win, and here we see clearly that China is taking the side of Russia,” Tchakarova told VOA.

That alliance — what Tchakarova calls the “DragonBear” — has ramifications beyond Ukraine.

“These kind of wars, as the one being waged right now in Europe [in Ukraine], and similarly the one in the Middle East [between Israel and Hamas], and obviously also the military tensions in the Indo-Pacific — these are hotspots, military conflicts and wars that are to be seen in this context of emerging ‘Cold War 2.0’ between the United States on the one hand, and China and Russia, or the ‘DragonBear’ on the other,” Tchakarova told VOA.

Democratic threat

Xi and Putin are united by geopolitical aims, and their autocratic ideals threaten democratic societies, according to author Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine.

“What they have in common is their dislike of the democratic world, their dislike of democratic language, and the ideals of freedom and justice and rule of law and transparency,” Applebaum said. “And they are willing to join together to fight against them. It’s a full-on central challenge from the autocratic world to them, and it’s attacking both their citizens and their allies around the world, and we need to face it.”

Unbalanced relations

The relationship is tilted heavily in China’s favor, Applebaum said.

“They may have an interest in weakening Russia. A weaker Russia has to sell them oil and gas at lower prices. A weaker Russia is a more pliable ally, is a weaker player on the stage. And maybe they’re hoping for that. It’s pretty clear already that Russia is the junior partner in this alliance, which isn’t something that we would have thought possible a couple of decades ago,” she told VOA.

Putin is due to host Xi at the October BRICS summit in Russia, as both countries seek to galvanize global support for their vision of Beijing and Moscow as major players in a new, multipolar world.

VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China last week underlined the burgeoning economic and geopolitical ties between Moscow and Beijing, amid Russia’s war on Ukraine. But as Henry Ridgwell reports, analysts say China could seek to exploit its relationship with a weakened and isolated Russia.
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