The leaders of the Quad group – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – have delivered a thinly veiled swipe at #Beijing’s behaviour at a summit in Hiroshima. aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/20…
US President Joe Biden and his three partners in the group did not mention China by name on Saturday but the superpower was clearly the target of language in a joint statement calling for “peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain”.
“We strongly oppose destabilising or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,” the statement said.
“We express serious concern at the militarisation of disputed features, the dangerous use of coastguard and maritime militia vessels, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities,” the statement added, ...
... clearly referring to Chinese construction of bases on former offshore reefs and harassment of non-Chinese vessels in disputed waters.
In their statement, they stressed the Quad’s support for infrastructure improvements across the vast Asia-Pacific region, while saying, in another apparent dig at China, ...
... that they wanted to assist such investments but would “not impose unsustainable debt burdens” on recipients of assistance.
Among the projects the Quad leaders highlighted was the “urgent need to support quality undersea cable networks in the Indo-Pacific, which are key to global growth and prosperity”.
They announced a partnership aiming to draw on their countries’ expertise in the specialist maritime cable sector.
They also said that an existing pilot programme for high-tech monitoring of illegal fishing would expand.
And they said they were “deeply concerned” by repression in Myanmar, and they condemned “North Korea’s destabilising ballistic missile launches and pursuit of nuclear weapons in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions”.
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US semiconductor giant Micron has failed a national security review, #China's cybersecurity watchdog said on Sunday (May 21), telling operators of "critical information infrastructure" to stop buying its products. channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-say…
It marked the latest escalation in the bitter chip war between the United States and China, with Washington looking to cut off Beijing's access to cutting-edge semiconductors.
Micron's products "have relatively serious potential network security issues, which pose a major security risk to China's critical information infrastructure supply chain and affect China's national security", the cybersecurity administration (CAC) said in a statement.
My latest from #G7HiroshimaSummit: Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy took center stage on the last day of the G7 summit in Japan as leaders committed to unified approach to tackling Russia and #China. dw.com/en/g7-ukraine-…
Although Ukraine isn't one of the G7 member states, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stole much of the limelight on the final day of the three-day summit held in the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
During a speech at the Hiroshima Memorial Park, Zelenskyy, wearing a black shirt rather than the sleek suit of other world leaders present here, reiterated how important…
When asked about whether he is disappointed that he didn’t meet Brazilian President Lula, Ukrainian President @ZelenskyyUa said Lula should be disappointed.
He said the ruined image of Hiroshima reminded him of #Bakhmut. He said the symbolism is that Hiroshima today is alive and he said there will be reconstruction for Ukraine to return to a similar state like how Hiroshima is now.
He talked about the images he saw in the museum and he said they are similar to what Russia had done to Ukraine.
"This year in #China there have already been at least 130 factory strikes, more than triple the number in the whole of 2022, according to data compiled by @chinalabour." theguardian.com/world/2023/may…
"The CLB’s database is far from comprehensive – by its own estimate, it captures about 5%-10% of all incidents of collective action in China.
But in the absence of any official statistics, the CLB provides a snapshot of the disputes and negotiations that are happening across the country."
UK Prime Minister @RishiSunak said #China poses the biggest challenge to global security and prosperity of our age with the “means and intent to reshape the world order." theguardian.com/world/2023/may…
The UK prime minister said G7 leaders including Japan, the US, Canada and European nations had shown “unity and resolve” in confronting the problems posed by Beijing.
However, Sunak went further than the summit statement in outlining the threat that China poses to the world, appearing to rank it even higher than Russia as a global security threat.
Clinton warned that re-electing Donald Trump in 2024 would “spell the end of democracy” in the US and the “end of Ukraine”.
She described Putin as a “complicated, Messianic, narcissistic authoritarian”. The Russian leader had believed that if Trump won the 2020 presidential election he would have pulled the US out of Nato, she added.