World News by Wild Rose

China’s cooperation with the Pacific islands is not part of a geopolitical competition, top diplomat Wang Yi told a delegation of politicians from the region on Friday. The comments come as Beijing and Washington vie for influence in the South Pacific. “China’s engagement with Pacific island countries is a form of South-South cooperation based on mutual assistance and support,” Wang said, according to a statement from the Communist Party’s International Department. “This cooperation does not...

The Philippines is “resigned” to managing its long-standing dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea and avoiding dangerous escalations, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said on Thursday. At the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore, Marcos said: “I don’t know if we can find a resolution to the problem, but we are resigned to just being able to manage the problem, so that we do not have mistakes, we do not have misinterpretations. “My greatest fear is that some seaman, some soldier, just...

Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington in September was steeped in pageantry. The Chinese president received two 21-gun salutes in three days, watched a flyover by the powerful B-2 stealth bomber, and viewed the founding documents of American democracy at the National Archives. US President Donald Trump called his summit with Xi a “great meeting” and rated it a “12 out of 10”. Xi was also positive, saying “everything is done to the highest order of perfection, and there is thought in every...

A reported plan to station US defence personnel inside Taiwan’s military headquarters would take cooperation from external help into the heart of defence planning, potentially angering Beijing while raising questions over Taipei’s policymaking autonomy and military secrecy. According to Taiwanese media reports at the weekend, the Pentagon plans to send one official from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy and one expert from the Institute for Defence Analyses (IDA) to work on...

Taipei’s dilemma over its history during World War II appeared to deepen as Beijing and Washington looked to the Flying Tigers as a source of connection and goodwill during last month’s Xi–Trump summit. US President Donald Trump’s description of China as an American ally during the war has raised concerns in Taiwan that what could have been a valuable historical connection with the United States ended up benefiting Beijing’s ties with Washington. The dilemma resurfaced after Trump and Chinese...

As Beijing and Washington take tentative steps to keep a military crisis from erupting, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is reshaping the top ranks of the American military while facing questions about his own future at the Pentagon. Hegseth told junior officers and sergeants on Wednesday that the military had already cut its generals and admirals by 10 per cent and planned to cut another 10 per cent. He called the 20 per cent reduction the bare minimum, dismissing critics who called the...

Warmth on display in Washington contrasts significantly with the language Trump has used to characterise Beijing and Xi.

Brunei’s measured defence ties with Beijing reflect its low-key approach to South China Sea disputes, with analysts saying that goals such as peacekeeping offer the safest room for both sides to maintain diplomacy. A meeting between Bruneian and Chinese defence officials in Beijing last week, when both nations pledged closer practical cooperation and support for regional stability, underscored that tact. But observers also expect ties to remain modest, constrained by maritime claims and Bandar...

A formal peace deal between Beijing and Taipei should be signed to build trust before discussions on post-reunification political arrangements, a prominent Taiwanese political scientist has argued at a security conference in Beijing. Chang Ya-chung, who heads the Taiwan-based Sun Yat-sen School advocacy group, said the “one country, two systems” formula, which has been applied to Hong Kong and Macau, had so far failed to resonate in Taiwanese society. “If reunification means that one side, with...

Beijing has hailed a “one country, two systems” proposal by a Taiwanese scholar in a rare official statement on an issue regarded as politically sensitive on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. “We are pleased to see that more and more Taiwan compatriots are facing up to reunification, beginning to understand and discuss the specific content of a one country, two systems plan for Taiwan, and offering suggestions and proposals for such a plan through various means,” Chen Binhua, a spokesman for...

Rising tensions over artificial intelligence are shaping the final preparations for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States. Washington and Beijing are discussing the possibility of folding a long-awaited AI dialogue into a broader economic meeting in the days before Xi meets US President Donald Trump, according to several people familiar with the arrangements. The two leaders agreed in Beijing in May to launch an intergovernmental dialogue on AI. For months, that channel was...