China called off a visit by two Australian politicians after it took offense to a letter that called on it to address allegations of human right abuses, two sources familiar with the planned tour told reporters yesterday.
The members of parliament, one from the ruling coalition government and one from the opposition Labor Party, were scheduled to visit as part a parliamentary investigation into a rising tide of synthetic drugs trafficked from southern China.
However, after the receipt of a letter from 11 countries — including Australia, Canada and Japan — calling on Beijing to investigate allegations of torture against human rights lawyers, the tour was canceled, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
“They were told from Beijing that their visit could not be accommodated, and following advice from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the tour was canceled,” one source said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) administration has tightened control over almost every aspect of civil society since 2012, citing the need to buttress national security and stability.
During that time, China has detained or questioned hundreds of human rights lawyers and other government critics, international rights groups have said.
It routinely accuses rights lawyers of collaborating with “foreign hostile forces” to undermine state power.
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop was last week forced to hold an emergency meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Australia to head off any possible diplomatic fallout after Canberra failed to ratify an extradition treaty with China.
The failure was a rare dent to Sino-Australia relations, which have improved in recent months, culminating in a spate of trade agreements signed last month following a visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強).
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion