China and Russia sought greater international clout at a summit yesterday, with China promising US$10 billion in loans to Central Asian countries and Russia challenging the US dollar’s dominance as a global reserve currency.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said Beijing would offer the loans to several countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to help them through the global financial crisis.
The move, announced at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, adds muscle to China’s role in the group, which Moscow and Beijing use to counter Western influence in Central Asia.
The leaders of Afghanistan, Iran, India and Pakistan were also at the table, underscoring Russia and China’s reach for broader global influence. The Shanghai group members released a summit declaration saying that global “multi-polarity is irreversible,” a reference to their opposition to perceived US domination in international affairs.
Russia gave a prominent platform to newly re-elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a show of support for a leader facing major protests at home.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sought to further raise his country’s leverage in geopolitical issues by separately meeting with Afghan and Pakistani leaders late on Monday to discuss the stabilization of Afghanistan.
Medvedev said Russia offered help in carrying out joint transport, energy and other economic projects in the region to help eradicate poverty and remove feeding grounds for terrorism.
Russia also signaled its intention to offer stronger assistance to the US-led efforts in Afghanistan.
At the same time, Medvedev pushed against US domination of financial markets by calling for new global reserve currencies to complement the dollar.
“No currency system can be successful if we have financial instruments denominated in just one currency,” he said. “We must strengthen the international financial system not only by making the dollar strong, but also by creating other reserve currencies.”
Medvedev said new currencies will take a long time to emerge, but emphasized that the world will feel the growing need to hedge financial risks.
“The main reserve currency, the dollar, has failed to serve its purpose,” he said.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS