China is waging an aggressive campaign of seduction in the Caribbean, wooing countries away from relationships with rival Taiwan, opening markets for its expanding economy, promising to send tourists and shipping police to Haiti in the first communist deployment in the Western Hemisphere. \nAnd the US, China's Cold War enemy, is benignly watching the Asian economic superpower move into its backyard. \nFor decades China and Taiwan used dollar diplomacy to win over Caribbean nations with limited budgets where small projects building roads, bridges, wells and fisheries went a long way. \nBut Beijing's growing economic clout is tipping the scales in the region. Caribbean trade with China reached US$2 billion last year, a 42.5 percent increase from 2003, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported. \nThe US has applauded China's economic offensive, seeing it as a herald of political reform. \n"China's intensified interest in the Western Hemisphere does not imply a lack of focus by the United States," Roger Noriega, the US assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in a recent letter to the editor of New Jersey's Newark Star Ledger. \n"The US has long stood for expansion of global trade and consolidating democracy," he said. \nThis year, two Caribbean countries -- Dominica and Grenada -- switched allegiance to China, abandoning Taiwan, which China calls "a renegade province." \nThough democratic Taiwan is self-governing, communist Beijing insists the island is part of China. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing has since refused to have ties with any government that recognizes Taiwan. \n"Democratic, market-oriented Taiwan is a thorn in its side," said Steve Johnson, senior policy analyst at the conservative Washington, DC-based Heritage Foundation. \nTwo weeks before Dominica changed sides, Taiwan gave it US$9 million. China promised Dominica US$112 million over the next six years. \n"China is not only increasing its influence in the Caribbean, the region is opening up to China, realizing that Taiwan's money diplomacy is not working anymore," Guyana's Foreign Minister Clement Rohee said. \nThe Bahamas was one of the first in the region to abandon Taiwan, in 1997. The move came as Hutchisom Whampoa, a Beijing-allied Hong Kong company, opened a US$114 million container port in Freeport and bought three hotel resorts in Nassau. Since then, China has earmarked more than US$1 billion for projects ranging from maritime transport to a sports complex.
RE-EDUCATION: The ambassador to Australia told reporters that he understood there ‘might be a process for the people in Taiwan to have a correct understanding of China’ China’s ambassador to Australia yesterday said that Beijing is prepared to use “all necessary means” to prevent Taiwan from being independent, saying there can be “no compromise” on its “one China” principle. Chinese Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian (肖千) repeatedly told the National Press Club in Canberra that the US was to blame for the recent escalation in tensions, adding that China’s decision to launch ballistic missiles in live-fire exercises in response to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was “legitimate and justified.” Xiao said that after a “good start” with the new government of Australian Prime Minister
PROPAGANDA LEAFLETS: Seoul voiced ‘strong regret’ as Kim’s sister threatened to eradicate South Korean authorities for sending the virus across the border North Korean leader Kim Jong-un suffered from a “high fever” during a recent COVID-19 outbreak, his sister Kim Yo-jong said yesterday, as she vowed to “eradicate” South Korean authorities if they continued to tolerate propaganda leaflets the regime blames for spreading the virus. Kim Yo-jong blamed “South Korean puppets” for sending “dirty objects” across the border in leaflets carried by balloons, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. The revelation of her brother’s illness marked an unusual admission for a regime that rarely comments on the leader’s health — and then only to show that he shares the struggles of
Newly married and with his first child on the way, auto worker Wang (王) wanted to move into the apartment he bought in Wuhan three years ago, but those hopes were dashed by China’s ballooning property crisis. Saddled with nearly US$300,000 in debt and with his unit nowhere near completion, the 34-year-old decided he had enough and stopped making mortgage payments. He is among numerous home buyers across dozens of cities in China who have boycotted payments over fears that their properties will not be completed by cash-strapped, debt-laden developers. “They said construction would resume soon,” Wang said, only giving his surname. “But
A landmark sexual harassment case in China yesterday returned to court after an earlier ruling dealt a blow to the country’s fledgling #MeToo movement. Zhou Xiaoxuan (周曉璇) stepped forward in 2018 to accuse state TV host Zhu Jun (朱軍) of forcibly kissing and groping her during her 2014 internship at the broadcaster. While the case of Zhou, now 29, inspired many others to share their experiences of sexual assault publicly and sparked a social media storm, a court ruled last year there was insufficient evidence to back her allegation. Zhou appealed, and returned to court for another hearing yesterday in Beijing. “I still feel
RSS