CHINA
Envoy to WTO removed
Senior Chinese trade negotiator Li Chenggang (李成鋼) has been removed from his post as permanent representative to the WTO, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, just days after US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent described him as “unhinged.” Li, during a visit to Washington in August, had allegedly threatened that “China would unleash chaos on the global system if the US went ahead with our docking fees for Chinese ships,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday last week, adding that his behavior was “slightly unhinged.” Xinhua yesterday published a list of ambassadorial appointments and changes, including the removal of Li as WTO envoy. Asked if the move was related to Bessent’s comments, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “This is a routine personnel change.” Li remains China’s international trade representative and vice minister of commerce.
Photo: Reuters
AUSTRALIA
PLA jet maneuver ‘unsafe’
Canberra yesterday raised concerns with Beijing after a Chinese fighter jet dropped flares near one of its maritime patrol planes, labeling the incident “unsafe and unprofessional.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) jet released flares in close proximity to an Australian maritime patrol plane carrying out surveillance in the South China Sea, posing a risk to the latter craft and its crew, the Department of Defence said in a statement. “On two occasions, it released flares very close to the [Australian patrol plane] P-8,” Minister for Defence Richard Marles said in a TV interview with Sky News Australia. “And it’s really that, the proximity at which the flares were released, which has given us cause to deem this unsafe and unprofessional.” Marles said the government had raised its concerns with the Chinese embassy in Canberra and through the Australian embassy in Beijing. The Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
SOUTH KOREA
US acting envoy leaving
Acting US ambassador to South Korea Joseph Yun is to leave his position on Friday, the US embassy in Seoul said in a social media post yesterday. “The State Department expresses its deep appreciation to Ambassador Yun for his leadership and dedication in advancing the United States’ interests and further strengthening our enduring and ironclad commitment to the US-Republic of Korea Alliance,” the embassy wrote on X. Local media, including newspaper Hankyoreh, on Sunday reported that US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Japan, Korea and Mongolia Kevin Kim is expected to replace Yun as acting US ambassador to Seoul without citing a clear source. Yun leaving his post comes days before US President Donald Trump is expected to visit South Korea later this month for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
UNITED STATES
AWS cloud hit by outage
Amazon Web Services (AWS) yesterday morning reported a widespread disruption that affected services on other platforms. “We can confirm increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region.” Amazon.com Inc said on the AWS health dashboard. User complaints began spiking just after 7:30am London time, with data from Down Detector showing thousands of user reports. Artificial intelligence firm Perplexity said the AWS service disruption was “affecting the stability of the website.” A representative for Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment as of press time last night.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS