15/04/2020
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan waded into the hotly contested politics of the Pacific on Wednesday, donating face masks and thermal cameras to its four diplomatic allies there to combat the coronavirus in a region where China is challenging traditional power of the United States.
The small developing nations lie in the highly strategic waters of the Pacific, dominated since World War Two by the United States and its friends, who have been concerned over China’s moves to expand its footprint there.
Democratic Taiwan has faced intense pressure from China, which claims the island as its territory with no right to state-to-state ties, and is bent on wooing away its few allies.
Taiwan has only 15 formal allies left worldwide after losing two Pacific nations, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati, to China in September.
Beijing has ramped up its diplomatic push into the Pacific, pledging virus aid and medical advice.
In its own aid programme, Taiwan has donated 16 million masks to countries around the world.
“We are a very small country, so it’s easier for us to work with Taiwan than mainland China,” Neijon Edwards, the Marshall Islands ambassador to Taiwan, told Reuters at the donation ceremony in Taipei.
China has been too overbearing, she added.
“It’s pressing too much, and it’s been trying to come to the Marshall Islands, several times, but up to this time we haven’t even opened the door yet.”
While the masks presented at the ceremony are going to Taiwan’s Pacific allies, all its 15 global allies are sharing the thermal cameras.
“Today’s ceremony once again shows that Taiwan is taking concrete actions not only to safeguard the health of Taiwanese people but also to contribute to global efforts to contain COVID-19,” said Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.
Though Pacific Island states offer little economically to either China and Taiwan, their support is valued in global forums such as the United Nations and as China seeks to isolate Taiwan.
China has offered to help developing countries including those of the Pacific, and many see Chinese lending as the best bet to develop their economies.
But critics say Chinese loans can lead countries into a “debt trap”, charges China has angrily rejected.
The debt issue was a serious problem and would only lead to the spread of Chinese influence regionwide, said Jarden Kephas, the ambassador of Nauru.
“They will end up dominating or having a lot of say in those countries because of the amount of debt,” he told Reuters, wondering how the money could ever be repaid. “We are not rich countries.”
Source: Reuters
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28/09/2019
NEW YORK (Reuters) – China and the Pacific island state of Kiribati restored diplomatic ties on Friday after the former diplomatic ally of Taiwan abandoned Taipei.
A poor but strategic country which is home to a mothballed Chinese space tracking station, Kiribati announced last week that it was cutting relations with self-ruled Taiwan in favour of China, which claims Taiwan as a wayward province with no right to state-to-state ties.
China and Kiribati had ties until 2003, when Tarawa established relations with Taipei, causing China to break off diplomatic relations.
Up until that time, China had operated a space tracking station in Kiribati, which played a role in tracking China’s first manned space flight.
The Chinese government’s top diplomat State Councillor Wang Yi and Kiribati’s President Taneti Maamau signed a communique on restoring diplomatic relations at the Chinese mission to the United Nations in New York.
“We highly prize this important and the correct decision,” Wang told a news conference. “Let’s hope for our friendship to last forever. We will work together to grow together towards a bright and prosperous future.”
Speaking alongside Wang, Maamau said there was much to learn from China.
“I do believe that there is much to learn and gain from the People’s Republic of China and the re-establishment of our diplomatic relations is just the beginning,” he said.
There was no mention of the space tracking station at the news conference, nor in the joint communique between the two countries released by China’s Foreign Ministry.
China’s space programme is overseen by the military.
China’s Defence Ministry this week declined comment on the Kiribati facility.
Last week was difficult for Taiwan, as the Solomon Islands also ditched it for Beijing. The Solomon Islands foreign minister signed a deal on diplomatic ties in China last Saturday.
Both the Solomon Islands and Kiribati are small developing nations but lie in strategic waters that have been dominated by the United States and its allies since World War Two. China’s moves to expand its influence in the Pacific have angered Washington.
A former Taiwanese ambassador to Kiribati, Abraham Chu, told Taiwan’s Central News Agency last weekend that China had never fully removed the tracking station in Kiribati and that it “could come back at any time”.
Taiwan now has formal relations with just 15 countries, mostly small and poor nations in Latin America and the Pacific, including Nauru, Tuvalu and Palau. China has signalled it is coming for the rest of Taiwan’s allies.
Source: Reuters
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22/09/2019
- October 1 event is intended to be a showcase for military’s progress under Xi Jinping, with J-20 stealth fighters set to take pride of place
- Domestically developed weapons are main focus of event despite long-standing problems in building aircraft engines
Chinese J-10 jets perform at the Dubai air show in 2017. Photo: AFP
China has stepped up intensive rehearsals for the upcoming National Day parade, which military insiders say is designed to showcase the achievements of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s modernisation drive.
The parade on October 1 will mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic and will focus on weapons developed since Xi came to power in late 2012, despite long-standing problems in aircraft engine development.
Video clips circulating on mainland social media in recent days have shown at least seven types of aircraft – including the KJ-2000 airborne early warning and control aircraft and J-10 and J-11B fighter jets – taking part in rehearsals over the countryside around Beijing.
A military insider said the country’s first stealth fighter jet, the J-20, had been rehearsing over the western suburbs of the capital since April.
“There will be up to seven J-20 displayed in the military parade, which is the largest formation since its formal deployment to the Chinese air force in 2017,” the military insider said.
“The J-20 has entered mass production. So far at least 70 J-20s have been made, even though all of them are still equipped with Russian AL-31 engines.”
Earlier this month, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force released a video of a flight of seven J-20s, the largest formation seen so far, suggesting that the fifth-generation warplane has gone into mass production as an arms race with the United States mounts in the region.
The second-largest J-20 formation was shown in an air force video for PLA Day on August 1, when five of the jets were shown.
China has been forced to deploy the J-20 ahead of its schedule since the US has increased the deployment of its fifth-generation stealth fighter jets like the F-22 and F-35s in the Asia-Pacific region.
The US and its allies, including Japan and South Korea, will have more than 200 F-35s by 2025, which means China also needs a similar number of stealth fighters.
To meet demand, China has been working on the development of a purpose-built thrust engine for its stealth fighter since the early 2000s, but has yet to achieve international quality control standards due to problems that include single-crystal turbine blade technology.
China’s air force spreads its wings in 70th anniversary video
Hong Kong-based military commentator Song Zhongping said aircraft engine development had been a long-standing shortcoming but it would not affect the practical fighting capacity of the J-20, which currently uses Russian engines.
“The J-20 hasn’t used the domestic engines so far because it wants a better one, and it still has time,” Song said.
“Other [Chinese-developed] warplanes like the J-10, J-11 and multipurpose attack helicopters are all modified and advanced types, indicating comprehensive achievements amid China’s military modernisation over the past years.”
A Chinese J-20 stealth fighter has entered mass production. Photo: EPA-EFE
Besides the domestically developed aircraft, Beijing is going to display its strategic nuclear missiles, such as the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile and the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile, as centrepieces of its National Day military parade, according to a Beijing-based military source.
Xi, who also chairs the powerful Central Military Commission, inspected the country’s biggest military parade at the Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base in Inner Mongolia in 2017 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the PLA, but the source said the weapons displayed in Zhurihe had been developed under the leadership of Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao.
“Xi needs to highlight his personal achievements in his era, that’s why this year’s parade has political aims more than military significance,” the source said.
The source also highlighted the significance of the People’s Republic marking its 70th anniversary because the Soviet Union did not survive for that length of time.
“Xi is attempting to tell the outside world that Chinese communist regime has been consolidated under his leadership.”
Source: SCMP
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