Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
WUHAN, China (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkelrenewed calls for a peaceful solution to unrest in Hong Kong on Saturday during her trip to China.
The Hong Kong protests have overshadowed a three-day visit Merkel had planned to use to press for greater access to Chinese markets for German businesses suffering a slowdown at home.
“I have advocated that conflicts be resolved without violence and that anything else would be a catastrophe from my point of view,” Merkel said.
After talks with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, Merkel said Beijing had listened to her views.
“This is important,” she added.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced concessions this week to try to end the protests, including formally scrapping a hugely unpopular extradition bill, but many said these were too little, too late.
Joshua Wong, a leader of pro-democracy protests in 2014 that were the precursor to the current unrest, thanked Merkel for addressing the topic with Beijing but said her comments fell short.
“Germany’s business interest should not override the universal values in which we believe,” Wong said in an interview with Germany’s mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
“If the Chancellor wants to do something, she must help to urge President Xi to respond to the demand for free elections.”
Image copyright AFPImage caption Meet Hong and Kong?
Two newborn panda cubs at Berlin Zoo have been unexpectedly caught up in Hong Kong’s political unrest, after German newspapers started a campaign to name them “Hong” and “Kong”.
One of Berlin’s leading papers, Der Tagesspiegel, asked its readers to come up with name suggestions.
Top of the poll: “Hong” and “Kong”.
One reader wrote in to say they should be named “in solidarity with a city fighting for survival”.
Other suggested names included “Joshua Wong Chi-fung” and “Agnes Chow Ting” – after two prominent Hong Kong democracy activists.
Loaning pandas to zoos around the world is part of China’s soft diplomacy, aimed at winning hearts and minds abroad.
As the cubs will have to be returned to China in two to four years, the paper suggested that naming them after the activists might even be a sneaky way of keeping them in Germany.
The poll is in no way binding or even related to the zoo – but it was soon picked up by Germany’s leading tabloid, Bild, which issued a passionate call “to politicise” the naming of the little pandas.
“Bild is choosing to call the panda cubs Hong and Kong because it’s China’s brutal politics that lies behind these panda babies,” the paper wrote on Thursday.
“Bild is demanding of the German government that it reacts in a political way to the birth of these small bears.”
As German Chancellor Angela Merkel is currently on a visit to China, Bild said she could even relay the news to President Xi Jinping in person.
Image copyright EPAImage caption Mother panda Meng Meng has been on loan to Germany since 2017
Hong Kong activists had already called on Ms Merkel to raise their cause during her talks in Beijing.
In an earlier interview with Bild, activist Joshua Wong had suggested the zoo should name the animals “Freedom” and “Democracy”.
The German media’s foray into panda PR came as Hong Kong’s government launched a series of full-page adverts in international newspapers, designed to reassure investors that the city is still open for business.
The ads, which will run in leading papers around the world, say the government is determined to achieve a “peaceful, rational and reasonable resolution” to present political tensions.
Researchers will conduct tests at site in Gansu to see whether it will make a viable facility to store highly radioactive waste safely
Scientists say China has the chance to become a world leader in this field but has to find a way to ensure it does not leak
A preliminary design for the Beishan Underground Research Laboratory. Photo: Handout
China has chosen a site for an underground laboratory to research the disposal of highly radioactive waste, the country’s nuclear safety watchdog said on Wednesday.
Officials said work will soon begin on building the Beishan Underground Research Laboratory 400 metres underground in the northwestern province of Gansu.
Liu Hua, the head of the Chinese National Nuclear Safety Administration, said work would be carried out to determine whether it would be possible to build a repository for high-level nuclear waste deep underground.
“China sees radioactive waste disposal as a very important part [of the development nuclear energy],” said Liu. “To develop nuclear energy, we must have safe storage and disposal of nuclear waste.”
China condemns US blacklisting of nuclear firms and says American companies could be hurt as a result
The Chinese authorities see nuclear power an important source of energy that will help to curb carbon emissions and pollution as well as reducing its dependence on fuel imports.
But while the country has made great strides in the development of nuclear power, it needs to find a safe and reliable way of dealing with its growing stockpiles of nuclear waste.
Liu said the Gansu site had been identified as a possible location for a deep nuclear waste store after years of searching.
Once the laboratory is built, scientists and engineers will start experiments to confirm whether it will make a viable underground storage facility.
“Based on the data of the experiments, we can then decide if we are going to pick this as the final site,” he added.
China ‘actively promoting’ nuclear fuel processing plant with French Areva
Chinese officials usually stay tight-lipped about how nuclear waste is disposed of mainly because of fears that any discussion of the topic would trigger safety fears, although in recent years more efforts have been made to inform the public to win support.
Scientists say that nuclear waste can be divided into three categories depending on the level of radioactivity.
Low-level waste consists of minimally radioactive materials such as mop heads, rags, or protective clothing used in nuclear plants, while intermediate-level waste covers things such as filters and used reactor components.
High-level waste, however, is generated by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and scientists generally agree that the safest way to dispose of it is to bury it deep underground in areas where the geology means it will have a minimal impact on the environment while it decays over thousands of years.
The facility will be built in a remote part of Gansu province. Photo: Handout
Some Chinese scientists said the country had the chance to lead the world in this area of research but others have expressed concerns about safety.
Jiang Kejun, a senior researcher at the Energy Research Institute of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, said that very few countries in the world are studying this form of nuclear waste disposal.
“It gives China an opportunity to be a leader in research in this area, plus China has the technology and financial means,” he said.
About a dozen countries including France, Switzerland, Japan, and the United States have carried out research in this area, but in recent years most have abandoned or scaled back their programmes.
At present there are storage sites operating in Finland and the US, but other countries such as Germany have abandoned plans to build similar facilities.
Washington blacklists Chinese nuclear firms for ‘helping military acquire US technology’
But despite broad scientific support for underground disposal, some analysts and many members of the public remain sceptical about whether it is really safe.
Lei Yian, an associate professor at the School of Physics at Peking University, said there was no absolute guarantee that the repositories would be safe when they are come into operation.
“Leakage has happened in [repositories] in the US and the former Soviet Union … it’s a difficult problem worldwide,” he said. “If China can solve it, then it will have solved a global problem.”
China is also building more facilities to dispose of low and intermediate level waste. Officials said new plants were being built in Zhenjiang, Fujian and Shandong, three coastal provinces that currently lack disposal facilities.
At present, two disposal sites for low and intermediate-level waste are in operation in Gansu and Guangdong provinces.
Germany welcomes first panda cubs born in the country
Zoo reports mother and babies doing well and in good health
Chinese giant panda Meng Meng has given birth to twins at Berlin zoo, the first pandas to be born in Germany. Photo: EPA-EFE
Berlin zoo is celebrating the safe arrival of panda twins, in the first time that the rare animals have been born in Germany.
Resident panda Meng Meng delivered her first cub on Saturday evening, with the second baby arriving about an hour later.
The zoo posted a video on Twitter of the new mother guiding one of her pink babies to feed, with the announcement: “Meng Meng became a mom – twice! We are so happy, we are speechless.”
The cubs weighed in at 136 and 186 grams but their genders had not been determined, the zoo said.
Meng Meng guides one of her newborn panda twins to feed. Photo: EPA-EFE
“Meng Meng and her two cubs coped well with the birth and are all in good health,” zoo director Andreas Knieriem said.
At birth, the pink cubs, with their fine white down and disproportionately long tails, bear little resemblance to the adult black and white bears.
The births are particularly rare as it is notoriously hard to breed pandas.
Famed for its “panda diplomacy”, China has sent its national treasure to only about a dozen countries as a symbol of close relations.
The zoo pays US$15 million for a 15-year contract to host them, with most of the money going toward a conservation and breeding research programme in China.
While the cubs are born in Berlin, they remain Chinese and must be returned to China within four years after they have been weaned.
China has previously given three pandas to Germany but the last one, 34-year-old Bao Bao, died in Berlin in 2012, having become the oldest male panda in the world.
About 1,864 pandas remain in the wild in China, up from around 1,000 in the late 1970s, according to the environmental group WWF.
Just over 400 pandas live in zoos around the world, in conservation projects set up with Beijing.
HONG KONG, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) — The Hong Kong International Airport started to resume operation on Wednesday after chaos and flight cancellations caused by protesters.
Passengers are now able to conduct check-in procedures after tickets or purchase vouchers are checked by airport staff. A demonstration area has been marked out at the arrival hall.
Airport Authority Hong Kong said earlier Wednesday that it has obtained an interim injunction to restrain persons from unlawfully and willfully obstructing or interfering with the proper use of the airport.
The authority emphasized that persons are also restrained from attending or participating in any demonstration or protest or public order event in the airport other than in the area designated by the airport authority.
The interim injunction expressly provides that nothing in the interim injunction shall be construed as authorizing any demonstration, protest or public order event contrary to the Public Order Ordinance.
Many of the passengers, who have their flights delayed or changed, are still waiting at the airport for confirmation of their departure time.
“It was totally chaos last night and those people in black were everywhere. We were very scared,” said Maria, a passenger from the Philippines. “I just hope we can fly on time today.”
“I’m very angry. Some of the protesters said they were sorry but I think they were just having fun here, obstructing us,” said Pia from Germany. “I can’t believe this could be happening in the 21st century.”
“I only wish I can leave Hong Kong safely and go back home,” she said.
As one of the busiest in the world, the Hong Kong International Airport handled an average of 200,000 travelers each day in 2018.
Frank Chan, secretary for transport and housing of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, said paralyzing the airport will make Hong Kong “pay a heavy price.”
“Amid fierce regional competition, it is very easy to destroy years of achievements the airport has accomplished, but rebuilding them will be very hard,” Chan said.
Islam was forced on ethnic group ‘by religious wars and the ruling class’, Beijing says in latest report defending its actions in far western region
Uygurs’ ancestors were enslaved by the Turks, document says
Beijing has issued a white paper seemingly designed to defend its actions in Xinjiang where as least 1 million Uygurs are being held in detention centres. Photo: AFP
Uygurs became Muslims not by choice but by force, and Islam is not their only religion, Beijing said in a white paper published on Sunday, as it continued its propaganda campaign to justify its controversial policies in the far western province of
“The Uygur people adopted Islam not of their own volition … but had it forced upon them by religious wars and the ruling class,” according to the document released by the State Council Information Office.
Islamic beliefs were forced on the Uygurs during the expansion of Arabic states. This is a historical fact, the report said, though that did not undermine the Uygurs’ religious rights now.
The report said also that there are Uygurs who hold to faiths other than Islam, and others who do not practise any religion at all.
The paper also took aim at the Uygurs’s historic links with Turkey.
“Historically, the Uygurs’ ancestors were enslaved by the Turks,” it said, citing a history of conflicts between the two groups dating back to the 8th century.
China promotes Xinjiang as tourist idyll
The white paper was issued amid a campaign by Beijing to justify its policies in the restive region, which is home to more than 10 million Uygurs, most whom are Muslim.
Earlier this month, the ambassadors of 22 countries signed a letter calling on Beijing to halt its mass detention of Uygurs in Xinjiang, the first such joint move on the issue at the UN Human Rights Council.
The signatories included envoys from Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, Japan and Switzerland. The United States, which quit the forum a year ago, did not sign the letter.
China responded by issuing a letter signed by the ambassadors of 37 countries, including several Muslim majority states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, backing its policies in the region.
Beijing said the show of support was “a powerful response to the groundless accusations made against China by a small number of Western countries”.
UN experts and activists say at least 1 million Uygurs and other Muslims are currently being held in detention centres in Xinjiang. China describes the facilities as training and education centres that aim to stamp out religious extremism and provide people with useful skills. It has never said how many people are being detained in them.
The United States has repeatedly criticised Beijing over its policies in Xinjiang.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump met victims of religious persecution from around the world, including Jewher Ilham, a Uygur woman whose father Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 after being found guilty of promoting separatism.
“That’s tough stuff,” Trump said after hearing Ilham’s account of her father’s ordeal.
China describes the detention camps in Xinjiang as training and education centres. Photo: AFP
In January, US lawmakers nominated the imprisoned economist, writer and former professor at Minzu University in Beijing, for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in a bid to pressure China to stop its crackdown on the minority group.
Sunday’s white paper is the latest in a string of similar documents published recently by Beijing as it seeks to defend the legitimacy of its policies in Xinjiang. In a document issued in March, it said that over the past five years it had arrested nearly 13,000 “terrorists” in the region.
Xinjiang camps defended at UN human rights forum
Neither the March report nor Sunday’s white paper mentioned Beijing’s other controversial policies in the region, such as the collection of DNA samples and extensive surveillance on local people.
“Xinjiang has borrowed from international experiences, combined them with local realities, and taken resolute measures against terrorism and extremism,” it said.
The measures have been effective, it said, though did not elaborate.
Over the past year, China has increased its efforts to defend the camps, including organising strictly controlled visits by selected diplomats and journalists to see the people who live in them.
State media has also released videos showing seemingly happy and healthy people inside the camps in a bid to counter accounts of harsh conditions and abuse published by the Western media.
Findings support earliest record of cannabis use, written in 440BC
Researchers speculate psychoactive THC had role in grim funeral rites
Researchers say their findings at a burial site in Xinjiang about cannabis use 2,500 years ago back up a Greek record written around 440BC. Photo: Handout
Scientists say a burial site in mountainous northwestern China contains evidence that cannabis smoke was used there as far back as 2,500 years ago, corroborating the earliest record of the practice, written by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus.
They said the evidence was found in a wooden bowl containing blackened stones unearthed at a Scythian cemetery in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Chemical analysis showed traces of THC – tetrahydrocannabinol – the potent psychoactive component in cannabis.
Yang Yimin, lead author of a paper published in the journal Science Advances on Thursday, said the discovery at Jirzankal Cemetery, close to the border of Tajikistan, Pakistan and India, was “jaw-dropping”.
Scythians were horseback warriors who roamed from the Black Sea across central Asia and into western China more than 2,000 years ago. Herodotus wrote in The Histories around 440BC that they used marijuana, the earliest written record of the practice.
Scientists in Xinjiang found hemp had been burned on stones inside these wooden bowls 2,500 years ago. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences and Max Planck Institute
“The Scythians take the seed of this hemp and … they throw it on the red-hot stones. It smoulders and sends forth so much steam that no Greek vapour-bath could surpass it.
The Scythians howl in their joy at the vapour-bath,” Herodotus wrote.
Yang, who led an international team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany and the University of Queensland, said that until now there was no evidence to back up the Greek historian’s account.
“There was never any archaeological proof to the claim. We thought – is this it?” Yang said.
The discovery posed a question for the research team: where would the plants have come from? While hemp was commonly found in many parts of the world and was used for fabric, cooking and medicine, most wild species contained only small amounts of THC.
Ruins of 2,000-year-old coin workshop found in central China’s Henan province
Yang and his colleagues speculated that the altitude, 3,000 metres (9,843 feet) above sea level, and strong ultraviolet radiation might have resulted in a potent plant strain with THC levels similar to those in marijuana today.
“From here it was selected, probably domesticated and then went to other parts of the world along ancient trade routes with the Scythian nomads, forming an enormous ring of culture that shared the ritual of smoking cannabis,” Yang said.
Archaeologists said the site, with its 40 circular mounds and marked by long strips of black and white stones, could have been a burial ground for tribal members, with human sacrifice and cannabis part of the last rites.
Researchers suspect a potent strain of cannabis grew close to the Xinjiang burial site. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences and Max Planck Institute
So the early pot party might not have been the kind of celebration Herodotus described, the study’s authors suggested.
While the Scythians might have been inhaling the smoke to try to communicate with the dead in the next world, evidence suggested that a sacrifice – perhaps a war captive or a slave – was struck repeatedly on the head with a sword and the body hacked to pieces nearby, the researchers said.
Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan meets with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin, Germany, May, 31, 2019. Wang Qishan paid a visit to Germany from Thursday to Sunday at the invitation of the German Federal Government. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)
BERLIN, June 2 (Xinhua) — Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan paid a visit to Germany from Thursday to Sunday at the invitation of the German Federal Government.
During his visit in Berlin, Wang met with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas separately.
When meeting with Steinmeier, Wang said that China and Germany were both major world economies and major countries with great influence. The relations between the two countries have gone beyond bilateral scope and bear global significance.
Wang said in recent years the high-level contacts were frequent, and the cooperation in all fields has been constantly deepened, adding he is willing to push for new development of the all-around strategic partnership through his visit.
Noting the ties between China and Germany is currently facing a new situation, Wang called on the two countries to set a model of win-win cooperation for the world through deepening collaboration, to bring stability to the world through guiding the China-EU cooperation, and to strength the power to safeguard multilateralism through boosting global governance.
For his part, German President Steinmeier said that the current international landscape is complicated and turbulent, and multilateralism is under threat.
He noted that Germany highly values the ties with China, adding Germany is willing to strengthen communication and coordination with China at all levels, and to continue the pragmatic cooperations in Industry 4.0 and in other fields.
Germany and China, and Europe and China, should join hands to maintain the world peace and stability, free trade, and existing international orders, Steinmeier added.
When meeting with Merkel, Wang said China sticks to peaceful development, and will through steadily deepening reform and opening up, solve the existing problem of imbalance and insufficient development to meet people’s desire for a better life and to fulfill the promises of the party and the government to the people.
Wang said China cannot develop itself in isolation from the world, nor can the world develop without the 1.4 billion Chinese people, and China advocates countries to together build a community of shared future for humankind.
Facing the profound and complex changes in the international situation, China always insists on doing its own share firstly, staying calm and clear-headed, showing composure, shouldering responsibility and reacting rationally, he noted.
Wang called on China and Germany, as all-around strategic partners, to strengthen cooperation in building a more fair and reasonable global governance system, and to jointly face the uncertainties.
The Chinese vice president also said that China has always viewed Europe from a strategic height and with a long-term vision, and firmly supported the European integration. Wang added that China is a trustworthy partner for Europe to have dialogue on an equal footing.
Chancellor Merkel said Germany appreciates China’s great achievements in economic development and believes that China can definitely achieve the ambitious goals of eradicating poverty and finishing building a moderately prosperous society on schedule.
Facing the current complex and volatile international environment in which various new problems emerge, Merkel said, Germany is always committed to safeguarding the principle of multilateralism and the existing international order.
She noted that Germany advocates to strengthen international coordination and collaboration through dialogue, disagrees with the action of exerting threat and pressure to solve problems.
She believed that Germany and China, as well as Europe and China, share broad consensus on a wide range of issues, expressing Germany’s willingness to strengthen communication, exchanges and cooperation with China, and to improve global governance system jointly with China.
When meeting with Heiko Maas, Wang said China and Germany share common interests in many fields such as deepening pragmatic cooperation, safeguarding multilateralism and free trade, improving global governance and promoting world peace.
Looking to the next stage of the bilateral relations, Wang advocates that both sides should set the right direction for the Sino-German, Sino-European win-win cooperation, encourage the enhanced exchanges in ideology, talents as well as science and technology, cement the friendship between the two peoples, and to inject more positive energy into the world.
Echoing Wang’s comments, Maas said Germany is willing to strengthen strategic communication and cooperation on multilateral issues with China, as well as to jointly tackle global challenges, safeguard multilateralism and international order, promote the liberalization of international trade.
During his visit to Germany, Wang also met with mayor of Hamburg Peter Tschentscher and Bavarian governor Markus Soeder and visited the port of Hamburg.
Before his tour to Germany, the Chinese Vice president also visited Pakistan and the Netherlands.
President Xi Jinping will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next month and address economic summit in St Petersburg
Diplomatic flurry will also include regional security forums in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
Xi Jinping has met Vladimir Putin more times than any other foreign leader since he took power in 2013. Photo: AFP
Beijing is stepping up efforts to seek support from regional and global players such as Russia and Central Asian nations as its geostrategic rivalry with Washington heats up.
President Xi Jinping is expected to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next month, when he will also address the St Petersburg International Economic Summit,
The Chinese president will also visit the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in June, as well as another regional security forum in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Meanwhile, Vice-PresidentWang Qishan is visiting Pakistan before he heads to the Netherlands and Germany, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan meets Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan in Islamabad on Sunday. Photo: AFP
The latest flurry of diplomatic activity comes as competition between China and the US intensifies on several fronts including trade and technology, the South China Sea and the Arctic, where Beijing’s partnership with Moscow –
It will be Xi’s second time at the St Petersburg forum, and observers expect the Chinese leader will reaffirm Beijing’s commitment to multilateralism and promote the nation as a champion of openness and cooperation.
China-Russia ties unrivalled, Beijing warns before Pompeo meets Putin
It will also be his second meeting with Putin in two months, after talks on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in late April, when the Russian president
for the controversial China-led infrastructure and investment initiative.
With China and Russia edging closer, the latest meeting is likely to see efforts to coordinate their strategies on a range of issues – including Venezuela, North Korea, nuclear weapons and arms control, according to observers. Xi has met Putin more times than any other foreign leader since he took power in 2013.
“This time it is very likely that the latest anti-China moves by the US, such as new tariffs and the Huawei ban, will feature prominently in their conversations,” said Artyom Lukin, an associate professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.
Lukin said Russia’s stagnating economy and sanctions imposed by the West limited its role as a substitute for the foreign markets and technologies China could lose access to because of the US crusade. But he said Putin would “provide political and moral support to Xi”.
“That is also significant as Russia has been withstanding intense US-led sanctions pressure for more than five years already,” Lukin said, referring to sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Xi and Putin are also expected to talk about Venezuela, where US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido is attempting to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has the support of China and Russia.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has the backing of China and Russia. Photo: AP
“Moscow and Beijing are not able to seriously hurt Washington by raising tariffs or denying access to high technology. However, there are plenty of areas where coordinated Sino-Russian policies can damage US interests in the short term or in the long run,” Lukin said. “For example, Moscow and Beijing could intensify their joint support for the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro, frustrating Washington’s efforts to dislodge him.”
China and Russia would also be seeking to boost economic ties. Bilateral trade, dominated by Chinese imports of gas and oil, reached US$108 billion last year – falling far short of the target set in 2011 by Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, of US$200 billion by 2020.
China and Russia to forge stronger Eurasian economic ties
Li Lifan, an associate research professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said bilateral trade was a sticking point. “This is one of the potential hindrances in China-Russia relations and Beijing is hoping to [address this] … in the face of a possible global economic slowdown,” Li said.
Given the escalating trade war with Washington, he said China would seek to diversify its investments and markets to other parts of the world, particularly Russia and Europe.
“China will step up its investment cooperation with Europe and Russia and focus more on multilateral investment,” Li said.
But Beijing was not expected to do anything to worsen tensions with Washington.
“China is currently taking a very cautious approach towards the US, trying to avoid heating up the confrontation and further aggravation of the situation,” said Danil Bochkov, a contributing author with the Russian International Affairs Council. “For China it is important to demonstrate that it has a reliable friend – Russia – but that should not be done in an openly provocative manner.”
Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, said Beijing and Moscow would also seek to contain US influence “as far as possible” from Central Asia, where China has increased its engagement through infrastructure building under the “Belt and Road Initiative”.
Leaders from the region will gather in Bishkek next month for the SCO summit, a security bloc set up in 2001 that now comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. Those members account for about 23 per cent of the world’s land mass, 45 per cent of its population, and 25 per cent of global GDP.
Newly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could meet the Chinese president for talks in Bishkek next month. Photo: EPA-EFE
There is growing speculation that Xi will meet newly re-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of that summit.
Independent analyst and author Namrata Goswami said India would be seeking a commitment to a WTO-led and rules-based multilateral trading system during the SCO talks.
“This is interesting and significant given the current US tendencies under President Donald Trump focused on ‘America first’ and the US-China trade war,” Goswami said.
Counterterrorism will again be a top priority at the SCO summit, amid concerns among member states about the rising number of Islamic State fighters returning from Syria and Iraq. Chinese scholars estimated last year that around 30,000 jihadists who had fought in Syria had gone back to their home countries, including China.
Alexander Bortnikov, chief of the main Russian intelligence agency FSB, said earlier that 5,000 fighters from a group affiliated with Isis had gathered in areas bordering former Soviet states in Central Asia, saying most of them had fought alongside Isis in Syria.
War-torn Afghanistan, which shares a border with four SCO member states – China, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – is also likely to be high on the agenda at the Bishkek summit.
“With the Trump administration drafting plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, the SCO will assess the security situation there and decide whether to provide training for Afghan troops,” Li said.
Eva Seiwert, a doctoral candidate at the Free University of Berlin, expected the security bloc would also discuss Iran after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and ordered new sanctions against the country.
Iran, which has observer status with the SCO, was blocked from becoming a full member in 2008 because it was subject to UN sanctions at the time. But its membership application could again be up for discussion.
Iran presses China and Russia to save nuclear deal
“The Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 made it easy for China and Russia to present themselves as the proponents of peaceful settlement of conflicts,” Seiwert said. “Discussing the possibility of admitting Iran as a full member state would help the SCO members demonstrate their support of multilateral and peaceful cooperation.
“This would be a strong signal to the US and enhance the SCO’s standing in the international community,” she said.
Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov (right) meets Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bishkek on Tuesday last week. Photo: Xinhua
As well as security, Xi’s visit to Central Asia is also likely to focus on economic ties. Meeting Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov in Bishkek last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would continue to “provide support and help national development and construction in Kyrgyzstan”.
Li said China may increase investment in the Central Asian region, especially in greenfield projects.
“China will continue to buy agriculture products from Central Asia, such as cherries from Uzbekistan, and build hydropower projects to meet local energy demand,” Li said. “Investment in solar and wind energy projects is also expected to increase too.”
China’s three biggest airlines are demanding compensation from Boeing over its grounded 737 Max fleet.
Air China, China Southern and China Eastern have filed claims for payouts, according to state media reports.
China’s regulator was the first to ground the fleet in the wake of two deadly crashes involving the US-made aircraft.
It comes on the eve of a meeting of global aviation regulators that will provide an update on the troubled jets.
The Chinese airlines are seeking compensation for losses incurred by the grounded fleet, as well as delayed deliveries of the 737 Max jets, according to reports.
China operates the largest fleet of Boeing 737 Max aircraft and was the first country to take the jets out of service after the Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 crash in March.
The disaster killed all 157 people on board. In October, 189 people were killed in a Lion Air crash involving the same model.
Both crashes were linked to the jet’s Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System, a new feature on 737 Max planes, which was designed to improve the handling of the jet and to stop it pitching up at too high an angle.
The planemaker’s entire global fleet of 737 Max aircraft has been grounded since March and the firm is anxious to prove it is safe to return to the skies.
The move by China’s top airlines to seek compensation comes ahead of a closely watched summit of aviation regulators in Texas on Thursday.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is due to provide an update on reviews of Boeing’s software fix and new pilot training.
The meeting in Texas will involve 57 agencies from 33 countries, including China, France, Germany and the UK, as well as the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.
But it is unclear if the planes will be back in the air before the end of the critical summer travel season.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 