20/05/2020
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan cannot accept becoming part of China under its “one country, two systems” offer of autonomy , President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday, strongly rejecting China’s sovereignty claims and likely setting the stage for an ever worsening of ties.
China responded that “reunification” was inevitable and that it would never tolerate Taiwan’s independence.
In a speech after being sworn in for her second and final term in office, Tsai said relations between Taiwan and China had reached an historical turning point.
“Both sides have a duty to find a way to coexist over the long term and prevent the intensification of antagonism and differences,” she said.
Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party won January’s presidential and parliamentary elections by a landslide, vowing to stand up to China, which claims Taiwan as its own and says it would be brought under Beijing’s control by force if needed.
“Here, I want to reiterate the words ‘peace, parity, democracy, and dialogue’. We will not accept the Beijing authorities’ use of ‘one country, two systems’ to downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo. We stand fast by this principle,” Tsai said.
China uses the “one country, two systems” policy, which is supposed to guarantee a high degree of autonomy, to run the former British colony of Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997. It has offered it to Taiwan, though all major Taiwanese parties have rejected it.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, responding to Tsai, said Beijing would stick to “one country, two systems” – a central tenet of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Taiwan policy – and “not leave any space for Taiwan independence separatist activities”.
“Reunification is a historical inevitability of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” it said. “We have the firm will, full confidence, and sufficient ability to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
China views Tsai as a separatist bent on formal independence for Taiwan. Tsai says Taiwan is an independent state called the Republic of China, its official name, and does not want to be part of the People’s Republic of China governed by Beijing.
TAIWAN OPEN TO DIALOGUE
China has stepped up its military drills near Taiwan since Tsai’s re-election, flying fighter jets into the island’s air space and sailing warships around Taiwan.
Tsai said Taiwan has made the greatest effort to maintain peace and stability in the narrow Taiwan Strait that separates the democratic island from its autocratic neighbour China.
“We will continue these efforts, and we are willing to engage in dialogue with China and make more concrete contributions to regional security,” she added, speaking in the garden of the old Japanese governor’s house in Taipei, in front of a socially-distanced audience of officials and diplomats.
Taiwan has become a rising source of friction between China and the United States, with the Trump administration strongly backing Taiwan even in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent his congratulations to Tsai on Tuesday, praising her “courage and vision in leading Taiwan’s vibrant democracy”, in a rare high-level message from Washington direct to Taiwan’s government.
China’s Foreign Ministry condemned Pompeo’s remarks, and said the government would take “necessary countermeasures”, though did not elaborate.
China cut off a formal talks mechanism with Taiwan in 2016 after Tsai first won election.
Yao Chia-wen, a senior adviser to Tsai, told Reuters the chance of talks with China were small given ongoing tensions.
“We are ready to engage with them any time, but China is unlikely to make concessions to Taiwan,” he said. “In the next four years there’s little chance for the cross-strait relationship to improve.”
Source: Reuters
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29/04/2020
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has bought cameras to take temperatures of workers during the coronavirus pandemic from a firm the United States blacklisted over allegations it helped China detain and monitor the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
China’s Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co Ltd (002236.SZ) shipped 1,500 cameras to Amazon this month in a deal valued close to $10 million, one of the people said. At least 500 systems from Dahua – the blacklisted firm – are for Amazon’s use in the United States, another person said.
The Amazon procurement, which has not been previously reported, is legal because the rules control U.S. government contract awards and exports to blacklisted firms, but they do not stop sales to the private sector.
However, the United States “considers that transactions of any nature with listed entities carry a ‘red flag’ and recommends that U.S. companies proceed with caution,” according to the Bureau of Industry and Security’s website. Dahua has disputed the designation.
The deal comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned of a shortage of temperature-reading devices and said it wouldn’t halt certain pandemic uses of thermal cameras that lack the agency’s regulatory approval. Top U.S.-based maker FLIR Systems Inc (FLIR.O) has faced an up to weeks-long order backlog, forcing it to prioritize products for hospitals and other critical facilities.
Amazon declined to confirm its purchase from Dahua, but said its hardware complied with national, state and local law, and its temperature checks were to “support the health and safety of our employees, who continue to provide a critical service in our communities.”
The company added it was implementing thermal imagers from “multiple” manufacturers, which it declined to name. These vendors include Infrared Cameras Inc, which Reuters previously reported, and FLIR, according to employees at Amazon-owned Whole Foods who saw the deployment. FLIR declined to comment on its customers.
Dahua, one of the biggest surveillance camera manufacturers globally, said it does not discuss customer engagements and it adheres to applicable laws. Dahua is committed “to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19” through technology that detects “abnormal elevated skin temperature — with high accuracy,” it said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Commerce, which maintains the blacklist, declined comment. The FDA said it would use discretion when enforcing regulations during the public health crisis as long as thermal systems lacking compliance posed no “undue risk” and secondary evaluations confirmed fevers.
Dahua’s thermal cameras have been used in hospitals, airports, train stations, government offices and factories during the pandemic. International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) placed an order for 100 units, and the automaker Chrysler placed an order for 10, one of the sources said. In addition to selling thermal technology, Dahua makes white-label security cameras resold under dozens of other brands such as Honeywell, according to research and reporting firm IPVM.
Honeywell said some but not all its cameras are manufactured by Dahua, and it holds products to its cybersecurity and compliance standards. IBM and Chrysler’s parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) did not comment.
The Trump Administration added Dahua and seven other tech firms last year to the blacklist for acting against U.S. foreign policy interests, saying they were “implicated” in “China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.”
More than one million people have been sent to camps in the Xinjiang region as part of China’s campaign to root out terrorism, the United Nations has estimated.
Dahua has said the U.S. decision lacked “any factual basis.” Beijing has denied mistreatment of minorities in Xinjiang and urged the United States to remove the companies from the list.
A provision of U.S. law, which is scheduled to take effect in August, will also bar the federal government from starting or renewing contracts with a company using “any equipment, system, or service” from firms including Dahua “as a substantial or essential component of any system.”
Amazon’s cloud unit is a major contractor with the U.S. intelligence community, and it has been battling Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) for an up to $10 billion deal with the Pentagon.
Top industry associations have asked Congress for a year-long delay because they say the law would reduce supplies to the government dramatically, and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that policies clarifying the implementation of the law were forthcoming.
FACE DETECTION & PRIVACY
The coronavirus has infected staff from dozens of Amazon warehouses, ignited small protests over allegedly unsafe conditions and prompted unions to demand site closures. Temperature checks help Amazon stay operational, and the cameras – a faster, socially distant alternative to forehead thermometers – can speed up lines to enter its buildings. Amazon said the type of temperature reader it uses varies by building.
To see if someone has a fever, Dahua’s camera compares a person’s radiation to a separate infrared calibration device. It uses face detection technology to track subjects walking by and make sure it is looking for heat in the right place.
An additional recording device keeps snapshots of faces the camera has spotted and their temperatures, according to a demonstration of the technology in San Francisco. Optional facial recognition software can fetch images of the same subject across time to determine, for instance, who a virus patient may have been near in a line for temperature checks.
Amazon said it is not using facial recognition on any of its thermal cameras. Civil liberties groups have warned the software could strip people of privacy and lead to arbitrary apprehensions if relied on by police. U.S. authorities have also worried that equipment makers like Dahua could hide a technical “back door” to Chinese government agents seeking intelligence.
In response to questions about the thermal systems, Amazon said in a statement, “None of this equipment has network connectivity, and no personal identifiable information will be visible, collected, or stored.”
Dahua made the decision to market its technology in the United States before the FDA issued the guidance on thermal cameras in the pandemic. Its supply is attracting many U.S. customers not deterred by the blacklist, according to Evan Steiner, who sells surveillance equipment from a range of manufacturers in California through his firm EnterActive Networks LLC.
“You’re seeing a lot of companies doing everything that they possibly can preemptively to prepare for their workforce coming back,” he said.
Source: Reuters
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13/03/2020
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) — China on Friday issued a report on human rights violations in the United States.
Titled “The Record of Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2019,” the report said the facts detailed in the document show that “in recent years, especially since 2019, the human rights situation in the United States has been poor and deteriorating.”
The State Council Information Office released the report based on published data, media reports and research findings. It began by citing a quote from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a speech on April 15, 2019: “We lied, we cheated, we stole … It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
“The remarks of U.S. politicians have completely exposed their hypocrisy of adopting double standards on human rights issues and using them to maintain hegemony,” read the report.
The United States released annual reports to “distort and belittle” human rights situation in countries and regions that did not conform to U.S. strategic interests, but turned a blind eye to the “persistent, systematic and large-scale” human rights violations in its own country, the report said.
Consisting of foreword and seven chapters, it detailed facts on human rights violations in the United States relevant to civil and political rights, social and economic rights, discrimination suffered by ethnic minorities, discrimination and violence against women, living conditions of vulnerable groups, and abuses suffered by migrants, as well as U.S. violations of human rights in other countries.
The lack of restraint in the right to hold guns has led to rampant gun violence, posing a serious threat to citizens’ life and property safety in the United States, the report said.
“The United States is a country with the worst gun violence in the world,” read the report. In total, 39,052 people died from gun-related violence in the United States in 2019, and a person is killed with a gun in the United States every 15 minutes, figures showed.
Wealth polarization in the United States hit a 50-year high in 2018, the report said. In 2018, the wealthiest 10 percent held 70 percent of total household wealth. The bottom 50 percent saw essentially zero net gains in wealth over the past 30 years, it noted.
Regarding discrimination suffered by ethnic minorities in the United States, the report said the political structure and ideology of white supremacy in the United States have caused ethnic minorities to suffer all-round discrimination in various fields such as politics, economy, culture and social life.
Since 2016, white supremacy in the United States has shown a resurgence trend, leading to racial opposition and hatred, it noted.
Women in the United States face severe discrimination and violence, according to the report. Women in the United States were 21 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than women in peer nations, it noted, adding that sexual assault cases against women kept increasing.
About the living conditions of vulnerable groups, the report said tens of millions of U.S. children, elderly people, and disabled people live without enough food or clothing, and face threats of violence, bullying, abusing and drugs.
“The U.S. government not only has insufficient political will to improve the conditions for vulnerable groups but also keeps cutting relevant funding projects,” read the report.
While levels of extreme poverty worldwide had dropped dramatically, the poverty ratio of U.S. children was about the same rate as 30 years ago, it said.
The report noted the increasingly strict and inhumane measures taken by the U.S. government against immigrants in recent years, in particular, the “zero-tolerance” policy, which caused the separations of many immigrant families.
Many unaccompanied immigrant children were held in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions, the report said.
It noted grave abuses at detention facilities for immigrants, including injecting them with sedatives, keeping them in handcuffs, and depriving them of clothing and mattresses.
The United States also wantonly trampled on human rights in other countries and was responsible for many humanitarian disasters around the world, according to the report.
The economic embargo against Cuba and the unilateral sanctions against Venezuela imposed by the United States had been a massive and flagrant violation of the human rights of people in these countries, the report said.
The United States withdrew from several multilateral mechanisms, including the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Global Compact on Migration, shirking off its international obligations and making troubles to the international governance system, it noted.
Source: Xinhua
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15/02/2020
MUNICH (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended on Saturday his nation’s global role despite misgivings in Europe, vowing that Western values would prevail over China’s desire for “empire”.
Pompeo was seeking to reassure Europeans troubled by U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America first” rhetoric, ambivalence over the transatlantic NATO military alliance and tariffs on European goods.
“I’m happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly exaggerated. The West is winning, and we’re winning together,” he said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, listing U.S. steps to protect liberal democracies.
Pompeo was, in part, responding to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who on Friday accused the United States, Russia and China of stoking global mistrust.
Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as well as the Paris climate accord, have undermined European priorities, while moves such as recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital have weakened European diplomacy, envoys say.
Pompeo defended the U.S. strategy, saying Europe, Japan and other American allies were united on China, Iran and Russia, despite “tactical differences.”
He reiterated Washington’s opposition to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline under construction between Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, a project backed by the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Citing Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, cyber threats in Iran and economic coercion by China, Pompeo said those countries were still “desiring empires” and destabilising the rules-based international system.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, speaking immediately after Pompeo, focused his remarks solely on China, accusing Beijing of a “nefarious strategy” through telecommunications firm Huawei [HWT.UL].
“It is essential that we as an international community wake up to the challenges presented by Chinese manipulation of the long-standing international rules-based order,” Esper said.
He said it was not too late for Britain, which last month said it would allow Huawei a limited role in building its 5G networks, to take “two steps back,” but added he still needed to asses London’s decision.
“We could have a win-win strategy if we just abide by the international rules that have been set in place for decades … that respect human rights, that respect sovereignty,” he said.
Source: Reuters
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23/11/2019
Chinese President Xi Jinping poses for a group photo with foreign delegates attending the 2019 New Economy Forum before meeting with them at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 22, 2019. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)
BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday realizing the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation is by no means to seek hegemony.
Saying he has full confidence in China’s prospects for development, Xi noted China does not intend to replace any power, rather, its aim is to “regain the dignity and status it deserves.”
The president made the remarks when meeting with foreign delegates attending the 2019 New Economy Forum held in Beijing.
China, with a 5,000-year-old history of civilization, is home to the four great inventions that had contributed tremendously to the progress of human civilization. The country had become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society since the Opium Wars, but the Chinese people had never yielded and spared no effort in seeking a path to national rejuvenation, Xi stressed.
Earth-shattering changes have taken place since the founding of the People’s Republic of China 70 years ago, and the humiliating history of China as a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country will never be repeated, he said.
“The fundamental reason is that we have found a correct path that suits China’s national conditions, conforms to the trends of the times and enjoys the support of the people. The path is socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Xi said.
With full confidence, the Chinese people will unswervingly follow this path, he added.
Xi noted that innovation is a major theme of the current times, as the world is undergoing changes rarely seen in a century, featuring a new round of technological revolution and rapid industrial transformation.
The common challenges facing humanity call for concerted efforts of all countries. No country can become an independent innovation center or enjoy fruits of innovation alone, Xi said. “Innovation should benefit the world rather than being encaved.”
He said China is willing to carry out cooperation in innovation with other countries including the United States, so as to better benefit the people of the two countries and the world.
Despite great achievements, China will continue to adhere to the traditional concept of “harmony in diversity,” stick to the path of peaceful development, and strive for mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries, Xi told the foreign delegates.
China will stick to the reform and opening-up through bold innovations and with a manner of “feeling the rocks on the riverbed when crossing the river,” he said.
“The more resistance we are confronted with, the more determined we will be to open up,” Xi said. “I have full confidence in China’s prospects of development.”
During the meeting, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Egyptian Tourism Minister Dalia al-Mashat, former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, and Credit Suisse Group AG CEO Tidjane Thiam exchanged views, and expressed their support for innovation cooperation.
The 2019 New Economy Forum, which focused on development trends and social impacts of innovation, gathered more than 500 delegates from more than 60 countries around the world.
Source: Xinhua
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26/06/2019
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday for talks on trade and defence issues that have strained ties between the countries.
Just days before Pompeo’s visit, India slapped higher retaliatory tariffs on 28 U.S. products following Washington’s withdrawal of key trade privileges for New Delhi.
Indian broadcasters showed footage of Pompeo exchanging handshakes with Modi at the prime minister’s official residence in the capital New Delhi on Wednesday morning. Neither side released details of the meeting.
India’s relations with Russia and Iran – both under U.S. sanctions – are also a sore point.
Under U.S. pressure, India has stopped buying oil from Iran, one of its top suppliers. The United States has also stepped up pressure on India not to proceed with its purchase of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems from Russia.
Pompeo is scheduled to have lunch with foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, followed by a news conference at 1400 local time (0930 GMT), the foreign ministry said.
He is expected to round off the trip with a policy speech hosted by the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday evening, before departing on Thursday for the G20 summit in Japan.
Source: Reuters
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23/06/2019
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India on Sunday rejected a U.S. State Department’s annual report on religious freedom that raised questions about the government’s inability to curb violent attacks on the country’s minority Muslims.
Preparing for a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday, India’s foreign ministry issued a stiff rejoinder to the U.S. criticism.
“India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion,” Raveesh Kumar, the ministry’s spokesman, said in a statement.
The State Department report, released on Friday, said some senior officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last year had made “inflammatory speeches” against religious minorities.
Kumar said India’s constitution guarantees fundamental rights and religious freedom of all citizens, including its minority communities. Muslims make up 14 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people.
“We see no locus standi for a foreign entity to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights,” Kumar said.
The U.S. State Department report examined attacks on minorities during 2018.
“Mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, especially Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef,” the report said.
It also noted reports by non-governmental organisations that the government sometimes failed to act on mob attacks on religious minorities, marginalized communities, and critics of the government.
While in New Delhi, Pompeo is expected to hold talks aimed at laying the ground for a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Modi during a Group of 20 summit in Japan later next week.
Source: Reuters
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05/05/2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States accused China on Friday of putting well more than a million minority Muslims in “concentration camps,” in some of the strongest U.S. condemnation to date of what it calls Beijing’s mass detention of mostly Muslim Uighur minority and other Muslim groups.
The comments by Randall Schriver, who leads Asia policy at the U.S. Defense Department, are likely to increase tension with Beijing, which is sensitive to international criticism and describes the sites as vocational education training centres aimed at stemming the threat of Islamic extremism.
Former detainees have described to Reuters being tortured during interrogation at the camps, living in crowded cells and being subjected to a brutal daily regimen of party indoctrination that drove some people to suicide.
Some of the sprawling facilities are ringed with razor wire and watch towers.
“The (Chinese) Communist Party is using the security forces for mass imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration camps,” Schriver told a Pentagon briefing during a broader discussion about China’s military, estimating that the number of detained Muslims could be “closer to 3 million citizens.”
Schriver, an assistant secretary of defence, defended his use of a term normally associated with Nazi Germany as appropriate, under the circumstances.
When asked by a reporter why he used the term, Schriver said that it was justified “given what we understand to be the magnitude of the detention, at least a million but likely closer to 3 million citizens out of a population of about 10 million.””So a very significant portion of the population, (given) what’s happening there, what the goals are of the Chinese government and their own public comments make that a very, I think, appropriate description,” he said.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday used the term re-education camps to describe the sites and said Chinese activity was “reminiscent of the 1930s.”
The U.S. government has weighed sanctions against senior Chinese officials in Xinjiang, a vast region bordering central Asia that is home to millions of Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. China has warned that it would retaliate “in proportion” against any U.S. sanctions.
The governor of Xinjiang in March directly dismissed comparisons to concentration camps, saying they were “the same as boarding schools.”
U.S. officials have said China has made criminal many aspects of religious practice and culture in Xinjiang, including punishment for teaching Muslim texts to children and bans on parents giving their children Uighur names.
Academics and journalists have documented grid-style police checkpoints across Xinjiang and mass DNA collection, and human rights advocates have decried martial law-type conditions there.
Source: Reuters
Posted in Academics, Asia policy at the U.S. Defense Department, assistant secretary of defence, Beijing, China alert, Chinese embassy, Communist Party, concentration camps, human rights advocates, Islamic extremism, journalists, martial law-type conditions, mass DNA collection, Mike Pompeo, minority Muslims, Nazi Germany, U.S. says, U.S. Secretary of State, Uighur, Uncategorized, vocational education training centres, Washington, Xinjiang |
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16/04/2019
BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhua) — China on Monday urged U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to stop stirring up troubles between China and Latin America.
Pompeo has reportedly made unfriendly remarks on China and China-Latin America relations during a visit to Chile and other Latin American countries.
“It’s utterly irresponsible and unreasonable for U.S. Secretary of State (Mike) Pompeo to recklessly slander China and wilfully stir up troubles over China-Latin America relations. We are strongly opposed to this,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang told a press briefing.
Cooperation between China and Latin American countries, guided by principles of mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit and win-win outcomes, focuses on common development and has made significant contributions to the economic growth and improvement of people’s well-being in Latin American countries, Lu said.
For a long time, the United States has regarded Latin America as its own “backyard” and has frequently pressured, threatened and even overthrown other regimes, he added. “We believe Latin American countries will make the correct judgment about who is a real friend and who is a fake one, and about who disregards rules and spreads disorder.”
The spokesperson also pointed out that for a long time, a number of U.S. politicians had maligned China, fanning up flames worldwide and driving a wedge between China and other countries.
Calling such actions “disgraceful,” Lu stressed that lies will always be lies and that “Mr. Pompeo should stop making them.”
Source: Xinhua
Posted in China alert, Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Latin America, Lu Kang, Mike Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State, Uncategorized, US |
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 