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  • Myanmar violence, South China Sea tensions are top issues as Southeast Asian diplomats meet in Laos

    Myanmar violence, South China Sea tensions are top issues as Southeast Asian diplomats meet in Laos

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    VIENTIANE – Southeast Asian foreign ministers and top diplomats from key partners including the United States and China were gathering in the Laotian capital on Thursday for the start of three days of talks expected to focus on the increasingly violent civil war in Myanmar, tensions in the South China Sea and other regional issues.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi are expected to hold one-on-one talks on the sidelines of the meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Vientiane, which come as both Beijing and Washington are looking to expand their influence in the region.

    Lao Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith thanked ASEAN members and partners for their “unwavering collective effort” that has led to its past achievements and emphasized the importance of the bloc’s continuous work to promote peace and stability.

    “In light of the rapid and complex geopolitical and geoeconomic changes, we need to further enhance ASEAN centrality and unity so as to promote the relevance and resilience of ASEAN, aiming at addressing emerging challenges and seizing opportunity in the future,” he said in the opening statement.

    For the ASEAN nations — Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos — the violence in Myanmar is at the top of the agenda as the bloc struggles to implement its “five-point consensus” for peace.

    The plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties. The military leadership in Myanmar has so far ignored the plan and has raised questions about the bloc’s efficiency and credibility to mediate for peace.

    Broader talks, including diplomats from elsewhere in the region including Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, are expected to focus on issues including the economy, security, climate and energy.

    Regional issues, including Cambodia’s decision to build a canal off the Mekong River that Vietnam, which is downstream, worries could have ecological and security implications, as well as massive dam building projects in Laos further upstream could also feature in the meetings.

    In Myanmar, the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule, leading to increasing violence and a humanitarian crisis.

    In an effort to put pressure on Myanmar, ASEAN has prohibited it from sending any political representatives to top-level meetings, and it has sent bureaucrats instead. Aung Kyaw Moe, the permanent secretary of Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry, represents the country in this week’s meetings, which run through Saturday.

    More than 5,400 people have been killed in the fighting in Myanmar and the military government has arrested more than 27,000 since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. In addition, there are now more than 3 million displaced people in the country, with the numbers growing daily as fighting intensifies between the military and Myanmar’s multiple ethnic militias as well as the so-called people’s defense forces of military opponents.

    As the needs of civilians grow, discussions on humanitarian assistance to Myanmar will also be a focus of the ASEAN talks, Bolbongse Vangphaen, head of the Thai Foreign Ministry’s department for ASEAN, told reporters ahead of the meetings.

    Thailand, which shares a long border with Myanmar, has already been heavily involved in providing humanitarian assistance, and Bolbongse said the country is ready to support the next phase of delivery being planned by the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management.

    He did not say when or where the aid delivery would be.

    Thailand initiated its first delivery of aid to Myanmar in March from the northern province of Tak. It was said to be distributed in Kayin state to approximately 20,000 out of millions of people displaced by fighting.

    Landlocked Laos is the bloc’s poorest nation and one of its smallest, and many have expressed skepticism about how much it can accomplish while the crises mount. But it is also the first ASEAN chair that shares a border with Myanmar. Laos has already sent a special envoy to Myanmar for meetings with the head of the ruling military council and other top officials in an attempt to make progress on the peace plan.

    ASEAN also has introduced a mechanism of trilateral informal consultation among its current, past, and future chairs, specifically for ensuring continuity in its response to the situation in Myanmar. The troika met for the first time on Wednesday, attended by Laos, Indonesia and Malaysia.

    Indonesia Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Wednesday after the meeting that she raised concerns about increasing numbers of cross-border crimes and refugees that resulted from a crisis in Myanmar. She said she urged ASEAN to “promote trust and confidence building through a balanced and low-key approach” to foster an inclusive dialogue among all relevant stakeholders in Myanmar.

    “The worsening conditions in Myanmar have a direct impact on efforts to maintain peace and stability in the region,” she said.

    Dulyapak Preecharush, a professor of Southeast Asia Studies at Bangkok’s Thammasat University, said ASEAN is not the only stakeholder when it comes to Myanmar, with China and India also major players — and both attending the ASEAN meetings.

    Progress on Myanmar “needs to start with countries that share borders with Myanmar, such as China, India and Thailand, to find a joint consensus to address the problems” before expanding to other countries, he said.

    In other issues, ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei are locked in maritime disputes with China over its claims of sovereignty over virtually all of the South China Sea, one of the world’s most crucial waterways for shipping. Indonesia has also expressed concern about what it sees as Beijing’s encroachment on its exclusive economic zone.

    An estimated $5 trillion in international trade passes through the South China Sea each year. China has been increasingly involved in direct confrontations, most notably with the Philippines and Vietnam.

    This year, tensions between the Philippines and China have escalated, with Chinese coast guard and other forces using powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers to prevent food and other supplies from reaching Filipino navy personnel.

    The Philippines, a treaty partner with the U.S., has been critical of other ASEAN countries for not doing more to get China to back away from its increasingly assertive approach.

    China and the Philippines said Sunday they have reached a deal that they hope will end the confrontations, aiming to establish a mutually acceptable arrangement at the disputed area without conceding either side’s territorial claims.

    The rare deal could spark hope that similar arrangements could be forged by Beijing with other countries to avoid clashes while thorny territorial issues remain unresolved.

    ASEAN has been working with China to produce a South China Sea code of conduct, which is expected to be part of the talks in Vientiane.

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    Associated Press writers David Rising in Bangkok and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

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    This story has been corrected to show Indonesia’s foreign minister is a woman.

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    Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    Jintamas Saksornchai, Associated Press

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  • China’s congress ending with show of unity behind Xi’s vision for national greatness

    China’s congress ending with show of unity behind Xi’s vision for national greatness

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    BEIJING – China’s national congress is concluding its annual session Monday with the usual show of near-unanimous support for plans designed to carry out ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s vision for the nation.

    The weeklong event, replete with meetings carefully scripted to allow no surprises, has highlighted how China’s politics have become ever more calibrated to elevate Xi.

    Monday’s agenda lacks the usual closing news conference by the premier, who in the past was responsible for economic affairs as the party’s No. 2 leader. It was the one time each year when journalists could directly question a top Chinese leader.

    The news conference has been held most years since 1988, and the decision to scrap the event emphasizes Li Qiang ‘s relatively weak status. Past premiers have played a much larger role in leading key economic policies such as modernizing state companies, coping with economic crises and leading housing reforms that transformed China into a nation of homeowners.

    A key item being put to a ritual vote on Monday are revisions of the Organic Law of the State Council that direct China’s version of a cabinet to follow Xi’s vision.

    “The Communist Party always called the shots but the party leaders who ran the State Council used to have a much freer hand in setting economic policy,” Neil Thomas, a Chinese politics fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said in an emailed comment.

    “Xi has been astonishingly successful in consolidating his personal hold over the party, which has allowed him to become the key decisionmaker in all policy domains,” he said.

    In foreign policy, China appears to be sticking with Wang Yi as foreign minister, who stepped back into the post last summer after his successor, Qin Gang, was abruptly dismissed without explanation after a half year on the job.

    Analysts thought the Communist Party might use the annual congress to appoint a new foreign minister and close the book on an unusual spate of political mishaps last year that also saw the firing of a new defense minister after a few months on the job.

    The Organic Law of the State Council is being revised for the first time since it was adopted in 1982. The revision calls for the State Council to “uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” It also adds the governor of China’s central bank to the body.

    Echoing words seen in just about every proposal, law or speech made in China these days, it spells out that China’s highest governing officials must adhere to the party’s guiding ideology, which refers back to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought and culminates in Xi’s philosophy on “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

    Alfred Wu, an expert on Chinese governance at the National University of Singapore, said the revision institutionalizes previously made changes, making it harder to reverse them. He described the congress as a “one-man show” that shows Xi’s determination to create a system in which the party leads on policy, diminishing the role of the State Council and the legislature.

    “His determination is very clear,” Wu said. “He is willing to change everything.”

    Along with following “the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought” and other party directives, developing “new quality productive forces” — a term coined by Xi last September — emerged as a catchphrase at this year’s congress.

    The term suggests prioritizing science and technology as China confronts trade sanctions and curbs on access to advanced know-how in computer chips and other areas that the U.S. and other countries deem to be national security risks.

    As the party champions innovation and self-reliance in technology as ways to build a modern, wealthy economy, it is leaning heavily on more overtly communist ideology that harkens to past eras. Xi has fortified the party’s role across the spectrum, from culture and education to corporate management and economic planning.

    “Greater centralization of power has arguably helped Xi to improve central government effectiveness,” Thomas said, “but the benefits may be outweighed by the costs of stifling political discussion, disincentivizing local innovation, and more sudden policy shifts.”

    During this year’s congress, many provincial meetings were opened to the media for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, though they were carefully scripted with prepared remarks and none of the spontaneity once glimpsed in decades past.

    The contrast with polarized politics in the U.S. and robust debate in other democracies could not be more stark: China’s political rituals, void of any overt dissent, put unity above all.

    Marching orders endorsed by the congress include calls to ensure national security and social stability, at a time when job losses and underpayment of wages have sparked a growing number of protests.

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    Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    Elaine Kurtenbach And Ken Moritsugu, Associated Press

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  • The Cost of Doing Business With China? A $40,000 Dinner With Xi Jinping Might Be Just the Start

    The Cost of Doing Business With China? A $40,000 Dinner With Xi Jinping Might Be Just the Start

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    Updated Nov. 28, 2023 12:54 am ET

    Broadcom Chief Executive Hock Tan shelled out $40,000 to sit at Xi Jinping’s table for the Chinese leader’s recent dinner in San Francisco with the heads of American businesses. Tan had a lot more at stake—a $69 billion deal he was waiting on China to approve.

    For months, Chinese regulators wouldn’t clear the U.S. chipmaker’s bid to buy enterprise software developer VMware, leading Broadcom to put off its date for completion of the deal—first announced in May 2022—three times. Beijing had held up previous mergers involving U.S. companies. Intel’s planned acquisition of Israeli firm Tower Semiconductor, for more than $5 billion, was scuttled in August after Chinese regulators failed to approve it.

    Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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  • China’s top diplomat to visit Washington this week | CNN Politics

    China’s top diplomat to visit Washington this week | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    China’s top diplomat Wang Yi will visit Washington, DC, later this week, senior administration officials said Monday ahead of a potential meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in California next month.

    Wang will meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security Adviser Jake Sullivan during his trip to the US capital October 26-28, the officials said.

    They would not say if Wang will meet with Biden. However, Blinken met with Xi while in Beijing and one of the officials described Wang’s trip as “a reciprocal visit after Secretary Blinken’s trip to Beijing in June.”

    Tensions between the two countries have been high but the Biden administration has been making an effort to push dialog with Beijing. Wang’s trip comes as the US is looking to prevent the Israel-Hamas war escalating into a wider conflict in the Middle East and as the Ukraine-Russia war continues.

    “This visit by Wang Yi is part of ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication with China across the full range of issues,” the official said.

    US officials are expected to discuss “the South and East China Seas, cross-Strait issues, the Middle East, Russia’s war in Ukraine, North Korea’s provocations,” among other issues with Wang.

    The official would not go into details about what the messaging to Wang will be on Israel-Hamas war beyond saying that they’re “watching the situation very closely and that will in part dictate the contours of that conversation on Thursday and Friday.”

    Blinken spoke with Wang on October 14 and urged Beijing to use its relationships with countries in the Middle East to stop the war in Israel from spreading, a senior State Department official said at the time.

    The senior administration official said the resumption of military to military relations remained a priority.

    “If we’re going to continue to manage this relationship and our competition responsibly, if we’re truly going to minimize the risk of miscalculation that could veer into conflict, we have to get our mil-mil ties fully open,” the official said. “There have been some sporadic engagements between our two defense establishments in the last couple of months, but what we need is sustained mil-mil dialogue and the communication channels. And those aren’t yet established, but I can assure you that it’ll be on the agenda for Wang Yi’s visit.”

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  • China is erasing mention of its former foreign minister. But it still hasn’t said why | CNN

    China is erasing mention of its former foreign minister. But it still hasn’t said why | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Five weeks ago, the world watched as China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing for high stakes talks between the two powers.

    But anyone looking for reference to that important event on the website of China’s Foreign Ministry will be disappointed, as that meeting – and all of Qin’s activities as Foreign Minister – has been erased from the record following a head-spinning leadership shake-up Tuesday that saw Qin abruptly replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi.

    The shock ouster, approved by a top body within China’s rubber-stamp legislature, had followed weeks of questions and speculation about Qin’s fate after he disappeared from public view in late June, without a clear explanation.

    The latest twist in the saga – the complete erasure of Qin’s swift, six-month tenure as Foreign Minister and his replacement by Wang, who held that post for roughly a decade before a promotion late last year – only serves to deepen the mystery.

    Qin’s whereabouts, the reason for his removal, and his ultimate fate as a member of China’s Communist Party all remain unknown.

    Unanswered questions about official decision-making are standard in China, where the political system is notoriously opaque and has only become more so under Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

    Senior Chinese officials have disappeared from public view in the past only to turn up months later in announcements they’ve been under secret disciplinary investigation.

    But the circumstances that have played out in recent weeks surrounding Qin – widely seen as a trusted aide of Xi and one of China’s most recognizable officials as the face of its foreign policy and a former ambassador to the US – has brought those features of China’s political system into the global spotlight.

    “The lack of transparency is already a well known issue for the Chinese bureaucracy. And decisions are fine until they are not. And when they are not, it usually creates much bigger trouble for the system,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center.

    “The swift replacement does not reflect well on Xi for sure. At the minimum, people will be questioning what went wrong and made the replacement necessary. But it also suggests that the cause must be grave for (Qin) to be removed,” she added.

    Meanwhile, the timing of the episode, as China has been campaigning to present its leadership as an appealing alternative to that of the West, only ups the potentially damaging optics.

    “Qin’s removal will reinforce perceptions abroad that the Communist Party is an opaque and unreliable diplomatic partner … (and) do no favors for Beijing’s international efforts to portray its governance system as worthy of praise and emulation,” said Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

    Qin’s appointment to the post of Foreign Minister last year over more experienced candidates was seen as a sign of deep trust bestowed on him by Xi, who stacked China’s leadership with his close allies as he consolidated power last year while entering a norm-breaking third term as leader.

    “It is widely believed that Xi has a very small inner circle of people that he consults, and on top of that is over confident and makes decisions based on his own instincts,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program.

    “Qin is his protege, and therefore this will necessarily reflect badly on Xi. However, that doesn’t mean that this episode will pose a challenge to his power,” she said.

    As the news of the leadership changes were flashed by Chinese state media Tuesday evening, China’s vast apparatus for controlling public discussion around political and social events moved into gear.

    Social media hashtags relating to Qin’s removal were censored on the popular Chinese social media app Weibo, including at least one that aimed to evade censors by discussing the decision under a hashtag about a television show set around the time of China’s ancient Qin dynasty.

    Meanwhile, hashtags about Wang’s appointment remained live on the platform Wednesday morning, but were only showing posts from verified accounts, largely state media or government agencies, without any user generated comments visible.

    “It is likely that the official media outlets will propagate the idea that the top leadership is wise in removing a senior official who had been trusted and henceforth was found making mistakes,” said Li Mingjiang, an associate professor of international relations at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

    Depending on what further information comes about Qin’s circumstances, Chinese media “can always spin around to say that this is an example of the Party’s determination to take strict disciplinary actions whenever a senior official is found of doing things wrong,” he added.

    It remains unclear when, or if, further information will be released about the reasons for Qin’s removal, and that void in information has been filled with rampant rumor and speculation.

    When asked earlier this month about why Qin had missed a diplomatic gathering, a ministry spokesperson cited “health reasons.”

    During a regular ministry briefing Wednesday, a spokesperson refused to provide information on why Qin was replaced and said the ministry website was “updated in accordance with the relevant regulations,” when asked why records of Qin’s time as foreign minister were removed.

    Qin for now appears to have retained his domestic-facing, high-level administrative post as State Councilor.

    But observers of elite Chinese politics say that the silence around why he has been replaced and his erasure from the ministry website point to political reasons, which could become clear in coming months if there is an official announcement of an investigation against him.

    “Beijing is reserving the flexibility to decide on their stories later. I don’t think an announcement about what happened will happen anytime soon. Beijing will wait till people almost forgot about it to avoid more attention,” said Sun in Washington.

    The Foreign Ministry shake-up comes at a particularly sensitive time in China’s international relations. Beijing is seeking to stabilize fractious relations with the United States and woo back a Europe that has been increasingly suspicious of China’s close ties to Russia as it wages war on Ukraine.

    And while Qin’s mysterious disappearance and ousting makes for awkward international optics, it also places China’s foreign policy back in the hands of a seasoned veteran who filled the role from 2013 to 2022.

    When asked about Qin and Wang in a press briefing Tuesday, American diplomat Blinken said the US would engage with “whoever the relevant Chinese counterparts” are in order to manage the US-China relationship.

    “I’ve also known Wang Yi for more than a decade. I’ve met with him repeatedly in my current capacity as Secretary of State and including just recently in Jakarta and I anticipate being able to work well with him as we have in the past,” Blinken said, noting that he “wished (Qin) well.”

    Wang in recent years has been known for his combative “wolf warrior” stance, but has also been seen as a smooth operator, regularly dispatched to tackle China’s thorniest diplomatic issues and meet with close allies, including a February trip to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Kept on by Xi despite having reached the standard retirement age during a five-yearly leadership reshuffle last October, he was promoted late last year to the role of China’s top diplomat, overseeing the foreign affairs arm of the ruling Communist Party (a separate and distinct body from that of the government foreign ministry).

    It appears he’ll now fill that post and his old one – an arrangement that Asia Society’s Thomas suggests could be temporary while also allowing Wang to navigate a period of months that could see Xi visit the US in November for an economic summit.

    His appointment, however, overlooks an ample bench of potential candidates, according to Victor Shih, director of the University of California San Diego’s 21st Century China Center, which “suggests that the top leadership is unsure of a good replacement and opted for a safe option and a pair of steady hands.”

    “This desire might give us a hint of what exactly happened to Qin Gang,” he said.

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  • Blinken and Chinese counterpart meet in first face-to-face since spy balloon shot down | CNN

    Blinken and Chinese counterpart meet in first face-to-face since spy balloon shot down | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on Saturday, in the first face-to-face between senior US and Chinese officials since the US military shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon earlier this month.

    In a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Blinken “directly spoke to the unacceptable violation of US sovereignty and international law” and said incidents like the surveillance balloon, which hovered over US airspace for days before the US shot it down off the coast of South Carolina, “must never occur again,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said statement.

    Blinken, who a senior State Department official characterized as “very direct and candid throughout,” began the hourlong meeting by stating “how unacceptable and irresponsible” it was that China had flown the balloon into US airspace. The secretary later expressed disappointment that Beijing had not engaged in military-to-military dialogue when the Chinese balloon incident occurred, the senior official told reporters.

    “He stated, candidly stated, our disappointment that in this recent period that our Chinese military counterparts had refused to pick up the phone. We think that’s unfortunate. And that is not the way that our two sides ought to be conducting business,” the official said.

    There was “no formal agreement” reached, however, on any kind of mechanism to increase dialogue between the two countries.

    The diplomatic fallout from the balloon has been swift, with Washington accusing China of overseeing an extensive international surveillance program. Beijing, meanwhile, has denied those claims, and in turn accused the US, without providing evidence, of flying balloons over its airspace without permission. China maintains that its balloon, which US forces identified and then downed earlier this month, was a civilian research aircraft accidentally blown off course.

    Wang confirmed what he called an “informal” meeting with Blinken on Saturday and called on the US to repair the “damage” to the countries’ relations, according to a press release broadcast by CGTN, which is a Chinese state media outlet. Earlier, Wang had criticized the United States’ handling of the incident, calling the response “absurd and hysterical” and “100% an abuse of the use of force.”

    The incident had an immediate impact on what had been seen as an opportunity for the US and China to stabilize relations. In early February, Blinken postponed an expected visit to Beijing, after the balloon – floating over the US in plain sight – dominated media headlines and public attention.

    The visit would have been the first to China by a US secretary of state since 2018, on the heels of a relatively amicable face-to-face between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in November.

    Biden said Thursday that he expects to speak with Xi about the balloon but that he will not apologize for shooting it down. “I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon,” he said.

    Blinken raised a possible conversation between Biden and Xi, according to the State Department official, who said US officials have not heard anything in recent days that would change the US assessment that the balloon was for Chinese surveillance.

    “We haven’t heard anything that provides any kind of a credible explanation for what this balloon was. The US stands firmly behind our assessment,” the official said.

    Some analysts believed that Beijing, economically drained by its now-abandoned zero-Covid strategy, had been softening its tone on foreign affairs and upping its diplomacy with Western governments in a bid to win back lost ground.

    While expectations for substantial breakthroughs were low, Blinken’s trip was supposed to build a floor for fraught US-China relations and prevent tensions from veering into open conflict – guardrails intended to keep incidents like the suspected surveillance balloon from escalating into a full-blown diplomatic crisis.

    CNN reported Wednesday that US intelligence officials are assessing the possibility that the balloon was not deliberately maneuvered into the continental US by the Chinese government and are examining whether it was diverted off course by strong winds, according to multiple people briefed on the intelligence.

    Any intelligence suggesting that the balloon’s path into the US may have been unintentional could potentially ease tensions between the two nations.

    Wang, who was named Xi’s top foreign policy adviser last month, has already visited France and Italy this week and is expected to visit Russia after the Munich conference.

    The trip will be a test of Beijing’s attempt to strike a diplomatic balancing act between boosting relations with the West and maintaining close ties with Moscow.

    Blinken and Wang on Saturday discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the US secretary of state warning “about the implications and consequences” if China increases its support for Russia’s war effort, according to Price’s readout of the meeting.

    US officials familiar with the intelligence told CNN earlier Saturday that the US has recently begun seeing “disturbing” trendlines in China’s support for Russia’s military and there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Russia without getting caught.

    Those officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture, but said US officials have been concerned enough that they have shared the intelligence with allies and partners in Munich over the last several days.

    China’s relationship with Europe has come under significant stress in the wake of the Ukraine war. Beijing has refused to condemn the invasion outright or support numerous measures against it at the United Nations. China has also continued to partner with the Russian military during large-scale exercises, while boosting its trade and fuel purchases from Moscow.

    According to China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang’s visit to Moscow will provide an opportunity for China and Russia to continue to develop their strategic partnership and “exchange views” on “international and regional hotspot issues of shared interest” – a catch-all phrase often used to allude to topics, including the war in Ukraine.

    The Foreign Ministry did not specify whether Wang would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    “China is ready to take this visit as an opportunity and work with Russia to promote steady growth of bilateral relations in the direction identified by the two heads of state, defend the legitimate rights and interests of both sides, and play an active role for world peace,” spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

    Wang’s visit may also foreshadow a state visit by Xi to Moscow later this year. Putin extended an invitation to Xi during a customary end-of-year call between the two leaders, but China’s Foreign Ministry has yet to confirm any plans.

    Blinken, who reiterated Saturday the US’ unchanging policy regarding Taiwan and “underscored the importance of maintaining peace and stability” with the democratically ruled island, reinforced statements from Biden that the US does not seek a conflict with China but will continue to “stand up for our values.”

    “The Secretary reiterated President Biden’s statements that the United States will compete and will unapologetically stand up for our values and interests, but that we do not want conflict with the PRC and are not looking for a new Cold War,” Price said in the statement. “The Secretary underscored the importance of maintaining diplomatic dialogue and open lines of communication at all times.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • China’s foreign minister signals deeper ties with Russia

    China’s foreign minister signals deeper ties with Russia

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    BEIJING — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi defended his country’s position on the war in Ukraine on Sunday and signaled that China would deepen ties with Russia in the coming year.

    Wang, speaking by video to a conference in the Chinese capital, also blamed America for the deterioration in relations between the world’s two largest economies, saying that China has “firmly rejected the United States’ erroneous China policy.”

    China has pushed back against Western pressure on trade, technology, human rights and its claims to a broad swath of the western Pacific, accusing the U.S. of bullying. Its refusal to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and join others in imposing sanctions on Russia has further frayed ties and fueled an emerging divide with much of Europe.

    Wang said that China would “deepen strategic mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation” with Russia.

    “With regard to the Ukraine crisis, we have consistently upheld the fundamental principles of objectivity and impartiality, without favoring one side or the other, or adding fuel to the fire, still less seeking selfish gains from the situation,” he said, according to an official text of his remarks.

    Even as China has found common ground with Russia as both come under Western pressure, its economic future remains tied to American and European markets and technology. Leader Xi Jinping is pushing Chinese industry to become more self-sufficient, but Wang acknowledged that experience has shown “that China and the United States cannot decouple or sever supply chains.”

    He said that China would strive to bring relations with the U.S. back on course, saying they had plunged because “the United States has stubbornly continued to see China as its primary competitor and engage in blatant blockade, suppression and provocation against China.”

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  • Australian visit to China raises hopes on trade, detainees

    Australian visit to China raises hopes on trade, detainees

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    CANBERRA, Australia — The first visit by an Australian foreign minister to China in four years is raising hopes that Australia will make progress on ending trade sanctions and freeing two Australian citizens detained in China.

    But Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong cautioned on Tuesday before leaving that some of the thorny issues between the countries will take time to resolve.

    Still, diplomacy experts welcomed the visit as a positive move following years of frosty relations.

    Wong will meet with her counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing this week as Australia and China mark 50 years of diplomatic relations. The visit will include a new round of talks on foreign and strategic issues after the talks were suspended in 2018.

    “There has been a lot of speculation in the last 24 hours or more about what will happen,” Wong told reporters. “I will say this: the expectation should be that we will have a meeting, and that dialogue itself is essential to stabilizing the relationship. Many of the hard issues in the relationship will take time to resolve in our interests.”

    She said she didn’t want to speculate on outcomes because it could have an impact on Australia’s leverage in the talks.

    “In relation to consular cases, to save you asking the question, obviously I will be raising consular cases, as I always do, just as I will continue to advocate for the trade impediments to be lifted,” Wong said.

    Australia has been pushing for the release of spy novelist Yang Hengjun, who China accused of espionage, and journalist Cheng Lei, who China accused of sharing state secrets.

    China does not recognize dual citizenship and Chinese-born defendants such as Yang and Cheng are often not afforded the same treatment as other foreign nationals, particularly when facing espionage charges.

    Wong’s trip signals a continued thaw in relations between the two nations since Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won an election victory in May, replacing the more conservative Scott Morrison in the top role.

    Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit last month in Bali, the first such formal meeting between the leaders of the two nations in six years.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China hopes the visit will build on the momentum toward improved ties established at the Bali summit.

    China hopes the two countries will “push bilateral relations back to the right track and achieve sustainable development,” Mao said at a daily briefing this week.

    Relations between Australia and China have been poor for several years after China imposed trade barriers and refused high-level exchanges in response to Australia enacting rules targeting foreign interference in its domestic politics and calling for an independent inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Jennifer Hsu, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute think tank, said the resumption of diplomatic dialogue was a welcome development.

    She said she could “see the wheels starting to move with regards to a number of issues pertaining to Australia and China.”

    “It would be great if a breakthrough happens but these things take time,” Hsu said.

    She noted that China could reap some economic benefit from relaxing its trade sanctions on Australian goods.

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  • G20 leaders’ declaration condemns Russia’s war ‘in strongest terms’ | CNN

    G20 leaders’ declaration condemns Russia’s war ‘in strongest terms’ | CNN

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    Bali, Indonesia
    CNN
     — 

    Russia’s international isolation grew Wednesday, as world leaders issued a joint declaration condemning its war in Ukraine that has killed thousands of people and roiled the global economy.

    The Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, concluded Wednesday with a leaders’ statement that “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine.”

    Speaking after the closing of the summit, Indonesian President and G20 host Joko Widodo told a news conference that “world leaders agreed on the content of the declaration, namely condemnation to the war in Ukraine” which violates its territorial integrity. However, some of the language used in the declaration pointed to disagreement among members on issues around Ukraine.

    “This war has caused massive public suffering, and also jeopardizing the global economy that is still vulnerable from the pandemic, which also caused risks for food and energy crises, as well as financial crisis. The G20 discussed the impact of war to the global economy,” he said.

    The 17-page document is a major victory for the United States and its allies who have pushed to end the summit with a strong condemnation of Russia, though it also acknowledged a rift among member states.

    “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy,” it said. “There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions.”

    Jokowi said the G20 members’ stance on the war in Ukraine was the “most debated” paragraph.

    “Until late midnight yesterday we discussed about this, and at the end the Bali leaders’ declaration was agreed unanimously in consensus,” Jokowi said.

    “We agreed that the war has negative impact to the global economy, and the global economic recovery will also not be achieved without any peace.”

    The statement came hours after Poland said a “Russian-made missile” had landed in a village near its border with Ukraine, killing two people.

    It remains unclear who fired that missile. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used Russian-made munitions during the conflict, with Ukraine deploying Russian-made missiles as part of their air defense system. But whatever the outcome of the investigation into the deadly strike, the incident underscored the dangers of miscalculation in a brutal war that has stretched on for nearly nine months, and which risks escalating further and dragging major powers into it.

    Waking up to the news, US President Joe Biden and leaders from the G7 and NATO convened an emergency meeting in Bali to discuss the explosion.

    The passing of the joint declaration would have required the buy-in from leaders that share close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin – most notably Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who declared a “no-limits” friendship between their countries weeks before the invasion, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    While India is seen to have distanced itself from Russia, whether there has been any shift of position from China is less clear. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called for a ceasefire and agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in a flurry of bilateral meetings with Western leaders on the sidelines of the G20, but he has given no public indication of any commitment to persuade his “close friend” Vladimir Putin to end the war.

    Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in February, Beijing has refused to label the military aggression as an “invasion” or “war,” and has amplified Russian propaganda blaming the conflict on NATO and the US while decrying sanctions.

    When discussing Ukraine with leaders from the US, France and other nations, Xi invariably stuck to terms such as “the Ukraine crisis” or “the Ukraine issue” and avoided the word “war,” according to Chinese readouts.

    In those meetings, Xi reiterated China’s call for a ceasefire through dialogue, and, according to readouts from his interlocutors, agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine – but those remarks are not included in China’s account of the talks.

    China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi later told Chinese state media that Xi had reiterated China’s position in his meeting with Biden that “nuclear weapons cannot be used and a nuclear war cannot be fought.”

    In a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov Tuesday, Wang praised Russia for holding the same position. “China noticed that Russia has recently reaffirmed the established position that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,’ which shows Russia’s rational and responsible attitude,” Wang was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua.

    Wang is one of the few – if not only – foreign officials to have sat down for a formal meeting with Lavrov, who has faced isolation and condemnation at a summit where he stood in for Putin.

    On Tuesday, Lavrov sat through the opening of the summit listening to world leaders condemn Russia’s brutal invasion. Indonesian President and G20 host Widodo told world leaders “we must end the war.” “If the war does not end, it will be difficult for the world to move forward,” he said.

    Xi, meanwhile, made no mention of Ukraine in his opening remarks. Instead, the Chinese leader made a thinly veiled criticism of the US – without mentioning it by name – for “drawing ideological lines” and “promoting group politics and bloc confrontation.”

    Compared with the ambiguous stance of China, observers have noted a more obvious shift from India – and the greater role New Delhi is willing to play in engaging all sides.

    On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for leaders to “find a way to return to the path of ceasefire and diplomacy in Ukraine” in his opening remarks at the summit.

    The draft of the joint declaration also includes a sentence: “Today’s era must not be of war.” The language echos what Modi told Putin in September, on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan.

    “If the Indian language was used in the text, that means Western leaders are listening to India as a major stakeholder in the region, because India is a country that is close to both the West and Russia,” said Happymon Jacob, associate professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

    “And we are seeing India disassociating itself from Russia in many ways.”

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