Asia
Malaysia’s PM urges ASEAN to speak up on Myanmar violence
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to speak up and hold Myanmar’s military leaders accountable for blatant human rights violations, but said the country should remain in the regional bloc.
Anwar, who took office in November, has become one of the most vocal critics in ASEAN of Myanmar’s military, which seized power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.
In a visit to the Philippines, he discussed the Myanmar crisis with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday and called on ASEAN to explore new ways to persuade Myanmar’s ruling generals to halt the violence, saying it is affecting the region.
Read more: Dhaka wants foreign funds for moving 70,000 Rohingyas to Bhasan Char: PMO
“They need to do more because it is causing us a major problem, we have 200,000 (Myanmar) refugees in Malaysia alone,” Anwar told The Associated Press after delivering a lecture Thursday at the University of the Philippines, at which he received an honorary degree for advocating democracy and fighting corruption.
In his lecture, Anwar urged ASEAN to speak up on atrocities in Myanmar and not be restrained by the group’s bedrock principles of deciding by consensus and non-intervention in each other’s domestic affairs.
Deciding by consensus “does not mean that ASEAN should remain silent over developments in member states that affect the wider region or particularly egregious violations of the ASEAN charter by its own members,” Anwar said.
“In all honesty, I believe that non-interference is not a license for indifference,” he said.
Read more: 'Cuts in food rations for Rohingyas to have serious health impact'
By helping to hold those responsible for violence in Myanmar accountable, ASEAN would stay true to its key ideal of upholding justice and the rule of law, Anwar said.
He cited Philippine national hero Jose Rizal’s description of justice “as the foremost virtue of the civilizing races. It subdues the barbarous nations while injustice arouses the weakest.”
Since the military’s takeover in Myanmar, security forces have killed thousands of civilians and army sweeps through the countryside have displaced more than 1 million people. In 2017, a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the Muslim Rohingya minority drove more than 740,000 to flee across the border into Bangladesh, where they remain in refugee camps.
ASEAN leaders later forged a five-point peace plan that called for an immediate end to the violence, a visit by an ASEAN special envoy to foster dialogue among contending parties and provision of humanitarian aid. Myanmar’s military government initially agreed to it but later stymied its implementation.
Western nations have taken stronger action, including political and economic sanctions against the generals and their cronies. Under intense international pressure to do more, ASEAN excluded top Myanmar officials from the bloc’s meetings starting in 2021.
Anwar told the AP he is not calling for Myanmar to be suspended from ASEAN membership, despite earlier mentioning a “need to temporarily carve out Myanmar.” Instead, ASEAN should explore more ways to end the crisis and not allow Myanmar to hamper the group’s political and economic progress, he said.
“I mean leave them aside,” Anwar said, without elaborating. Myanmar “should not frustrate our work.”
India, China foreign ministers hold talks to mend ties
The foreign ministers of India and China met Thursday on the sidelines of a gathering in New Delhi of top diplomats from the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations, signaling a thaw in their relationship, which has been tense since 2020.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the talks with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, “focused on addressing current challenges to the bilateral relationship, especially peace and tranquility in the border areas.”
Read more: US, Russia hold highest-level talks since Ukraine invasion
“There are real problems in that relationship that need to be looked at, that need to be discussed very openly and candidly between us. That’s what we sought to do today,” Jaishankar told reporters.
Qin, who is in India for the G-20 meeting, met with Jaishankar a day after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said “China attaches great importance to India.”
She added that maintaining good ties between the two countries is fundamental to their interests.
The relationship between New Delhi and Beijing has deteriorated since 2020, when Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed along their land border in the Ladakh region, with 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers killed. The skirmish turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.
Read more: At G-20, high expectations for India as rising global power
The standoff has continued despite 17 rounds of talks between Indian and Chinese military commanders.
Since 2020, China has been building dozens of large weatherproof structures along the de facto border, the Line of Actual Control, in eastern Ladakh for their troops to stay during the winter. New helipads, widened airstrips, new barracks, new surface-to-air missile sites and radar locations have also been reported by Indian media.
In February last year, India and China withdrew troops from some locations on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley in Ladakh. Both sides, however, continue to maintain extra troops as part of a multi-tier deployment.
India says China is occupying 38,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) of its territory in the Aksai Chin Plateau, which India considers part of Ladakh.
India and China fought a war over the border in 1962.
New leaders, economy to dominate China's legislative session
The installation of new leaders and the need to shore up a flagging economy will dominate the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament that kicks off Sunday.
The nearly 3,000 delegates attending the meeting of the largely powerless National People's Congress will hear reports on the work of government that lay out the ruling Communist Party’s priorities.
Don’t expect open debates or criticism. All documents, decisions and appointments are expected to receive unanimous support.
Below are some of the issues surrounding the roughly 10-day event.
WHAT’S SPECIAL ABOUT THIS YEAR?
This year’s gathering comes at the start of China’s latest five-year political cycle, as an addendum to the ruling Communist Party’s 20th annual congress in October.
That event saw the appointment of a new Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of political power in China, led by Secretary General Xi Jinping, China’s president who has eliminated term limits to allow him to rule for life.
The congress will see Xi renamed head of state along with the replacement of Li Keqiang as premier and the appointment of other top members of the State Council, China’s Cabinet.
China’s economy was battered by pandemic-related lockdowns, quarantines and other harsh measures imposed under the “zero-COVID” strategy, adding to the woes of a hugely indebted real estate sector and the precarious state of local government finances.
Despite optimistic talk from Beijing, many analysts say the economy is in serious trouble.
At the same time, China’s assertive, often adventurous foreign policy has put it at odds with the U.S. and its allies over issues from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to threats against Taiwan and even the banning of the Chinese short video app TikTok by foreign governments on national security grounds.
WHAT ARE SOME OTHER THEMES?
The gathering is expected to pick up on a move to increase centralization — always a key priority for communist states — by shifting responsibilities from government bodies to those directly under the party’s Central Committee.
That could be most pronounced in the security field, where the responsibilities of the Ministry of Public Security in charge of the police, and the Ministry of State Security that handles foreign and domestic intelligence, could by taken over by party commissions.
Similar moves have been proposed for the semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong, where the party has steadily ratcheted up control since months of anti-government protests in 2019 and a subsequent crackdown on civil liberties and political opposition.
Measures to boost a flagging birthrate are also expected to be discussed, following the abandonment of the much-criticized and highly punitive one-child policy in 2016. That followed the announcement in January that the population fell by 850,000 last year as a result of a cratering birthrate and aging population, the first decline in 61 years.
Local governments are offering subsidized childcare, cash payments of 5,000 yuan ($700) or more and even free apartments to couples who decide to start families, especially if they’re having more than one child.
In Sichuan province, authorities this year moved to legally recognize children born to unwed mothers. More localities are expected to follow. Previously, women were not banned from having children on their own, but faced bureaucratic hurdles making it almost impossible to register them for school and other social services. IVF services are being expanded, although surrogacy remains illegal.
The issue of Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 and has never been governed by the Communist Party, is also seen as growing more pressing, especially given heightened tensions with Taiwan’s top ally, the United States.
Since the NPC’s passage in 2005 of an “anti-secession law,” leaders have debated enacting tougher measures to back up Beijing’s threat to use force to annex the island it considers its own territory.
“Now, of course, some people may think (the NPC) is more conservative. That’s true,” said Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese politics and leadership issues at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C.
Xi has shifted policy so that “the top priority is state security. It’s national security at a time that war becomes more likely,” Cheng said.
WHAT IS THE NPC AND WHAT DOES IT DO?
Made up of regional delegations and one from the People's Liberation Army, the National People’s Congress is technically the highest law-making body in China, although the vast majority of its legislative work is performed by its 175-member Standing Committee that meets year-round.
Its annual gathering at the hulking Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing is the main public forum for communicating the government’s priorities and goals, both economic and political.
A key document is the premier’s work report that will set the GDP growth target and the defense budget.
There is also a limited opportunity for feedback, as top officials meet with the various delegation heads, but there is none of the open discussion or tabling of bills typical of other legislatures. That is also the case with the congress’ advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which meets concurrently.
“The purpose of the annual session is a signaling exercise of what the leadership’s goals are and what they want everyone to think about going forward,” said Scott Kennedy, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
WHAT’S IT SAY ABOUT CHINA’S POLITICAL SYSTEM?
NPC delegates almost all belong to the ruling Communist Party, which has brooked no opposition and very little criticism since seizing power amid civil war in 1949.
Delegates are generally far better traveled, better educated and more politically astute than in the past. Yet, that hasn’t produced any apparent desire to turn the NPC into a more representative body that could act as a check on government and the ruling party. With few exceptions, the NPC has been a loyal adjunct to the party leadership, offering a patina of democracy to an increasingly authoritarian one-party police state.
And in case there is any question, the party routinely issues decrees and takes real steps to quash any push for reform smacking of Western-style liberalism. Dissidents have been imprisoned, exiled or intimidated into silence, while human rights lawyers and legal activists have been under massive pressure since a sweeping 2015 roundup.
Just days before the NPC’s opening, the party’s General Office issued a directive telling law professors and their students to “oppose and resist Western erroneous views such as ‘constitutional government,’ ‘separation of three powers,’ and ’independence of the judiciary.'”
British navy seizes Iran missiles, parts likely Yemen bound
The British navy seized anti-tank missiles and fins for ballistic missile assemblies during a raid on a small boat heading from Iran likely to Yemen, authorities said Thursday, the latest such seizure in the Gulf of Oman.
The seizure by the Royal Navy comes after other seizures by French and U.S. forces in the region as Western powers increase their pressure on Iran, as it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. It also comes as regional and international powers try to find an end to the yearslong war gripping Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, and as Iran arms Russia in its war on Ukraine.
The raid took place Feb. 23 after an American aircraft detected a small motorboat with cargo covered by a gray tarp heading from Iran, with a helicopter from the Royal Navy frigate HMS Lancaster chasing the vessel as it ignored being hailed by radio, the British Defense Ministry said. The boat tried to reenter Iranian territorial water, but was stopped before it could.
Inside the boat, British troops found Russian 9M133 Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, known in Iran as “Dehlavieh,” the U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet and the British navy said. Those weapons have been seen in other seizures suspected to be from Iran and bound for Yemen.
Also on board were small fins that the U.S. Navy identified as jet vanes for medium-range ballistic missiles. Also on board were devices the Navy identified as “impact sensor covers” that go on the tips of those missiles.
While the British did not identify where it suspected the weapons would go, the U.S. Navy described the seziure as happening “along a route historically used to traffic weapons unlawfully to Yemen.”
Iranian components have helped build a missile arsenal for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have held the country’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014.
A United Nations resolution bans arms transfers to Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Tehran long has denied arming the rebels, despite physical evidence, numerous seizures and experts tying the weapons back to Iran.
“This seizure by HMS Lancaster and the permanent presence of the Royal Navy in the Gulf region supports our commitment to uphold international law and tackle activity that threatens peace and security around the world,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said.
Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of the American 5th Fleet, said in a statement that this was the “seventh illegal weapon or drug interdiction in the last three months and yet another example of Iran’s increasing malign maritime activity across the region.” In that time, the Navy said, its sailors and allies have seized more than 5,000 weapons, 1.6 million rounds of ammunition, 30 anti-tank missiles and other weapon components.
Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge the seizure. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The war in Yemen has deteriorated largely into a stalemate and spawned one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. However, Saudi-led airstrikes haven’t been recorded in Yemen since the kingdom began a cease-fire at the end of March 2022, according to the Yemen Data Project.
That cease-fire expired in October despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. That has led to fears the war could again escalate. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen during the fighting, including over 14,500 civilians.
At G-20, high expectations for India as rising global power
With the foreign ministers of the Group of 20 leading economies meeting Thursday in New Delhi, host India is promoting itself as a rising superpower while leveraging its position on the global stage to bridge the gap between the West and Russia.
Experts expect India to be at the center of bitter global divisions, particularly over Russia’s war in Ukraine. But it’s also an opportunity for the South Asian nation to position itself as the voice of the Global South and as a potential mediator between the West and Moscow.
Read more: Modi urges G20 foreign ministers to overcome differences
India is expected to adopt a neutral stance on Ukraine, as it has in the past. The event is likely to be overshadowed by the war in Europe and its impact on global energy and food security. However, senior foreign ministry officials said Wednesday that India was determined to focus on “equally important” issues of rising inflation, debt stress, health, climate change and food and energy security in developing nations.
“I really do believe that India stands the best chance of all countries to try to hold peace negotiations between Russia and not just the U.S., but the West, actually,” said Derek Grossman, an analyst focused on the Indo-Pacific at the RAND Corporation.
He credited India’s non-alignment and its rise as a global power for why it could be a potential peacemaker.
Read more: Modi urges G20 finance leaders to focus on ‘most vulnerable’
But the South Asian country has its own challenges, particularly with regional rival China. Tensions between New Delhi and Beijing remain high after a deadly border clash in 2020.
On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the country’s foreign minister would be attending the G-20 meeting, and that “China attaches great importance with India.” She added maintaining good ties between the two countries is fundamental to their interests.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar “have done a good job of steering this middle path in very turbulent times,” Grossman said.
“You now have American, Russian and even Chinese diplomats supporting India. The country really is at the geopolitical crossroads of everything now that involves the Global South,” he added.
So far, India has refrained from directly criticizing Russia. The two have been allies since the cold war era and New Delhi depends on Moscow for nearly 60% of its defense equipment. India has increasingly scooped up Russian oil since the invasion a year ago, initially facing scrutiny from the U.S. and other allies over its growing purchases. That pressure has since waned and India has continued to abstain from voting in U.N. resolutions that condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It may appear unfathomable to many in the West that the reaction of the world’s largest democracy to such a cold-blooded, egregious aggression would be so subdued. But for anyone who understands India’s foreign policy, it’s not surprising at all,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute.
Read more: India’s Supreme Court orders investigation of Adani business group
“New Delhi has a special relationship with Moscow, and it’s not about to jeopardize it by turning on a longstanding partner,” he said.
Thursday’s meeting will nonetheless be challenging for India, especially after it was forced to issue a compromised chair’s summary at the conclusion of the G-20 finance ministers meeting last week. Russia and China objected to a joint communique that retained language on the war in Ukraine drawn directly from last year’s G-20 leaders summit declaration in Indonesia.
India has said that it stands by the Bali declaration in which major world powers strongly condemned the war in Ukraine, warning that the conflict was intensifying fragilities in the world’s economy.
Grossman said it was concerning that the final statement issued in Bengaluru last week was watered down from the Bali declaration at the insistence of China and Russia. He said New Delhi allowing that to happen was worrisome, but India’s “awkward predicament” to ensure a successful G-20 with everyone there, including Russia and China, meant the country has to make “compromises.”
“I think that’s what India is trying to do now,” he said.
The summits are particularly important for Modi and his ruling party ahead of the 2024 general elections. A strong show during India’s year as G-20 president will allow Modi’s party to signal its diplomatic reach and project power both at home and abroad.
Kugelman said the summit, due later this year, will advance important domestic political goals for New Delhi, and Modi’s ultimate goal would be to “successfully manage the myriad geopolitical rivalries within the G-20, signal that India can rise above intense great power competition and seemingly intractable issues like the Ukraine war, and guide the prestigious club toward tangible achievements.”
“In effect, Modi wants its G-20 presidency to yield meaningful achievements. That’s a tall order, for sure, but it’s important for New Delhi’s foreign policy and domestic political goals alike,” he said.
India’s Supreme Court orders investigation of Adani business group
India’s Supreme Court today ordered an expert committee to investigate any regulatory failures related to the country’s second-largest conglomerate, the Adani Group.
The investigation was prompted by allegations made by U.S. short-seller Hindenburg Research in a report that accused Adani companies of engaging in market manipulation and other fraudulent practices.
Shares in the group’s flagship, Adani Enterprises, and other affiliated companies have lost tens of billions of dollars in market value since Hindenburg issued its report.
The Adani Group has denied any wrongdoing, defending itself against the allegations in a 413 page rebuttal. In a tweet Thursday, it welcomed the court order.
``It will bring finality in a time-bound manner. Trust will prevail,” the company said.
The expert committee will submit its findings to the Supreme Court within two months, said Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala.
The top court also directed the government-run Securities and Exchange Board of India to investigate whether there had been a violation of rules or manipulation of stock prices by the Adani Group.
The court acted on petitions filed by some activists and lawyers.
Apart from investigating allegations against Adani, the expert committee is to suggest measures to improve regulatory oversight and protections for investors.
Adani Enterprises canceled a share offering meant to raise $2.5 billion last month after Hindenburg issued its report and its share price plummeted.
Opposition lawmakers blocked parliamentary proceedings last month demanding a probe into the business dealings of coal tycoon Gautam Adani, who is said to enjoy close ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi urges G20 foreign ministers to overcome differences
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged G20 foreign ministers to overcome their differences and to reach consensus on issues of deep concern to poorer countries.
In a video address to the assembled foreign ministers in New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged them not to allow current tensions to destroy agreements that might be reached on food and energy security, climate change and the debt crisis.
“We are meeting at a time of deep global divisions,” Modi told the group, which included U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and their Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, whose discussions would naturally be “affected by the geopolitical tensions of the day.”
“We all have our positions and our perspectives on how these tensions should be resolved,” he said, adding that: “We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can.”
Top diplomats from the world’s major industrialized and developing nations on Thursday opened what are expected to be contentious talks dominated by Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s moves to boost its global influence.
In a nod to fears that the increasingly bitter rift between the United States and its allies on one side and Russia and China on the other appears likely to widen further, Modi said that “multilateralism is in crisis today.”
He lamented that the two main goals of the post-World War II international order — preventing conflict and fostering cooperation — were elusive. “The experience of the last two years, financial crisis, pandemic, terrorism and wars clearly shows that global governance has failed in both its mandates,” he said.
Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar then addressed the group in person, telling them that they “must find common ground and provide direction.”
While they were all in the same room, there was no sign that Blinken would sit down with either his Russian or Chinese counterparts. Ahead of the meeting, Blinken said he had no plans to meet with them individually but expected to see them in group settings.
In addition to attending the G-20 and seeing Modi and Jaishankar individually on Thursday, Blinken’s official schedule had him meeting only the foreign ministers of Brazil, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa.
COVID-19 conspiracies soar after latest report on origins
COVID-19′s origins remain hazy. Three years after the start of the pandemic, it’s still unclear whether the coronavirus that causes the disease leaked from a lab or spread to humans from an animal.
This much is known: When it comes to COVID-19 misinformation, any new report on the virus’ origin quickly triggers a relapse and a return of misleading claims about the virus, vaccines and masks that have reverberated since the pandemic began.
It happened again this week after the Energy Department confirmed that a classified report determined, with low confidence, that the virus escaped from a lab. Within hours, online mentions of conspiracy theories involving COVID-19 began to rise, with many commenters saying the classified report was proof they were right all along.
Far from definitive, the Energy Department’s report is the latest of many attempts by scientists and officials to identify the origin of the virus, which has now killed nearly 7 million people after being first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
The report has not been made public, and officials in Washington stressed that a variety of U.S. agencies are not in agreement on the origin. On Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News that the FBI “has for quite some time now” assessed that the pandemic’s origins are “most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”
But others in the U.S. intelligence community disagree, and there’s no consensus. Many scientists believe the likeliest explanation is that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 jumped from animals to humans, possibly at Wuhan’s Huanan market, a scenario backed up by multiple studies and reports. The World Health Organization has said that while an animal origin remains most likely, the possibility of a lab leak must be investigated further before it can be ruled out.
People should be open-minded about the evidence used in the Energy Department’s assessment, according to virologist Angela Rasmussen. But she said that without evaluating the classified report, she can’t assess if it’s persuasive enough to challenge the conclusion that the virus spread from an animal.
“The vast majority of the evidence continues to support natural origin,” Rasmussen told The Associated Press Wednesday. “I’m a scientist. I need to see the evidence rather than take the FBI director’s word for it.”
Many of those citing the report as proof, however, seemed uninterested in the details. They seized on the report and said it suggests the experts were wrong when it came to masks and vaccines, too.
“School closures were a failed & catastrophic policy. Masks are ineffective. And harmful,” said a tweet that’s been read nearly 300,000 times since Sunday. “COVID came from a lab. Everything we skeptics said was true.”
Overall mentions of COVID-19 began to rise after The Wall Street Journal published a story about the Energy Department report on Sunday. Since then, mentions of various COVID-related conspiracy theories have soared, according to an analysis conducted by Zignal Labs, a San Francisco-based media intelligence firm, and shared with The Associated Press.
While the lab leak theory has bounced around the internet since the pandemic began, references to it soared 100,000% in the 48 hours after the Energy Department report was revealed, according to Zignal’s analysis, which combed through social media, blogs and other sites.
Many of the conspiracy theories contradict each other and the findings in the Energy Department report. In a tweet on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, called COVID-19 a “man made bioweapon from China.” A follower quickly challenged her: “It was made in Ukraine,” he responded.
With so many questions remaining about a world event that has claimed so many lives and upended even more, it’s not at all surprising that COVID-19 is still capable of generating so much anger and misinformation, according to Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington-based organization that has tracked government propaganda about COVID-19.
“The pandemic was so incredibly disruptive to everyone. The intensity of feelings about COVID, I don’t think that’s going to go away,” Schafer said. “And any time something new comes along, it breathes new life into these grievances and frustrations, real or imagined.”
Chinese government officials have in the past used their social media accounts to amplify anti-U.S. conspiracy theories, including some that suggested the U.S. created the COVID-19 virus and framed its release on China.
So far, they’ve taken a quieter approach to the Energy Department report. In their official response, China’s government dismissed the agency’s assessment as an effort to politicize the pandemic. Online, Beijing’s sprawling propaganda and disinformation network was largely silent, with just a few posts criticizing or mocking the report.
“BREAKING,” a pro-China YouTuber wrote on Twitter. “I can now announce, with ‘low confidence,’ that the COVID pandemic began as a leak from Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
US approves selling Taiwan munitions worth $619 million
The U.S. has approved more arms sales to Taiwan, including $619 million worth of munitions for F-16 fighter jets, in a decision likely to be yet another point of friction between the U.S. and China, which claims the island as its own territory.
The State Department said in a statement Wednesday night it had approved sales of missiles to be used with the F-16s as well as equipment to support the missiles. That includes AGM-88 anti-radiation missiles, as well as air-to-air missiles and launchers.
Taiwan is unofficially supported by the U.S. and has a fleet of F-16s bought from the U.S. Tensions between China and the U.S. are at their highest level in years over American support for the self-governed island, including visits by high-ranking politicians, and a host of other issues, including a suspected Chinese spy balloon that crossed the U.S. before being shot down last month.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory to be brought under its control by force if necessary, and has been stepping up its military and diplomatic harassment. The sides split amid civil war in 1949, and China’s authoritarian Communist Party has never held sway over the island.
The United States is Taiwan’s main supplier of military equipment, and China has objected to past sales with sanctions and other actions.
Once arms sales are approved, delivering them can take years, and Taiwan has cited consistent delays in receiving weapons it has purchased.
The arms will be provided by Raytheon Missiles and Defense and Lockheed Martin Corporation.
N. Korea wants more control over farming amid food shortage
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to strengthen state control over agriculture and make all available efforts to increase grain production, state media reported, as the country faces a worsening food shortage.
The prospect for an early resolution of its food insecurity is still dim, as North Korea restricts the operation of markets and devotes much of its scarce resources to its nuclear program. While experts believe the food situation is the worst it has been under Kim’s rule, they still say they see no signs of imminent famine or mass deaths.
During a recent four-day ruling Workers’ Party meeting, Kim said his government sees agricultural development as a matter of “strategic” importance and that farming goals should be settled without fail, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
“In order to attain the gigantic long-term objective of rural development, it is necessary to decisively strengthen the party guidance over the agricultural sector and improve the rural party work,” Kim was quoted as saying.
He said that all state sectors and units must provide “mental and moral, material and technical support and assistance to the rural communities,” saying that should be “a trend of the whole society.”
Kim also ordered officials to overcome unspecified “lopsidedness in the guidance on farming” and concentrate on increasing farm yields. He said provincial, city and county authorities must boost their guidance on agriculture.
KCNA didn’t elaborate how Kim wants to reinforce and improve his government’s control over agriculture.
But experts have said North Korean authorities’ attempts to supply grain via state-run facilities and restrict private dealings at markets was considered one of the reasons behind the worsened food situation. Others include decreased personal incomes, pandemic-related border curbs that blocked unofficial rice purchases from China and the overall economic difficulties deepened by mismanagement, COVID-19 and international sanctions.
North Korea’s grain production last year was estimated at 4.5 million tons, a 3.8% drop from a year earlier, according to South Korean assessments. In the previous decade, its annual production was an estimated 4.4 million to 4.8 million tons. South Korea’s spy agency has said North Korea needs 5.5 million tons of grain to feed its 25 million people each year.
“It is difficult to be optimistic about the food supply as long as Pyongyang insists on implementing North Korean style socialism and isolating the country from international trade and assistance while developing nuclear missiles,” Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said.
Holding a ruling party’s Central Committee meeting focused on agriculture — while previous plenary meetings mostly concentrated on the country’s nuclear program or rivalries with the United States and South Korea — could be an acknowledgement the food situation is serious. But some experts say the country also likely aims to burnish Kim’s image as a leader caring for his people and boost domestic support of his push to expand his nuclear arsenal.
Kim also called for faster construction of new irrigation systems that would help the country cope with extreme weather conditions brought by climate change. He also called for machinery manufacturers to build and supply more efficient farming machines and for workers to accelerate their efforts to reclaim tidelines to expand farming.
According to KCNA, Kim praised the plenary meeting for producing more definite proposals that would put agriculture on a “stable and sustained development track” and accelerate overall prosperity. But the account did not give further specifics.