US-China relations

The United States will send its health secretary to Taiwan in the highest-level official visit to the island since 1979, in an announcement that has drawn warnings from Beijing. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will lead a delegation “in the coming days,” according to the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto US embassy in Taipei in the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Azar will be the first visiting cabinet member of the Trump administration and the highest-level US official to visit the island since Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.  In response to the US announcement, Beijing warned Washington not to “send the wrong s

The Philippine navy has been ordered not to join US-led military exercises in the South China Sea, in what analysts said was an attempt to placate China while distancing the Philippines from Washington, its traditional ally. President Rodrigo Duterte decided his country should not take part in naval exercises in the disputed sea “except in our national waters, [within] 12 miles of our shores,” defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Monday. Lorenzana said the decision was aimed at keeping a lid on tensions in the region, where there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of US military activity, including the recent deployment of two aircraft carriers. With ties between Beiji

President Donald Trump will take action against TikTok, WeChat and “countless” Chinese software companies that pose a national security threat to America, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday, apparently widening the scope of attention the US government is paying to online tech platforms developed in China. “These Chinese software companies doing business with the United States, whether it’s TikTok or WeChat, there are countless more,” Pompeo said in a Fox News interview on Sunday, accusing Chinese technology firms of “feeding data” to the ruling Communist Party’s security apparatus. Pompeo’s warning to Chinese software companies came as Trump agreed to a 45-day timeline for the Chi

The United States should prepare for an “ascendant” Communist-led China, according to a report released by Rand Corporation, the US government-funded think tank. The compilers of China’s Grand Strategy: Trends, Trajectories and Long-Term Competition examined how successful the Chinese Communist Party was likely to be in achieving the goals it has set for the country by 2050. They considered four possible futures in which China is “triumphant” (having achieved all of its goals), “ascendant” (having achieved some), “stagnant” (having failed in its ambitions) or “imploding” (the regime is under threat). Compiled for the US military and published last week, the report concluded that “ascendant”

Americans’ negative views toward China have reached a “new historic high” amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report published by the Pew Research Center on Thursday. “Around three-quarters (73%) of Americans have an unfavorable view of China today – the most negative reading in the 15 years that Pew Research Center has been measuring these views,” wrote the authors of the report, Laura Silver, Kat Devlin and Christine Huang. “The percentage who say they have a very unfavorable view of China is also at a record high of 42%, having nearly doubled since the spring of 2019, when 23% said the same.” Pew’s survey is the latest piece of evidence in an impossible-to-miss trend: distrust

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Index features one important number about China to give you insight into the rising power. 14%: How much China accounted for India’s overall imports in 2019. Last year, commerce between India and China was worth about US$85 billion, making it Delhi’s second-most fruitful trading relationship, behind only the US.  Nearly one-third of India’s imports from China are electronics, such as smartphones and telecommunications equipment. India also heavily imports materials for nuclear reactors and organic chemicals.  But the close economic ties are under threat after a deadly border conflict in June, igniting wide anti-Chinese sentiment in India. The Indian gover

Tzu-i Chuang, the wife of the US consul general in Chengdu, said 35 years of exchanges between Beijing and Washington had been consigned to history following China’s closure of the American consulate in the southwestern city. The Taiwanese food writer, who is married to Jim Mullinax, the US consul general in Chengdu, wrote a Facebook post describing her sadness at the closure, which was in retaliation for the US ordering the shuttering of the Chinese consulate in Houston over alleged espionage activities. Chuang – who posts regularly to more than 605,000 followers on Weibo and nearly 70,000 on Facebook – described the impact on the mission’s 100-plus local staff, and on the 23 US diplomats a

Beijing is trying to walk a fine line with Washington as it seeks to present a hardline stance to its domestic audience without causing irrevocable damage to the relationship. Analysts say that despite the so-called Wolf Warrior attitude of Chinese diplomats, official rhetoric and nationalistic online sentiment, Beijing has stopped short of overly provocative steps and has been unwilling or unable to retaliate with equal force to American diplomatic volleys. Tensions flared last week when the US ordered China’s consulate in Houston to close within 72 hours over alleged espionage activities. Beijing reacted by closing the American consulate in Chengdu, rather than shuttering a high-profile of

The US consulate in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu closed on Monday under orders from Beijing, in a tit-for-tat move following last week’s forced closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston. China’s foreign ministry confirmed on the WeChat social media platform that the consulate had closed at 10am local time, and Chinese officials entered to take over the compound. The American embassy in Beijing posted a farewell to the facility on China’s Twitter-like Weibo. “Today, we say goodbye to the US consulate in Chengdu. We will miss you forever,” it said. Several vehicles and dozens of Chinese workers were seen leaving on Monday morning, while police blocked off roads. Earlier, at 6.24a

The Chinese government ordered the closure of the US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu on Friday, a retaliation against Washington’s order to close the Chinese consulate in Houston.  The controversy surrounding Washington’s decision to shut the Houston consulate, which was the first Chinese consulate opened after the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1979, is the latest flashpoint in the two countries’ spiraling relationship.  Since the start of the 2018 trade war, China and the US have been at odds over issues of trade deficits, intellectual property theft and corporate espionage. But the coronavirus pandemic has added a degree of rancour to the dispute, with Was