Torbjørn Færøvik's Blog, page 20

Philippines flexes middle power clout in China sea dispute

The Philippines joined Australia and Canada in a joint cooperative sail this week near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea that has been under Chinese control for over a decade. The drills marked a show of force by rising middle-power countries, which are increasingly willing to challenge Chinese power at sea in the Pacific.The two-day activities that culminated on Wednesday (September 3

Torbjørn Færøvik: A triumphant Kim Jong-un returns home to Pyongyang

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un was all smiles when he arrived in Beijing earlier this week. During his stay, he appeared even more pleased, and now he is laughing all the way back to Pyongyang – even if the train journey is both long and tiring. At the grand military parade on Wednesday, Kim stood shoulder to shoulder with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Since then, images from the event have been

Torbjørn Færøvik: Blidere enn noengang reiser Kim Jong-un hjem til Pyongyang

Nord-Koreas Kim Jong-un smilte fra øre til øre da han ankom Beijing tidligere i uken. Under oppholdet virket han om mulig enda mer fornøyd, og nå ler han hele veien tilbake til Pyongyang – selv om togreisen er både lang og trettende. Under den storslåtte militærparaden onsdag fikk Kim stå skulder ved skulder med Xi Jinping og Vladimir Putin. Siden da er bildene fra begivenheten blitt vist

China’s military display shows it has the might to back up Xi’s vision of a new world order

The huge military parade through central Beijing on Wednesday was a deliberately fearsome display of weaponry designed to send a message that Xi Jinping’s vision of a new world order with China at the apex will be backed up with high-tech arms that would seem, in many cases, to be ahead of its rivals.While much post-parade attention will be focused on new long-range nuclear-armed weapons – like

How China spectacle shows dangers of Trump's high risk trade policy

The military might of the People's Republic of China was on full display in a parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two on Wednesday. Thousands of miles away, at the White House in Washington DC, Donald Trump was paying attention."They were hoping I was watching, and I was watching," he said.The American president didn't detail his thoughts about the massive celebration

'A clear message to Trump': BBC correspondents react to China's military parade

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stood publicly shoulder to shoulder for the first time on Wednesday, ahead of a massive military parade in central Beijing.That parade, which marked 80 years since China's victory over Japan in World War Two, saw Beijing unveiling a range of new military hardware – including a new nuclear

Hot mic catches Xi and Putin discussing organ transplants and immortality

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been overheard discussing organ transplants as a means of prolonging life on the sidelines of a military parade in Beijing. Putin suggested even eternal life could be achievable as a result of innovations in biotechnology, according to a translation of remarks caught on a hot mic. The unguarded moment was captured on

China's Xi steals the limelight in a defiant push against US-led world order

As the cannon fire echoed through Tiananmen Square, even before the first set of troops goose-stepped their way through Beijing's central avenue, the day's most enduring image unfolded. China's President Xi Jinping welcomed North Korea's Kim Jong Un with a long handshake, then moved on to greet Russia's Vladimir Putin, and then walked to his seat, flanked by two of the world's most

Coding the future... in Chinese?

A Chinese vocational school in Tianjin is showcasing a vision for the future: a factory automation model powered by Huawei’s Ascend chips and programmed in Chinese characters. Forget Python, Java, or C — this system skips the Latin alphabet altogether. Nor is Nvidia involved. The China-centric demonstration was part of a state-organized tour around the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

INTERVIEW WITH DR. GYAL LO: TIBETAN CHILDREN ARE BECOMING “STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN HOMES”

In 2021, Tibet Action Institute (TAI) published a groundbreaking report exposing the extensive use of colonial boarding schools to indoctrinate and forcibly assimilate Tibetan children into Han Chinese culture and society. (See CDT’s two-part interview with TAI’s Lhadon Tethong on this topic.) This May, TAI issued a follow-up report that looked more closely at the conditions and treatment of