Zhang Chiahou's Blog, page 6

With China tensions rising, U.S. joins Taiwan to mark battle anniversary

KINMEN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Amid rising tensions with Beijing, the de facto U.S. ambassador in Chinese-claimed Taiwan took part on Sunday for the first time in commemorations of a key military clash and the last time Taiwanese forces joined battle with China on a large scale.Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen leaves after paying her respects to the deceased during an event to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Second Taiwan Strait crisis in Kinmen, Taiwan, August 23, 2020. REUTERS/Ann Wang

China has stepped up military activity around the democratic island, moves denounced by Taiwan’s government as an attempt at intimidation to force them to accept Chinese rule.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen laid a wreath and bowed her head in respect at a memorial park on Kinmen island, which sits a few kilometres (miles) off the Chinese metropolis of Xiamen, to mark the 62nd anniversary of the start of the second Taiwan Straits crisis.

In August 1958, Chinese forces began more than a month of bombarding Kinmen, along with the Taiwan-controlled Matsu archipelago further up the coast, including naval and air battles, seeking to force them into submission.

Brent Christensen, head of the American Institute in Taiwan and Washington’s de facto representative, offered his respects too, standing behind Tsai, in a symbolic show of U.S. support for the island.

Christensen also laid wreaths at a monument honouring two U.S. military officers who died in a 1954 Chinese attack on Kinmen, the institute said.

“Commemorations such as these remind us that today’s U.S.-Taiwan security cooperation builds on a long and proud history that exemplifies the phrase ‘Real Friends, Real Progress,” it said in a statement.

Taiwan’s presidential office thanked Christensen for participating on a day it said serves to remind Taiwan’s people of the importance of defending freedom and democracy.

China’s Taiwan affairs office did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment on the commemoration.

Washington has no formal ties with Taipei but is its largest arms supplier. President Donald Trump’s administration has made bolstering relations a priority, to Beijing’s anger.

Like Tsai, Christensen did not make public comments.

Taiwan fought back at the time with support from the United States, which sent military equipment like advanced Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles, giving Taiwan a technological edge. The crisis ended in a stalemate.

Major General Liu Qiang-hua, spokesman for the Kinmen Defence Command, said it was important to remember an event that was crucial to ensuring Taiwan’s security.

“Of course we hope there is no war, but it is dangerous to forget about war. This is the spirit we need to safeguard,” he told Reuters.

Formerly called Quemoy in English, Kinmen today is a popular tourist destination, though remnants of past fighting like underground bunkers are scattered across the island, and Taiwan maintains a significant military presence.

Source: Reuters

South Korea, China hold highest-level talks since COVID-19 outbreak

China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, and South Korea’s national security adviser Suh Hoon pose for photographs during their meeting in Busan, South Korea, August 22, 2020. Yonhap via REUTERS

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea said on Saturday it held talks with China’s top diplomat over trade, denuclearisation and the coronavirus response in the first visit by a high-level Beijing official since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in China late last year.

Yang Jiechi, a member of the Communist Party Politburo, met with South Korea’s new national security adviser, Suh Hoon, in the southern port city of Busan, the South Korean government said.

The two sides discussed topics such as accelerating free-trade agreement negotiations, expanding cultural exchanges as well as the election of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General, South Korea’s presidential Blue House spokesman Kang Min-seok said in a statement.

The talks come after the COVID-19 pandemic had undercut bilateral exchanges and stalled denuclearisation negotiations involving North Korea.

The two countries resumed exchanges last month when Seoul sent a high-level diplomat for a bilateral economic meeting.

Suh, who took up the top security job last month after serving as intelligence chief, also discussed a potential trip to Seoul by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Kang said the two countries agreed to make Xi’s visit to South Korea happen promptly once the COVID-19 situation stabilized, adding that China called South Korea a priority for President Xi to visit.

Yang said China will continue to talk and cooperate with South Korea to achieve denuclearisation and peace on the Korean peninsula. The two sides also agreed on need to hold the South Korea-China-Japan summit within this year.

Yang arrived on Friday and is to leave on Saturday, the government said in a statement.

Source: Reuters

Flood victims take to social media as rains cause chaos in India’s Gurugram

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Heavy rains flooded parts of Gurugram, an Indian city that plays host to some of the world’s biggest tech companies, and residents took to social media to seek help by posting pictures of waterlogged roads and apartments.

Gurugram, a satellite of New Delhi, is one of India’s wealthiest cities and has offices of global corporations such as Google, Facebook and Uber [UBER.UL].

It had been showcased as India’s “Millennium City”, but clogged drains and poor civic amenities cause flooding almost every monsoon season.

The weather office on Thursday warned of “very heavy rainfall” over northern parts of India, including New Delhi and neighbouring cities, which could make the Gurugram floods worse.

After torrential rains, residents used Twitter to post pictures of floating cars, floodwaters inundating upscale apartment blocks, and large sinkholes on roads that connect the city to New Delhi.

TV footage showed miles-long traffic jams, overflowing sewage and three men rowing an inflatable lifeboat.

Local traffic authorities in Gurugram tweeted pictures of waterlogged areas to help commuters avoid long jams.Slideshow (5 Images)

Reuters partner ANI said local police had evacuated residents from a four-storey building after it leaned over to one side.

“Hello Gurugram, nice rivers – why don’t you ever change! Stay safe, people!,” Twitter user Nidhi Arora said, posting pictures of flooded roads.

Many Twitter users said they were stranded for hours in their cars on flooded roads.

Federal civic authorities have asked local municipal officials to file a report.

Source: Reuters

In China, fears of financial Iron Curtain as U.S. tensions rise

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – A sharp escalation in tensions with the United States has stoked fears in China of a deepening financial war that could result in it being shut out of the global dollar system – a devastating prospect once considered far-fetched but now not impossible.

FILE PHOTO: Chinese Yuan and U.S. dollar banknotes are seen behind illuminated stock graph in this illustration taken February 10, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Chinese officials and economists have in recent months been unusually public in discussing worst-case scenarios under which China is blocked from dollar settlements, or Washington freezes or confiscates a portion of China’s huge U.S. debt holdings.

Those concerns have galvanised some in Beijing to revive calls to bolster the yuan’s global clout as it looks to decrease reliance on the greenback.

Some economists even float the idea of settling exports of China-made COVID-19 vaccines in yuan, and are looking to bypass dollar settlement with a digital version of the currency.

“Yuan internationalisation was a good-to-have. It’s now becoming a must-have,” said Shuang Ding, head of Greater China economic research at Standard Chartered and a former economist at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

The threat of Sino-U.S. financial “decoupling” is becoming “clear and present”, Ding said.

Although a complete separation of the world’s two largest economies is unlikely, the Trump administration has been pushing for a partial decoupling in key areas related to trade, technology and financial activity.

Washington has unleashed a barrage of actions penalising China, including proposals to bar U.S. listings of Chinese companies that fail to meet U.S. accounting standards and bans on the Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat apps. Further tension is expected in the run-up to U.S. elections on Nov. 3.

“A broad financial war has already started … the most lethal tactics have yet to be used,” Yu Yongding, an economist at the state-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) who previously advised the PBOC, told Reuters.

Yu said the ultimate sanction would involve U.S. seizures of China’s U.S. assets – Beijing holds over $1 trillion yuan in U.S. government debt – which would be difficult to implement and a self-inflicted wound for Washington.

But calling U.S. leaders “extremists”, Yu said a decoupling is not impossible, so China should make preparations.

HIGH STAKES

The stakes are high. Any move by Washington to cut China off from the dollar system or retaliation by Beijing to sell a big chunk of U.S. debt could roil financial markets and hurt the global economy, analysts said.

Fang Xinghai, a senior securities regulator, said China is vulnerable to U.S. sanctions and should make “early” and “real” preparations. “Such things have already happened to many Russian businesses and financial institutions,” Fang told a June forum organised by Chinese media outlet Caixin.

Guan Tao, former director of the international payments department of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange and now chief global economist at BOC International (China), also said Beijing should ready itself for decoupling.

“We have to mentally prepare that the United States could expel China from the dollar settlement system,” he told Reuters.

In a report he co-authored last month, Guan called for increased use of China’s yuan settlement system, Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, in global trade. Most of China’s cross-border transactions are settled in dollars via the SWIFT system, which some say leaves it vulnerable.

RENEWED PUSH

After a five-year lull, Beijing is reviving its push to globalise the yuan.

The PBOC’s Shanghai head office last month urged financial institutions to expand yuan trade and prioritise local currency use in direct investment.

Central bank chief Yi Gang said in remarks published on Sunday that yuan internationalisation is proceeding well, with cross-border settlements growing 36.7% in the first half of 2020 from a year earlier.

Still, internationalisation is hampered by China’s own stringent capital controls. It could also face resistance from countries that have criticised China on matters ranging from the coronavirus to its clampdown on Hong Kong.

The yuan’s share of global foreign exchange reserves surpassed 2% in the first quarter, Yi said. It also beat the Swiss franc in June to be the fifth most-used currency for international payments, with a share of 1.76%, according to SWIFT.

One way to accelerate cross-border settlement would be to price some exports in renminbi, such as a possible coronavirus vaccine, suggested Tommy Xie, head of Greater China research at OCBC Bank in Singapore.

Another is to use a proposed digital yuan in cross-border transactions on the back of currency swaps between central banks, bypassing systems such as SWIFT, said Ding Jianping, finance professor at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

China has fast-tracked plans to develop a sovereign digital currency, while the PBOC has been busy signing currency swap deals with foreign counterparts.

Shuang Ding of Standard Chartered said Beijing has no choice but to prepare for Washington’s “nuclear option” of kicking China out of the dollar system.

“Beijing cannot afford to be thrown into disarray when sanctions indeed befall China,” he said.

Source: Reuters

Exclusive: India considers resettling Kashmiri youth who give up arms

NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR (Reuters) – India is considering offering young Kashmiri militants an escape from a life of violence by temporarily resettling them in more peaceful parts of the country, according to the top military commander in the Kashmir Valley.

FILE PHOTO: Indian security forces stand around a truck which was used by suspected militants, at the site of a gun battle at Nagrota, on the outskirts of Jammu, January 31, 2020. REUTERS/Mukesh Gupta

Lieutenant General B.S. Raju revealed the plan for a new scheme to offer a way out of militancy during a telephone interview from his headquarters in Srinagar, Kashmir’s main city.

He told Reuters recommendations had been submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and that the plan, while not finalised, was in an advanced stage.

“These are young boys who need to be taken care of for a period of time,” Raju said, adding that could involve temporarily settling them outside of Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Past efforts to persuade fighters to put down their guns have had mixed success. But Raju said the military had recommended the scheme take a longer-term approach to rehabilitating ex-militants.

“The bottom-line is that it will have a structure that will help and give confidence to the people who are opting to surrender,” Raju said.

More than 50,000 people have died during more than three decades of an insurgency that New Delhi accuses neighbouring Pakistan of fuelling, by using militant groups to wage a proxy-war across the disputed border dividing the Himalayan region.

India has flooded the valley with security forces – about 200,000 military and paramilitary troops are deployed there. And Raju said militant attacks have dropped by nearly 40% compared to last year.

AROUND 180 ACTIVE

Last August, Prime Minister Modi changed the political landscape by taking away Jammu & Kashmir’s status as India’s only Muslim majority state, splitting it into two federally-controlled territories and removing the special privileges afforded to Kashmiris.

Promising a concerted effort to develop the region economically, Modi said the move was need to integrate Kashmir more fully with the rest of the country, but critics said it would further alienate Kashmiris.

Pakistan, which maintains a long-standing territorial claim on Kashmir though it denies accusations that it materially helps the militants, has denounced Modi’s action.

Since the start of the year, Indian security forces have killed around 135 militants, most of them recruited locally.

The military estimates that there are currently around 180 militants operating with various groups active in the valley, Raju said. Some 70 local Kashmiris are reckoned to have been recruited by these groups since the start of the year, about a dozen less than during the same period a year ago.

“We wish that this should drop further, and finally cease altogether,” Raju said.

Currently most surrenders are conducted in line with a 2004 policy that provides a lump sum payout of 150,000 Indian rupees ($2,000), a small monthly stipend, free vocational training and cash payments for weapons handed over.Slideshow (2 Images)

The New Delhi-based South Asia Terrorism Portal estimated that more than 400 insurgents have surrendered since 2004, but after 2007 the numbers came down to a trickle, with only two dozen men giving up arms in the last three years.

Kuldeep Khoda, a former Kashmir police chief, said the scheme had partly failed because the vocational training provided by the government was inadequate.

“If you ask me very frankly, there was hardly any training being given. They were just kept there for a few months,” he said. “It was just a formality which was being completed.”

($1 = 74.8250 Indian rupees)

Source: Reuters

Sinovac launches late-stage trial for potential COVID-19 vaccine in Indonesia

JAKARTA/BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd launched on Tuesday a late-stage human trial involving as many as 1,620 patients in Indonesia for a COVID-19 vaccine candidate that it is developing with Indonesian state-owned peer Bio Farma.

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a small bottle labeled with a “Vaccine COVID-19” sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken April 10, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo

The candidate, known as CoronaVac and previously PiCoVacc, is among few potential vaccines that have entered late-stage trials for a large-scale study to gather proof of efficacy for regulatory approval.

CoronaVac is already undergoing a late-stage trial in Brazil slated for as many as 9,000 people.

Its Indonesia trial comes as Southeast Asia’s most populous country grapples with spiking infection numbers, with over 127,000 cases recorded as of Tuesday. The trial has so far recruited 1,215 people and will last six months.

A ceremony for the launch on Tuesday in Bandung, West Java, was attended by Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo.

“The threat of COVID-19 will not subside until a vaccine is given to all the people,” Widodo said.

Sinovac expects to also test the vaccine candidate in Bangladesh.

Separately, Sinovac late on Monday released details from a mid-stage, or Phase 2, study in which it said the vaccine candidate appeared to be safe and induced detectable antibody-based immune responses in subjects.

In the Phase 2 clinical trial involving 600 participants in China, the candidate did not cause any serious side effect and the rate of fever was relatively low compared with other COVID-19 candidates, the paper showed ahead of peer review.

Sinovac has to test its vaccine abroad because China is no longer a satisfactory site for late-stage trials due to the low number of new infection cases.

Source: Reuters

India air safety watchdog to check airports hit by heavy rain after crash

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s air safety regulator plans to conduct special audits of airports across the country affected by heavy rain, the watchdog’s chief told Reuters, days after an air crash killed 18 people and raised questions about safety.

FILE PHOTO: Officials inspect the site where a passenger plane crashed when it overshot the runway at the Calicut International Airport in Karipur, in the southern state of Kerala, India, August 8, 2020. REUTERS/Stringer

An Air India Express plane with 190 people on board, overshot the rain-soaked runway at an airport near the southern city of Kozhikode on Friday. The Boeing 737 landed in tailwind, skid off the runway and broke in half.

“We will conduct additional checks at major, busy airports across India that are affected by the monsoon rains,” Arun Kumar, head of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said in an interview late on Monday.

“We will review everything – the condition of the runway, its incline, the lighting as well as drainage.”

Kumar said the special audit was over and above the DGCA’s routine checks and could cover a dozen airports including those in Chennai, Kochi, Trivandrum as well as Mumbai, all of which get heavy annual rains.

Air India Express is the low cost arm of state carrier Air India. The flight was repatriating Indians stranded in Dubai due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The black boxes have been recovered and their data is being examined.

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is leading the probe into the crash. Boeing and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board are also taking part in the effort, Kumar said.

“Once the findings are finalised, and if something is amiss we will take action to rectify it,” he said.

The crash was the worst in India in a decade, and the second fatal accident on a “table-top” runway which is typically found in high-altitude areas.

Table-top runways are built by excavating the peaks of hills and have steep drops at one or both ends, increasing the danger if pilots under- or over-shoot their approach.

At Calicut airport, where the plane crashed on Friday, the pilot landed a third of the way along the runway, Kumar said on Sunday, leaving less room to bring the plane to a halt.

Airports with table-top runways are subject to the same rigorous regulatory requirements and are periodically audited for safety, Kumar said.

In 2010, an Air India Express plane overshot a similar runway in the southern city of Mangalore. It fell down a hillside and burst into flames, killing 158 people.

A government-led committee looking into that crash had suggested installing an Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) on table-top airports. EMAS is a special surface usually installed at the end of the runway to quickly stop an aircraft.

However, a second committee suggested that if the runway safety area was increased at Calicut airport, the EMAS would not be needed, Kumar said.

Subsequently, the runway safety area was increased to 240 metres, more than the 90 metres prescribed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, he said.

Source: Reuters

Oil climbs on positive China data, rising demand

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil rose on Monday, supported by an improvement in Chinese factory data and rising energy demand as countries eased lockdowns, but traders remained cautious due to U.S.-China tensions and uncertainty over a U.S. stimulus package.

FILE PHOTO: The sun is seen behind a crude oil pump jack in the Permian Basin in Loving County, Texas, U.S., November 22, 2019. REUTERS/Angus Mordant/File Photo

Brent crude LCOc1 rose 41 cents, or 0.9%, to $44.81 a barrel by 1107 GMT, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) U.S. crude CLc1 was up 56 cents, or 1.4%, to $41.78 a barrel.

Saudi Arabian Aramco (2222.SE) CEO Amin Nasser said on Sunday that he sees oil demand rebounding in Asia as economies gradually open up.

China’s factory deflation eased in July, driven by a rise in global oil prices and as industrial activity climbed back towards pre-coronavirus levels, adding to signs of recovery in the world’s second-largest economy.

“With oil demand still slowly grinding higher, and oil supply in check due to the OPEC+ production cut deal and prices too low to incentivise strong production growth in the United States, the oil market remains undersupplied,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

Iraq said on Friday it would cut its oil output by a further 400,000 barrels per day in August and September to compensate for its overproduction in the past three months.

The move would help it comply with its share of cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, a grouping known as OPEC+.

“This would send out a strong signal to the oil market on various levels. That said, this would also require the international companies operating in Iraq to join in with the cuts,” Commerzbank analyst Eugen Weinberg said.

However, uncertainty over U.S. fiscal stimulus put some pressure on prices. President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders to extend unemployment benefits after talks with Congress broke down.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday they were open to restarting the talks.

“The longer this drags on, the worse it is for the demand scenario,” said Michael McCarthy, market strategist at CMC Markets and Stockbroking.

Adding to the uncertainty were ongoing tensions between Washington and Beijing. Trump signed two executive orders banning WeChat and TikTok in 45 days’ time while announcing sanctions on 11 Chinese and Hong Kong officials.

Markets will now keep an eye on a China-U.S. meeting on trade scheduled for this weekend.

Source: Reuters

India begins examination of plane’s black box after deadly crash

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian investigators on Sunday began examining the black box of a Boeing-737 that overshot a runway on its second attempt, killing 18 people in the country’s worst aviation accident in a decade.

A security official inspects the site where a passenger plane crashed when it overshot the runway at the Calicut International Airport in Karipur, in the southern state of Kerala, India, August 8, 2020. REUTERS/Stringer

The Air India Express plane, which was repatriating Indians stranded in Dubai due to the coronavirus pandemic, overshot the runway of the Calicut International Airport in heavy rain near the southern city of Kozhikode on Friday.

The aircraft fell into a valley and broke in half.

In an interview with Reuters partner ANI on Sunday, Arun Kumar, head of India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, said the country would open the recovered transcripts to international investigators, as well as manufacturer Boeing (BA.N).

“Only after conducting a thorough and unbiased probe, can we tell what exactly happened,” Kumar said.

The 2,700 metre runway at the airport is known as a “table-top”, an aviation term for runways with steep drops at one or both ends.

They leave little room for error should a pilot overshoot the runway, either through human error or mechanical failure.

Late on Saturday, Kumar told CNN-News18 in an interview that the pilot made an aborted landing attempt into a headwind and then made a second approach with a tail wind, landing 1,000 metres down the runway.

An air traffic control official familiar with the crash confirmed this version of events, adding it is unusual to attempt a landing at the airport with a tailwind, which is typically used for takeoffs.

“The length of the runway in Calicut is around 2,700 metres and the plane touched the ground after crossing 1,000 metres of the length, leaving less room to bring the aircraft to a halt,” the official, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media, told Reuters.

“It was windy and rainy and the runway surface was wet. In such instances the weather is dynamic.”

“An aircraft typically lands and departs in a headwind as a tailwind increases the plane’s speed.”

Source: Reuters

India begins examination of plane’s black box after deadly crash

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian investigators on Sunday began examining the black box of a Boeing-737 that overshot a runway on its second attempt, killing 18 people in the country’s worst aviation accident in a decade.A security official inspects the site where a passenger plane crashed when it overshot the runway at the Calicut International Airport in Karipur, in the southern state of Kerala, India, August 8, 2020. REUTERS/Stringer

The Air India Express plane, which was repatriating Indians stranded in Dubai due to the coronavirus pandemic, overshot the runway of the Calicut International Airport in heavy rain near the southern city of Kozhikode on Friday.

The aircraft fell into a valley and broke in half.

In an interview with Reuters partner ANI on Sunday, Anil Kumar, head of India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, said the country would open the recovered transcripts to international investigators, as well as manufacturer Boeing (BA.N).

“Only after conducting a thorough and unbiased probe, can we tell what exactly happened,” Kumar said.

The 2,700 metre runway at the airport is known as a “table-top”, an aviation term for runways with steep drops at one or both ends.

They leave little room for error should a pilot overshoot the runway, either through human error or mechanical failure.

Late on Saturday, Kumar told CNN-News18 in an interview that the pilot made an aborted landing attempt into a headwind and then made a second approach with a tail wind, landing 1,000 metres down the runway.

An air traffic control official familiar with the crash confirmed this version of events, adding it is unusual to attempt a landing at the airport with a tailwind, which is typically used for takeoffs.

“The length of the runway in Calicut is around 2,700 metres and the plane touched the ground after crossing 1,000 metres of the length, leaving less room to bring the aircraft to a halt,” the official, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media, told Reuters.

    “It was windy and rainy and the runway surface was wet. In such instances the weather is dynamic.”

“An aircraft typically lands and departs in a headwind as a tailwind increases the plane’s speed.”

A spokesman for Air India did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has already said it will pay compensation to the families of the deceased.

Source: Reuters