China and France sought yesterday to cool tempers over Tibet and the Olympics, with a former French prime minister heading to Beijing for top-level talks criticizing a decision to honor the Dalai Lama.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who arrives today bearing a message from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said the Paris city council had contradicted official policy by conferring honorary citizenship on the Tibetan spiritual leader.
Raffarin is one of three senior French figures visiting Beijing this week, all carrying letters from Sarkozy as the president tries to repair relations damaged by pro-Tibet protests in France and hurt pride in China.
At the same time, the Chinese commerce ministry warned against an ongoing boycott of French supermarket giant Carrefour, noting that it employs 40,000 workers here and that up to 95 percent of its products are made in China.
Raffarin is due today to meet the Chinese premier and is expected to pass on Sarkozy’s letter at a separate meeting to the Chinese president.
In the southern city of Zhuzhou, protesters reportedly attacked a young US teacher on Sunday evening after he emerged from a local Carrefour.
Accounts on numerous Internet boards said the man was punched, pushed and chased and was only rescued by police after taking refuge in a taxi. The US embassy in Beijing said it had no information it could release about the incident under rules requiring a privacy waiver.
Meanwhile, six people were arrested as the Olympic flame arrived in Australia yesterday, while officials said they were prepared for more protests on the latest leg of the troubled global torch relay.
Even before a chartered airliner carrying the flame touched down in Canberra under tight security, protesters used the Sydney Harbour Bridge as a backdrop for their pro-Tibet message.
A man and a woman attempting to unfurl a banner and a Tibetan flag on the iconic landmark were arrested hours after lasers beamed pro-Tibet slogans including “Don’t torch Tibet” onto one of the structure’s pylons.
Four more people were taken into custody after raising a pro-Tibet banner on a prominent billboard in the city’s King’s Cross nightlife district, police said.
Australian officials have shortened today’s relay route through Canberra over concerns about security at an event expected to attract thousands of pro-China supporters and pro-Tibet demonstrators.
Barriers have been erected along the 16km route and more than half of the city’s police force will be on patrol.
Police said they were confident that security would be adequate, despite a dispute between Australian and Chinese officials over the role of the torch’s Chinese escorts.
A Beijing Olympics torch relay spokesman, backed by the Chinese ambassador, said that the escorts could use their bodies to protect the flame if necessary.
But Stanhope said this condition had not been agreed to by the Australian government.
In related developments, China has altered plans for foreign media coverage of the Olympic flame’s ascent of Mount Everest, citing weather conditions.
Changes to the plans mean foreign reporters would spend only 10 days overall in Tibet — about half the time initially planned.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats