China and Russia have sharply condemned US missile defense plans, taking a harder common line that reinforces an already strong strategic partnership during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s first foreign trip in his new functions.
Pushing forward their robust energy cooperation, Russia also signed a US$1 billion deal to build a uranium enrichment facility in China on Friday and supply low-enriched uranium for use in China’s fast-growing nuclear power industry over the next decade.
Rivals throughout much of the Cold War, Moscow and Beijing have forged close political and military ties since the Soviet collapse, seeking to counter the perceived US global domination. They have spoken against the US missile defense plans in the past, but Friday’s declaration by Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) sounded tougher than before.
Without naming the US, the two leaders said that “the creation of global missile defense systems and their deployment in some regions of the world ... does not help to maintain strategic balance and stability and hampers international efforts in arms control and nuclear nonproliferation.”
They also warned against the deployment of arms in space in another clear reference to the US.
“The parties stand for the peaceful use of space and against the deployment of weapons in space and arms race in space,” Medvedev and Hu said in a statement released after an afternoon of talks.
The joint opposition appeared to raise the stakes for Washington, which has been trying to persuade Beijing and especially Moscow not to see the missile shields as threatening. At the same time, the cooperation on diplomatic issues masks deep Russian unease at China’s growing power and differences over military and energy sales.
The White House immediately said on Friday it was disappointed that Medvedev has not changed the firm opposition taken by his predecessor, former Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“We’re going to work with them to work through these concerns and we think we can resolve any concerns that anyone has about this and the true nature of the program,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
The declaration also reflected China’s and Russia’s strong opposition to NATO’s expansion to incorporate former Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine.
“Security of nations can’t be ensured at the expense of other countries through the expansion of military-political alliances,” the two leaders said.
After a slow warming in the 1990s, Beijing and Moscow have in recent years joined in opposing Kovoso’s independence and on Iran’s nuclear crisis. The two have held joint military maneuvers and created a regional security grouping, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to keep the West out of energy-rich Central Asia.
Statements of cooperation come aside friction and uncertainties over energy, while the countries’ shifting economic and diplomatic fortunes also bedevil ties.
Medvedev’s stopover in Kazakhstan on his way to China was apparently intended to send a message to both Beijing and the West that Moscow continues to see the former Soviet Central Asia as its home turf.
Moscow and Beijing also have bickered over the price of Russian energy exports. Disagreements over pricing have slowed construction of an oil pipeline from Siberia and blocked plans for a natural gas pipeline.
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 —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat