China and Russia sought greater international clout at a summit yesterday, with China promising US$10 billion in loans to Central Asian countries and Russia challenging the US dollar’s dominance as a global reserve currency.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said Beijing would offer the loans to several countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to help them through the global financial crisis.
The move, announced at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, adds muscle to China’s role in the group, which Moscow and Beijing use to counter Western influence in Central Asia.
The leaders of Afghanistan, Iran, India and Pakistan were also at the table, underscoring Russia and China’s reach for broader global influence. The Shanghai group members released a summit declaration saying that global “multi-polarity is irreversible,” a reference to their opposition to perceived US domination in international affairs.
Russia gave a prominent platform to newly re-elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a show of support for a leader facing major protests at home.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sought to further raise his country’s leverage in geopolitical issues by separately meeting with Afghan and Pakistani leaders late on Monday to discuss the stabilization of Afghanistan.
Medvedev said Russia offered help in carrying out joint transport, energy and other economic projects in the region to help eradicate poverty and remove feeding grounds for terrorism.
Russia also signaled its intention to offer stronger assistance to the US-led efforts in Afghanistan.
At the same time, Medvedev pushed against US domination of financial markets by calling for new global reserve currencies to complement the dollar.
“No currency system can be successful if we have financial instruments denominated in just one currency,” he said. “We must strengthen the international financial system not only by making the dollar strong, but also by creating other reserve currencies.”
Medvedev said new currencies will take a long time to emerge, but emphasized that the world will feel the growing need to hedge financial risks.
“The main reserve currency, the dollar, has failed to serve its purpose,” he said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS