US President Barack Obama warned China’s top diplomat on Thursday that both sides must not repeat their standoff at sea, while the US navy dispatched destroyers to escort future surveillance voyages.
Obama met Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) following sharp exchanges between Beijing and Washington over the incident involving a US ship and Chinese vessels last Sunday, and also over human rights in Tibet.
The talks came as major powers jostled ahead of next month’s G20 economic crisis summit in London and with North Korea threatening to launch a satellite seen by Washington as a missile test in disguise.
Obama, making his first foray into Sino-US diplomacy, told Yang it was important to raise the level and frequency of military dialogue between the two sides to “avoid future incidents,” the White House said.
US National Security Advisor James Jones meanwhile raised the standoff between the US survey ship Impeccable and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea.
The US government said Chinese boats moved directly in front of the Navy ship, forcing it into evasive action. China said the US ship was spying.
A Washington defense official said the US decided to bolster surveillance patrols in the area with destroyers.
“Right now they are going to escort these types of ships for the foreseeable future,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A day after Sunday’s incident, the US destroyer Chung-Hoon accompanied Impeccable — an unarmed ship designed to track submarines with sonar — in the same area, the official said.
Obama also raised the issue of Tibet, the cause of early wrangles in his administration’s relationship with Beijing.
“On human rights, the president noted that the promotion of human rights is an essential aspect of US global foreign policy,” the White House statement said. “The President expressed his hope there would be progress in the dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama’s representatives.”
At a lunch with a US think tank, however, Yang urged the US to “respect” Beijing’s position on Tibet.
“Tibet is an inalienable part of China’s territory and Tibetan affairs are exclusively China’s internal affairs,” Yang told a closed-door meeting at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I hope that people from various sectors in the United States will appreciate these facts and understand and respect the Chinese people’s position of upholding state sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The White House and State Department had earlier expressed concern about the human rights situation in Tibet, prompting strongly worded complaints from Beijing.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS