China’s ambassador to France on Monday paid tribute to former French president Charles de Gaulle’s “visionary” role in helping the communist government secure global recognition.
In a ceremony to mark the 49th anniversary of France becoming the first Western power to establish full diplomatic relations with Beijing, the ambassador laid a wreath at the former president’s tomb in the Champagne region.
“Time has proved right the common vision of General De Gaulle and Chairman Mao [Zedong (毛澤東)],” ambassador, Kong Quan (孔泉) said of the man who was the symbol of France’s wartime resistance to Nazi Germany and served as president between 1959 and 1969. “Since this recognition, the strategic partnership between France and China has been characterized by friendship. This recognition allowed our two countries to assert their independence and their respective places in the world.”
France announced its recognition of Mao’s communists on Jan. 27, 1964, in a brief communique that generated diplomatic shock waves at a time when the US still insisted the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime in Taiwan should be considered the legitimate government of all China.
Britain had recognized the communist regime in 1950, but did not exchange ambassadors with Beijing until 1972.
At the time China was recognized, De Gaulle was seeking to forge a new “middle” role for France on an international stage dominated by the Cold War confrontation between the US and its allies and the communist world. Two years later, he was to withdraw the country from NATO’s military command structures.
“There is something abnormal in the fact that we don’t have relations with the most populous country in the world because the Americans don’t like the regime,” De Gaulle confided at the time to then-French Information minister Alain Peyrefitte.
Officials at the Charles de Gaulle foundation are hopeful incoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) will visit Paris for next year’s 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
The French Foreign Ministry said no arrangement to that effect had been made.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant