A condition for the resumption of bilateral climate talks between China and the US is Washington dispelling the “negative influence” left by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last month, Beijing said yesterday.
In response to the visit on Aug. 2 and 3, China on Aug. 5 suspended bilateral cooperation with the US in a number of areas, including climate talks and dialogue between senior-level military commanders.
In an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday, US Special Envoy on Climate Change John Kerry — who earlier this month said the suspension of bilateral climate talks punished the entire world — urged Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to resume the discussions.
Photo: AFP
Kerry told the newspaper that he was hopeful the countries could “get back together” ahead of the UN’s COP27 climate summit in November in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
China yesterday responded to Kerry’s remarks by stating that the resumption of climate talks with the US was dependent on actions taken by Washington to address the “negative influence” of Pelosi’s Taiwan visit.
“The US side should dispel the negative influence of Pelosi scuttling to Taiwan, this is an indispensable condition of China-US climate change cooperation,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The statement also said that China would continue to participate in international forums on climate change.
Beijing’s response highlights the divergent approaches to global climate change cooperation between the world’s two largest powers.
While officials in the administration of US President Joe Biden, including Kerry, have repeatedly expressed hope that US-China cooperation on climate change would not be affected by tensions on other fronts, Beijing has rejected any separating of issues in US-China relations.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS