Asia

China’s state-run Global Times published a scathing critique of Chinese security staff on Wednesday, deriding many security guards as poorly trained, out-of-shape, and too elderly for their demanding positions. Although it was only very briefly mentioned in the article, this concern was prompted by last week’s attack on a school classroom in Beijing.

Authorities in Pakistan released a senior Taliban leader briefly detained this week to apply pressure on the narco-jihadi group to engage in U.S.-backed peace negotiations with the Afghan government, Reuters learned from the terrorist organization.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei spoke to foreign reporters this week for the first time since his company concluded a disastrous year of cyber-espionage suspicions, bans by the United States and other governments, and Canada’s arrest of Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, who happens to be Ren’s daughter. Ren did some damage control for Huawei in his press engagements, striving to project optimism and stressing his corporate independence from the Chinese Communist government.

WASHINGTON, DC — North Korea remains at the top of a list of 50 countries where at least 245 million Christians are facing “extreme” persecution” this year, up 14 percent from 215 million at the beginning of 2018, the World Wide Watch List (WWL) released on Wednesday by Open Doors, a group that monitors the mistreatment of Christ followers, revealed.

Probe arose out of civil lawsuits alleging Huawei stole technology from U.S. companies.

South Korea’s leftist government under President Moon Jae-in abandoned the use of the word “enemy” to describe North Korea, despite the active status of the Korean War, in its most recent defense white paper published Wednesday.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday shrugged off the international outcry against the death sentence abruptly imposed on accused Canadian drug smuggler Robert Schellenberg, insisting that China is “not worried in the slightest” about criticism from Ottawa or anywhere else.

The China National Space Administration has announced a second “first-ever” in space exploration on Tuesday as tiny sprouts sprang up from cotton seeds taken on a spacecraft that made a successful maiden journey to the far side of the moon this month.

Democracy activist Ji Xiaolong was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in Shanghai on Monday for “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.”

The Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan announced on Tuesday that smartphones and computers from China’s Huawei corporation will no longer be allowed to connect with its internal network. The ban was imposed “for the sake of information security.”

The arrest of a senior Taliban terrorist by authorities in Pakistan prompted the leader of the narco-jihadi group to warn members to “stay alert,” BBC reported on Tuesday.

Chinese state media endorsed the idea of communist Vietnam hosting the upcoming summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, following a report by the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun on Tuesday indicating Hanoi is under consideration as the proposed location.

General Li Zuocheng of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) echoed the sentiments of Communist Party leader Xi Jinping in remarks Tuesday urging America not to retain ties to Taiwan and that any attempt to protect it from Chinese invasion would be met with military force.

The trade truce may wind up with no deal and tariffs going up.

The Canadian government issued a travel advisory on Tuesday warning citizens about the “arbitrary enforcement of local laws” in China, a reference to the unusual death sentence given to Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg on Monday.

The fervently pro-government Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak published a column by its editor-in-chief Ibrahim Karagül on Saturday accusing China of “genocide” against its Muslim Uighur population, a significant deviation from the silence typical of the Muslims world in light of China’s decision to force millions of Uighurs to renounce their faith in internment camps.

Contents: Kenya’s leaked BRI contract reveals shocking China debt trap details; Leaked clauses in Kenya-China BRI contract; Uganda’s auditor warns that Uganda may be in similar China debt trap as Kenya; India pledges $1.4 billion to Maldives to help with China debt trap

(AFP) — Singapore insisted Tuesday it would still cane a British man convicted of drug smuggling despite a plea from London not to proceed with the punishment.

China’s state-run Global Times on Monday downplayed the significance of new data suggesting China has entered a period of significant population decline, essentially arguing that China’s prosperity over the past few decades has little to do with the size of its workforce.

Some Muslim Uighurs from China’s Xinjiang province residing in Pakistan have accused Islamabad of silencing their complaints about Beijing’s abuse of Muslims at the behest of China, the cash-strapped South Asian country’s most significant economic ally, Al Jazeera reported Monday.

The U.S. military’s chief of naval operations traveled to Beijing on Sunday for a four-day visit focused on “results-oriented, risk-reduction” talks between the Chinese and American armed forces amid the growing geopolitical and military rivalry between two nations, the United States Navy revealed in a statement Monday.

The Dalian Intermediate People’s Court in China’s Liaoning Province sentenced Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death on Monday. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately condemned the sentence as “arbitrary” and said the Schellenberg case is “of extreme concern to us as a government.” Many observers speculated the swift and severe judgment is related to China’s ongoing dispute with Canada over the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

China on Sunday inaugurated a research center in Cairo, Egypt, affiliated with Beijing’s ambitious multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that the United States believes is being used as a predatory lending practices vehicle to bury nations across the continent in debt and undermine their sovereignty.

Police in Chechnya, a majority-Muslim region of Russia, have relaunched a campaign to arrest suspected gay and lesbian Russians, killing two and arresting over 40 others in the past month according to a report published Monday.

Even with tariffs, the trade gap is still growing.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the essay that changed the world: Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “Dictatorships and Double Standards.” Her words are as relevant to today’s foreign policy challenges as they were to 1979’s.

Contents: In turnaround, Saudi Arabia will give $10 billion to Pakistan, rejecting Iran; India takes over operations at Iran’s Chabahar port, despite US sanctions

Contents: Huawei plans to become world’s biggest smartphone supplier as it introduce Huawei P Smart 2019; Poland arrests Huawei employee on spying allegations; Chinese economic expert Xiang Songzuo warns that economy shows signs of crashing; Xiang’s Headline statistic: At most 1.67% GDP rate of growth; China’s Five phases of consumption; Major misjudgments about China’s economy

North Korea’s largest and most important nuclear research facilities remain well-maintained and operational, the monitor site 38 North revealed this week.

China on Thursday agreed to provide assistance and military equipment to the Nigerian armed services to strengthen operations against Boko Haram and other terrorist groups.