U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton
The United States objects to China's unilateral military steps in the South China Sea and the pace of U.S. freedom of navigation operations in the disputed waterway has increased, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Tuesday.
He said also that U.S. President Donald Trump was prepared to hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The comments came after the release of a report detailing undeclared missile sites in the North that had been undergoing maintenance.
Bolton was speaking to reporters in Singapore on the sidelines of meetings this week between the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and external partners, including the United States and China.
China's foreign trade will face a more severe and complicated situation in 2019 and government will push the implementation of policies to ease burdens on exporters and importers, the commerce ministry said on Monday.Currently, Sino-U.S. trade frictions have limited impact on China's foreign trade sector, the ministry said in a statement on its website, while noting that the relatively high base for trade data in the last quarter in 2017 is expected to have an adverse impact on China's export and import growth in the same period this year.In another report on China's services import situation in 2018, the commerce ministry reiterated its pledge to further ease market access restrictions for the services sector.China reports new African swine fever outbreak in Anhui provinceChina's import expo logs $57.8 bln of deals: China DailyChina cracks down on celebrity hype and fake click
China's trade faces more severe, complicated situation in 2019
At least 12 Chinese labour activists have gone missing in recent days, in what sources close to them believe was a coordinated effort by authorities to silence the vocal group, most of them university students or recent graduates.Authorities took away at least nine activists in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen late on Friday, and three more activists were taken away on Sunday in the city of Wuhan, the sources said.The Ministry of Public Security, which oversees police forces across the country, did not respond to a faxed request for comment.The detentions appear to be the latest action by the authorities against a small but growing movement driven by students and graduates of some top universities who have said they are motivated by the principles of Marxism.The ruling Communist Party, which espouses Marxism as one of its leading ideologies, opposes any form of activism or organisation that has the potential to slip beyond its control.At least five graduates of Peking University, one of the country's top universities, were among those picked up on Friday, student activists said.Last month, Cornell University in the United States ceased cooperation in two exchange programmes with Renmin University, another prominent institution in Beijing, after students there were punished for supporting labour rights.The young activists attracted attention from authorities in August when about 50 students from across China converged in the south to support factory workers at Jasic International, a welding machinery firm, seeking to form a union.Later that month, police in riot gear stormed an apartment in the city of Huizhou where the students were staying, detaining some of them."I think the authorities have decided now is the right time to settle the score," one student activist at a university in Beijing said."The authorities want to shut down the Jasic Workers Support Group in one fell swoop. Why else would they suddenly conduct raids of such a large scale and arrest so many people at once?" the student added, speaking on condition of anonymity.US presses China to halt militarization of South China SeaChina cracks down on celebrity hype and fake clickGerman FM to raise Uighur concerns on China visit'That's Him!'On Friday, unidentified men grabbed Zhang Shengye, a recent Peking University graduate, on the university's campus at around 10:30 p.m. and bundled him into a car, according to a witness and screenshots of posts, apparently written by students, on the university's internal messaging board. The posts were later deleted.A video circulated on social media by a Peking University student who said he was at the scene and who described what happened to Zhang."I heard one of them yell 'that's him, shove him into the car', and then I saw three to five people grab a student and bundle him into a car," the student says in the video.He said he and other students who were nearby were pushed to the ground and prevented from leaving until they deleted any photos or videos of the scene.Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the video, which showed no pictures of Zhang's suspected detention.A Peking University spokesman confirmed that someone had been detained but said the incident did not involve teachers or students."Public security organs in accordance with law seized non-campus affiliated persons suspected of committing a crime," the spokesman said.Zhang had been in southern China in August to protest against the treatment of the Jasic factory workers and had been involved in a wide range of social issues on campus."We aren't solely focused on one particular issue. We're interested in improving society in all kinds of ways, whether it is improving the lives of factory workers, fighting for gender equality or advocating for environmental sustainability," Zhang told Reuters on Aug. 23 in a crowded apartment in a village that primarily houses migrant workers in Huizhou.China reports new African swine fever outbreak in Anhui provinceChina's import expo logs $57.8 bln of deals: China DailyChina cracks down on celebrity hype and fake click
Labour activists missing in China after suspected coordinated raids
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday Beijing will further open up its economy in the face of rising protectionism, as he headed for meetings with Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore that are expected to focus on trade tensions.Li's remarks in an article in Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, ahead of his arrival in the city-state later in the day, came as Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for more regional integration, saying multilateralism was under threat from political pressures."China has opened its door to the world; we will never close it but open it even wider," Li said in the article, in which he called for an "open world economy" in the face of "rising protectionism and unilateralism". He did not directly refer to China's bruising trade war with the United States.Notably absent from this week's meetings is U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said several existing multilateral trade deals are unfair, and has railed against China over intellectual property theft, entry barriers to U.S. businesses and a gaping trade deficit.China reports new African swine fever outbreak in Anhui provinceVice President Mike Pence will attend instead of Trump, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are among those also expected to join Li and the ten-member member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).It was not clear if Li and Pence will hold separate talks on the sidelines of the meetings, which would be a prelude to a summit scheduled between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the month in Buenos Aires.The encounter, if it happens, would come on the heels of high-level talks in Washington where the two sides aired their main differences but appeared to attempt controlling the damage to relations that has worsened with tit-for-tat tariffs in recent months.Meanwhile, in remarks at a business summit on Monday ahead of this week's meetings, Singapore PM Lee said:China's import expo logs $57.8 bln of deals: China Daily"ASEAN has great potential, but fully realising it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying under political pressures".Lee has previously warned that the U.S.-China trade war could have a "big, negative impact" on Singapore, and the city-state's central bank has warned it could soon drag on the economy.Both Singapore and China are expected to rally support for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) pact now being negotiated, showcased to be the free trade deal that will encompass more than a third of the world's GDP.The pact includes 16 countries, including China, India, Japan and South Korea, but not the United States. Li said China would work to "expedite" RCEP negotiations this week.Also on Monday, the ten-member ASEAN group reached their first ever deal on e-commerce aimed at helping boost cross-border transactions in the region. China cracks down on celebrity hype and fake click
China says will further open up its economy, slams rising protectionism