Chinese military chief: Key to sustainable ties is for the US to have a ‘correct understanding of China’
China's General Liu Zhenli offered the tip in a virtual meeting with his US counterpart, General Charles Q. Brown
Pentagon officials say communication between the two militaries is crucial to preventing miscalculation from spiraling into conflict
Updated 22 December 2023
Reuters
WASHINGTON: The top US military officer held a virtual meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Thursday, the Pentagon said, in the first such conversation in over a year amid hopes by US officials that it could lead to a broader restoration of ties between the two militaries.
The video teleconference followed an agreement between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping last month to resume military-to-military ties severed by Beijing after then-House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited self-ruled Taiwan in August 2022.
US Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Liu Zhenli of China’s People’s Liberation Army touched on “a number of global and regional security issues,” Brown’s office said.
Liu is the chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the military body responsible for China’s combat operations and planning.
Pentagon officials say communication between the two militaries is crucial to preventing a miscalculation from spiraling into conflict.
“Gen. Brown discussed the importance of working together to responsibly manage competition, avoid miscalculations, and maintain open and direct lines of communication,” Brown’s office said.
“Gen. Brown reiterated the importance of the People’s Liberation Army engaging in substantive dialogue to reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings.”
Brown said last month he had sent an introductory letter to Liu saying he was open to meeting.
Liu said the key for US and China to develop a healthy, stable and sustainable military-to-military relationship is for the US to have a “correct understanding of China,” according to a Chinese defense ministry statement late Thursday.
US officials have cautioned that even with some restoration of military communications, forging truly functional dialogue between the two sides could take time.
Some analysts say China seeks ambiguity in defense relations to constrain what Beijing sees as US military provocations in the region.
Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads over everything from the future of democratically ruled Taiwan to territorial claims in the South China Sea. Diplomatic relations are still recovering after the US downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon in February.
On the Taiwan issue, which China deems internal affairs, Liu said Chinese armed forces will resolutely defend state sovereignty and territorial integrity over it.
Liu also asked for the US to respect China’s territorial sovereignty, and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea.
“Be prudent in words and actions, and take concrete actions to safeguard regional peace and stability and the overall situation of China-US relations,” he said.
Liu has emerged as the top contender to replace China’s national defense minister, General Li Shangfu, who was dismissed from his position last month. Reuters reported in September that Li was under investigation over suspected corruption related to equipment procurement and development.
In Tokyo last month, Brown acknowledged corruption in the Chinese military when asked about Li’s removal, and broader issues in the PLA, but also noted “alignment with Xi Jinping and his thinking as he continues to consolidate power.”
Li was sanctioned by the US in 2018 for an arms deal he secured with Russia in an earlier role. China had demanded that the sanctions — which included a visa ban and prohibitions on conducting US financial transactions — be lifted.
Liu, 59, is not under Western sanctions.
NEW YORK: Puerto Ricans vented their anger after a comedian targeted them with racist jokes at a weekend rally for Donald Trump — and some warned the Republican former president could pay for it on Election Day. On the same day that Democrat Kamala Harris unveiled plans to revitalize the US territory, Tony Hinchcliffe called it an “island of garbage” at a major Trump rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Puerto Ricans living in the Big Apple, like 48-year-old Javier Diaz, said the insults would have “consequences for president Trump.” “I’m going to vote for Harris,” Diaz, a paralegal living in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, told AFP. Denis Castro, a 60-year-old retiree living in the same area, said the comments made by Hinchcliffe and others at the rally qualified as “racism.” “You can’t be talking like that,” Castro said, suggesting that many people would be deterred from voting for Trump over the incident. Residents of Puerto Rico cannot vote in US elections, but the diaspora population living in the 50 states numbers almost six million, according to Pew Research Center, and is eligible to vote. It is the largest Hispanic community in the country after Mexicans. As Trump’s rally unfolded on Sunday, Harris was in key battleground state Pennsylvania, visiting a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia and outlining plans to foster economic growth and create jobs on the island. “Puerto Ricans deserve a president who sees and invests in (their) strength,” Harris said in a clip published on social media alongside a video of Hinchcliffe. The vice president also earned key endorsements from Puerto Rican celebrities, including rapper Bad Bunny, singer Ricky Martin, and actress-singer Jennifer Lopez. Bad Bunny, who has 45 million Instagram followers, reposted a video of Harris attacking Trump’s response to hurricanes that devastated the island while the Republican was president. “He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” Harris says in the clip. Harris also launched a new ad targeting Puerto Rican voters, promising “a new way forward.” Sharing a clip from Trump’s rally, Martin wrote: “This is what they think about us. Vote for Kamala Harris.”
Trump and Harris are in a dead heat in the seven swing states expected to decide the election, so infuriating Latino voters with a week to go before Election Day could prove damaging for the former president seeking a return to the Oval Office. Though Trump’s campaign sought to distance itself from Hinchcliffe’s remarks, the Republican billionaire has repeatedly and aggressively attacked migrants, particularly from Latin America, on the 2024 campaign trail. “They invited this rhetoric on their stage for a reason,” progressive Democratic lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, said in a message. Trump’s rally in the iconic New York arena was peppered with misogynistic, racist and foul-mouthed insults about Harris and Trump’s roster of enemies. In an effort to limit the damage, Trump surrogates have sought to distance their party and its candidate from the joke. But Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, fired back against his critics, including Harris’s running mate Tim Walz. “These people have no sense of humor. Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist,” Hinchcliffe wrote. Magda Serrano, 62, who is currently unemployed, nevertheless said the comment was a “nightmare” and made her question Trump’s plans to help her community. “(The) joke left a very bad taste in my mouth,” she said. “I don’t feel like they’re going to do anything for us.” For 41-year-old pediatrician Martha Arce, who moved to Miami after Hurricane Maria devastated her home island, the damage was done. “For a while, I was undecided about who I would vote for in this election, but the comments cleared my mind,” Arce said Monday. “I will vote for Kamala Harris.”
North Korea sent 10,000 troops to train in Russia, US says
Washington had previously put the number of North Korean troops in Russia at more than 3,000
Updated 12 min 14 sec ago
AFP
WASHINGTON: North Korea has sent some 10,000 troops to train in Russia, Washington said Monday, tripling its previous estimate and prompting NATO and EU warnings of a dangerous expansion of the Ukraine war.
Pyongyang — with whom Moscow signed a mutual defense pact — is already widely believed to be arming Russia for its invasion, but troops on the ground would mark an escalation in the conflict.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned North Korea could “soon” have as many as 12,000 soldiers on Russian soil, while US President Joe Biden slammed the deployment as “very dangerous.”
“We believe that the DPRK has sent around 10,000 soldiers in total to train in eastern Russia that will probably augment Russian forces near Ukraine over the next several weeks,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists, using an abbreviation for North Korea’s official name.
Washington had previously put the number of North Korean troops in Russia at more than 3,000.
NATO chief Mark Rutte likewise called the troop deployment “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war” and “a sign of Putin’s growing desperation.”
Rutte said more than 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the conflict started in 2022, adding the Kremlin was unable to sustain the invasion without foreign support.
Despite the cost, Russia has been making steady territorial gains in Ukraine.
Moscow’s army has advanced 478 square kilometers (184 square miles) into Ukrainian territory since the beginning of October, a record since the first weeks of the war, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
Those gains followed 477 and 459 square-kilometer advances in August and September, respectively, and come amid major shifts on the front line, in particular in eastern Ukraine around Pokrovsk.
Speaking in Brussels after a briefing with South Korean intelligence officials, Rutte said he could confirm that North Korean military units had been deployed in the field in Russia’s western Kursk region.
Ukrainian troops launched a ground offensive in Kursk in August and control several hundred square kilometers of Russian territory.
“The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security,” Rutte told reporters in Brussels.
Experts have said that in return for the troops, North Korea is likely aiming to acquire military technology, ranging from surveillance satellites to submarines, plus possible security guarantees from Moscow.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen also warned that North Korea sending troops for the first time represented “a significant escalation of the war against Ukraine and threatens global peace.”
She made the comments after a phone call with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, during which she assured the leader that “the EU’s response to this development will center on cooperation with the Republic of Korea and other like-minded partners.”
The United States likewise told China — an ally of both Moscow and Pyongyang — it should be “concerned about this destabilizing action by two of its neighbors, Russia and North Korea,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister who took over the reins of NATO this month, called on Moscow and Pyongyang to “cease these actions immediately.”
The North Korean foreign minister was headed to Moscow, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported early Tuesday, citing the North’s state-run KCNA.
KCNA did not report the purpose of the talks, according to Japanese agency Kyodo.
At a press conference in Iceland on Monday, Zelensky warned that there were already around 3,000 North Korean soldiers on Russian land — with four times that expected imminently.
“We think that they will have 12,000 soon,” the Ukrainian leader added.
“This is an escalation. Sanctions alone are not enough. We need weapons and a clear plan to prevent North Korea’s expanded involvement in the war in Europe,” Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on social media Monday after Rutte’s comments.
“Today, Russia brings in North Korea; next, it could broaden their engagement, and then other autocratic regimes may see that they can get away with this and come to fight against NATO,” he warned.
“The enemy understands strength. Our allies have this strength.”
France, Morocco sign €10 bn in deals during Macron’s reset visit
Updated 29 October 2024
AFP
RABAT: France and Morocco reached agreements on Monday totalling “up to ten billion euros,” sources with direct knowledge to the matter told AFP, during French President Emmanuel Macron’s three-day visit to Morocco aiming to mend strained relations.
Several deals were signed in the presence of Macron and King Mohammed VI, with more expected on Tuesday, including on energy and infrastructure.
Macron’s trip was at the king’s invitation late in September, but also follows years of tense ties with Rabat.
A delegation of French ministers and business leaders accompanied Macron, while French and Moroccan flags flew alongside each other in the city’s main thoroughfares.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, Economy Minister Antoine Armand and Culture Minister Rachida Dati — herself of Moroccan origin — all traveled with the president.
Though specific contract details were not disclosed, French rail manufacturer Alstom is set to supply up to 18 high-speed train cars to Morocco according to the deals signed on Monday.
Energy company Engie and the Moroccan Phosphates Office meanwhile signed a renewables agreement with potential investments reaching up to 3.5 billion euros, according to AFP reporters.
France’s TotalEnergies also inked a deal to develop “green hydrogen” production in the north African country.
Macron’s visit follows years of strained relations between Paris and Rabat over a range of issues.
Those include France’s ambiguous stance on the disputed Western Sahara region and Macron’s quest for rapprochement with Algeria.
Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is largely controlled by Morocco but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which in 2020 declared a “self-defense war” and seeks the territory’s independence.
It is considered by the United Nations to be a “non-self-governing territory.”
Rabat and Paris have also been at odds after France in 2021 halved the number of visas it granted to Moroccans.
In July, Macron eased tensions by saying Morocco’s autonomy plan for the territory was the “only basis” to resolve the decades-old conflict.
France’s diplomatic turnabout had been awaited by Morocco, whose annexation of Western Sahara had already been recognized by the United States in return for Rabat normalizing ties with Israel in 2020.
Monday’s visit also comes after Macron’s rapprochement efforts with Algeria appear to have hit a dead end.
A state visit to Paris by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was rescheduled multiple times before being called off by Algiers earlier this month.
After Macron endorsed Morocco’s autonomy plan, Algeria promptly withdrew its ambassador to Paris and has yet to send a replacement.
Arab Americans’ vote will matter in this election, Middle East Institute panel hears
Updated 29 October 2024
Arab News
LONDON: Just days before Americans head to the polls to decide who will be the next US president, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris find themselves neck and neck in the race for the White House. With the contest balanced on a razor’s edge, any minor development at this point could be enough to decisively swing the vote.
Although they make up just 1 percent of the total electorate, Arab Americans represent a significant constituency in several swing states, where even a handful of votes could influence the election outcome. As such, neither of the main candidates can afford to take their votes for granted.
That is why Arab News teamed up with polling agency YouGov to survey the attitudes of Arab Americans across all geographies, age ranges, genders and income brackets to see which way the community was leaning, and what issues mattered to them most.
What became abundantly clear from the survey was that Arab Americans are not a monolith motivated by any single issue. Domestic matters, such as the economy and the cost of living, loomed large, while border security and abortion rights were also key considerations.
However, it was the plight of the Palestinians that emerged as the biggest issue for Arab Americans of all generations; namely the ongoing Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza and the perceived failure of President Joe Biden’s administration to rein in Israel.
Asked which candidate they were most likely to vote for, 45 percent said Trump while 43 percent opted for Harris. (AFP/File)
Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for US foreign policy at Middle East Institute, who moderated a special panel discussion on Monday to examine the poll findings, said the prominence of the Palestinian issue in this election showed there was still a role for the US to play in the region.
“Within the political discussion we’re having in this country, it does imply that there’s actually a strong interest in the US engaging more deeply in the Middle East — just doing it in the right way,” said Katulis.
“There’s a serious difference over who and which candidate is the right way. But for those who’ve said that we should just pull back from the region, restrain ourselves, there’s some who say that, but I think there’s a general impulse here that we need to actually delve more deeply into trying to solve — or not solve, but engage — these questions in a proper way in the region itself, but then politically here at home.”
Asked to place six key issues in order of priority, 26 percent of Arab Americans polled by YouGov said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is their chief concern. The economy and the cost of living were not far behind, representing the chief concerns for 19 percent of respondents.
“The highest priority, in terms of issues that Arab Americans face, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict came at 26 percent — the highest — then followed by the economy and cost of living,” Lara Barazi, a freelance data consultant and former research director at YouGov, told the MEI panel.
Palestine appeared to be of most concern to Arab Americans in lower income brackets: 37 percent of those earning under $40,000, falling to 22 percent among those paid $80,000 or more.
“These are their issues that kind of mirror what’s going on right now in the US, not only for Arab Americans, when we look at income,” said Barazi.
If Harris does beat Trump to the presidency, it remains unclear whether she will shift the Democratic Party’s stance on Israel. (AFP/File)
“The highest priority goes to the Palestinian conflict. It’s 41 percent of the lowest earners who support the Palestinian-Israeli conflict versus the highest earners. Basically, they’re interested in the economy, cost of living and the Palestinian conflict, but they do put a lot of weight on the economy and cost of living.”
What was also interesting about the findings was how much of a priority the Middle East conflict was for respondents identifying as Republican, Democrat and independent.
“We see that the highest (ranking) for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict comes from independents and the lowest comes from Republicans,” said Barazi. “Only 17 percent of Republicans said that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a top priority for us, while cost of living comes the highest for Republicans.”
Despite Trump being perceived as more supportive of the Israeli government than Harris, many Arab Americans indicated in the poll that they would still vote for him, which suggested they are penalizing the Democrats over the Biden administration’s perceived failure to rein in Israel.
Asked which candidate they were most likely to vote for, 45 percent said Trump while 43 percent opted for Harris, although this gap could easily be narrowed — or slightly widened — by the survey’s 5.93 percent margin of error.
The slightly higher support for Trump than for Harris comes despite the fact that 40 percent of those polled described themselves as Democrats, 28 percent as Republicans and 23 percent as independents.
The findings were somewhat puzzling, especially as Trump has announced his intention to expand his 2017 travel ban on people from seven majority-Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) and has said if elected he would bar Palestinian refugees from entering the US, policies that few Arab Americans would support.
Nevertheless, it appears Biden’s record on the Middle East over the past year has been the deciding factor for many.
Also taking part in Monday’s MEI panel discussion, Yasmeen Abu Taleb, a White House reporter at The Washington Post, said the Democrats never expected the issue of Palestine to hang over the campaign in the way that it has.
Despite Trump being perceived as more supportive of the Israeli government than Harris, many Arab Americans indicated in the poll that they would still vote for him. (AFP/File)
“We’ve never seen the issue of Palestine be this big of a political issue for this long,” she said. “I think in the Biden administration, there was a sense that people would be really angry and protest for a month or two. They hoped the war would be over by January.
“They were always wildly optimistic that this was not going to hang over them as an election issue. And here we are, more than a year later, and it’s still a key driver of the election. I think that’s an important signal of how much the politics have shifted on this.
“I don’t think we’ve seen this in US politics, where the debate has been this intense and sustained.”
If Harris does beat Trump to the presidency, it remains unclear whether she will shift the Democratic Party’s stance on Israel or if the policy of the Biden administration, of which she is part, will remain broadly unchanged.
“Obviously it depends on who wins but I do think if you saw a Harris presidency, it’s not going to be the dramatic change that people are pushing for,” said Abu Taleb. “But I do think there are signs that the Democratic Party is shifting on Israel, and in subtle but important ways.”
Although the Arab News-YouGov poll focused on Arab American opinion, the panel discussion naturally expanded to the prevailing attitudes among the Arab populations and leaderships in the Middle East. Tarek Ali Ahmad, head of research and studies at Arab News, said that many in the Middle East are holding their breath.
“People are essentially just waiting for the election day to come,” he added. “That’s when everyone’s going to be like, OK, now we can finally stop this election game, campaigning, and we can actually get to solid, concrete policy that will affect what’s going to happen, whether or not we’re going to see an actual end to the conflict, or we’re going to see even further.
“We haven’t heard anything in terms of preference to whichever candidate comes through. But at the same time, we cannot dismiss the fact that any incoming president will have a lot to clean up with regards to everything that’s happening on the ground.”
“So there’s so many different aspects that come to shift public opinion on the ground with regards to who’s going to be president,” Ali Ahmad said. (AFP/File)
On whether or not the Arab world has any preference for the US presidency, Ali Ahmad said many in the region have remained tight-lipped, preferring to wait and see the outcome of this closely fought race.
“There’s a lot of different points of view and there’s no real proper preference for either candidate because of the fact that it’s just such a razor-thin difference,” he said.
“Now you have people on the ground talking about how, essentially, every single event that occurs causes a shift in opinion, from (Israel) entering into Lebanon, from the bombing of Iran, to even Biden’s resignation from the nomination.
“So there’s so many different aspects that come to shift public opinion on the ground with regards to who’s going to be president.”
Reflecting on the significance of the role of the Arab American constituency in the election, Ali Ahmad said many seem to recognize their vote can make a significant difference.
“The reason why there’s a big turnout, as we said, nine out of 10 Americans are set to go vote, is that 80 percent of those who responded found that their vote actually counts and will matter in this year's election,” he said.
“They really feel that they could actually change it and make that difference, whether it is to punish the Democrats or whether it is to actually vote for an independent.”
Local humanitarian workers dying in silence, Red Cross warns
Their deaths are soaring amid clashes in Mideast, Sudan, Ukraine and Myanmar
Updated 28 October 2024
AFP
GENEVA: Local staff and volunteers — the backbone of aid agencies providing help in the world’s worst conflicts — are dying in ever greater numbers. Yet few seem to notice, the head of the Red Cross said in an interview on Monday.
“Almost 95 percent of the humanitarians who are killed are actually the local staff and local volunteers,” Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
But while the killing of an international staff member of large humanitarian organizations can spark global outrage, there is often little attention paid when a local aid worker suffers the same fate.
“Unfortunately, when a local staffer or volunteer gets killed, it gets hardly any attention,” Chapagain said.
The issue is of particular concern this year, one of the deadliest for humanitarians, with aid worker deaths soaring as conflicts rage in the Middle East, Sudan, Ukraine and Myanmar, among others.
“It has been really the worst year for humanitarian actors, particularly the ones from the local communities,” Chapagain said.
Since the beginning of this year alone, 30 of the network’s volunteers have been killed worldwide, while within the UN system, “they have lost hundreds,” he said.
He decried a clear “erosion” in the respect for international humanitarian law and the principles requiring humanitarians to be protected.
Growing disregard for international law in conflict was significantly “increasing the situation of extreme exposures (and) risk for our humanitarian workers, (with) volunteers getting shot, ambulances getting attacked.”
Respect for the Red Cross Red Crescent emblem, and for people wearing the network’s signatory red vest has “eroded significantly,” he warned.
Asked if he believed humanitarians were being deliberately targeted, he said: “Definitely. Unfortunately, the numbers speak for themselves.”
Chapagain said the IFRC was “seriously, seriously concerned” about the growing dangers facing humanitarians and warned that more people could die if humanitarian workers are not protected.
His IFRC will along with the International Committee of the Red Cross kick off their quadrennial international conference in Geneva on Monday, which is due to focus heavily on the need to boost compliance with international humanitarian law.
It will include participants from the 191 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, whose staff and volunteers are frequently the ones on the frontlines in conflicts and in the communities under attack.
Chapagain said his team estimated that when “a local gets harmed compared to an international who gets harmed, the attention is one to 500 ratio.”
“Any death is appalling, and we cannot accept that. But what we would also like to see is the same outrage when any humanitarians lose their life.”
“This is something super, super important, because globally... most of the people who are on the frontline providing ... assistance are the people from the local communities,” he said.
“Their lives should be as sacred as anyone else’s.”
