Tag: China

This would not be surprising at all if the Chinese had a secret police station in South Korea. I would assume though they would be running it out of their embassy to avoid detection:

Seoul is looking into the alleged presence of a secret Chinese police station in Korea, the Foreign Ministry confirmed Tuesday.  
   
“We have been communicating with relevant departments on the matter,” a Foreign Ministry official told the press in Seoul on Tuesday. “At this point we do not have anything significant to share.”  
   
The nongovernmental human rights organization Safeguard Defenders announced earlier this month that China’s local-level public security bureau based in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, was running at least one police station in Korea, though it couldn’t confirm its exact location. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but these secret police stations are suspected in 53 nations are and are used to monitor Chinese nationals in these countries.

It looks like China is experiencing what most of the world already went through one to two years ago. The protests must have been a shock to the CCP to so quickly drop their prior COVID Zero policy:

Beijing’s rapidly spreading COVID outbreak has turned the Chinese capital of 22 million people into a virtual ghost town as stores close and restaurants empty, underscoring the cost of President Xi Jinping’s sudden pivot away from COVID zero.

Bucking expectations for a managed and gradual transition, Xi’s government is now allowing the virus to run rampant. While officials have abandoned efforts to track case numbers, anecdotal evidence suggests entire families and offices in Beijing have become infected in the span of just days — a potential harbinger of worse things to come in other parts of China with less-developed health care systems.

Beijing residents are hunkering down at home, either because they’re scared of catching the virus or because they already have it. While many grocery stores are still open to provide essentials, delivery services for food and other goods are facing delays with workers out sick. The retrenchment suggests China’s economy is likely to get worse before the benefits of exiting COVID zero start to kick in next year.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Getting rare earth minerals from Australia seems like a much more reliable alternative than China where they have demonstrated before they are willing to economically retaliate against South Korea to pressure them on issues:

Korea has been strengthening ties with Australia to produce rare earth elements and decrease its high dependence on China, as core minerals for high-tech industries are becoming increasingly important.

Although Korea is currently dependent on China for rare earth elements, Rowena Smith, CEO of Australia-based critical metals producer ASM, said the company has been strengthening relations in order to provide a stable supply of core minerals to Korean companies. (…….)

“In our experience, Australia’s and Korea’s business culture and shared values make us perfect partners to develop our business, using Australian natural resources and Korea’s access to skills and technology,” she added.

For years, ASM has been conducting the Dubbo project, which mines minerals such as rare earth elements from mines in Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia and processes them in Korea. Australia has the world’s sixth-largest deposit of rare earth elements of 3.27 million tons, after China, Vietnam, Brazil and Russia.

ASM said the Dubbo project serves as a sustainable and reliable source of core minerals such as rare earth elements, meeting the skyrocketing demand for these materials in the global market.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This will be a big summit for President Yoon when it gets scheduled. It will be interesting if THAAD will be a talking point for President Xi when this summit happens:

The foreign ministers of South Korea and China agreed to strengthen bilateral diplomatic ties, Monday, as the two countries seek to hold high-level exchanges, including a summit in Seoul, “in the new era of cooperation.”

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Park Jin and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi held a virtual meeting and agreed to “maintain exchange momentum” for President Yoon Suk-yeol and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping following their first summit in Bali, Indonesia, last month.

The top diplomats said they will work together to honor what was agreed upon during the previous summit and to possibly hold a second one in South Korea, but did not elaborate.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The man who led China after the Tianamen Square massacre has died ironically at the same time new protests against the CCP have taken hold and are being violently crushed:

Jiang Zemin, who led China out of isolation after the army crushed the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989 and supported economic reforms that led to a decade of explosive growth, died Wednesday. He was 96.

Jiang, who was president for a decade until 2003 and led the ruling Communist Party for 13 years until 2002, died of leukemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai, state media reported. The party declared him a “great proletarian revolutionary” and ”long-tested communist fighter.”

Jiang’s death comes after the party faced its most widespread public show of opposition in decades when crowds called for leader Xi Jinping to resign during weekend protests against anti-virus controls that are confining millions of people to their homes.

A surprise choice to lead a divided Communist Party after the 1989 turmoil, Jiang saw China through history-making changes including a revival of market-oriented reforms, the return of Hong Kong from British rule in 1997 and Beijing’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is nothing new because both countries have conducted these joint flights before, but still this is not a very neighborly thing to do threatening your neighbors like this:

Two Chinese and six Russian warplanes entered South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) without notice Wednesday, prompting the Air Force to scramble fighters to the scene, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The planes’ entry into the KADIZ came as South Korea is pushing to strengthen its alliance with the United States amid an intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry, while maintaining its opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The JCS said the warplanes flew across the KADIZ but did not violate South Korea’s territorial air.

At 5:48 a.m., two Chinese H-6 bombers flew into the KADIZ from an area 126 kilometers northwest of Ieo Islet, a submerged rock south of the southern island of Jeju, and they left the KADIZ at 6:13 a.m.

At 6:44 a.m., the bombers reentered the KADIZ from an area northeast of South Korea’s southern port city of Pohang and exited the zone at 7:07 a.m.

Then six Russian aircraft — four TU-95 bombers and two SU-35 fighters — as well as two Chinese H-6 bombers flew into the KADIZ from an area 200 km northeast of the South’s Ulleung Island at 12:18 p.m. and exited the zone at 12:36 p.m.

The two countries appeared to have engaged in a combined air exercise, observers said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.