China's Arctic ambitions take shape in remote Iceland valley

November 16, 2016

LAUGAR, Iceland (AP) — In a remote valley near the Arctic Circle where the wind whips the coarse yellow grass, China and Iceland are preparing to look to the sky — and a shared future. Construction workers are building a research facility to study the Northern Lights, whose spectacular streaks of color light up Iceland's winter skies. Funded by China's Polar Research Institute, the facility will house Chinese, Icelandic and international scientists when it opens next year.

This cement shell is a concrete achievement in the burgeoning relationship between the rising Asian superpower, population 1.37 billion, and this tiny North Atlantic island nation of 330,000 people. It may seem a lopsided friendship, but both countries perceive benefits. Beijing wants an Arctic ally as climate change opens up new sea routes and resource-extraction opportunities, while Iceland seeks heavyweight friends to anchor it against stormy economic waves.

"It is better to be a friend to everyone when you are small than be an enemy to anybody," said Reinhard Reynisson, director of the nonprofit company building the Aurora Observatory. Reynisson speaks with the confidence of a country that has weathered earthquakes, volcanoes, famine and financial meltdown since it was settled by Vikings in the 9th century. But China's growing interest has also aroused suspicions among some Icelanders, who are wary of big powers trying to grab their resources, whether fish, energy or land.

"We are a very small country, we are only 300,000 people, so we don't look at our independence as an automatic thing," said Asgeir Jonsson, an economist at the University of Iceland. "It's something that you have to protect and look after.

"In our history, we have a long story of fighting with the bigger powers around us over fish and the resources that we have. That has left its mark on the population." Iceland was nudged in China's direction by financial calamity. When the global credit crunch hit in 2008, Iceland's banks — whose debts had ballooned to more than 10 times the country's GDP — collapsed. Iceland's currency nosedived, unemployment soared, and Iceland was forced to go the International Monetary Fund and the European Union for bailouts. It also began looking for new economic partners to help it rebuild — and China was willing.

In 2010, the two countries agreed currency swaps between Iceland's krona and China's yuan, and in 2013 they signed a free trade agreement — the first between China and a European country. With Iceland's support, China was granted observer status in 2013 at the Arctic Council, whose core members are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Russia, the United States and Iceland.

It also attends annual Arctic Circle Assemblies hosted by Iceland — gatherings of politicians, officials, scientists and businesspeople to discuss the future of the region. "China's got a broad range of Arctic interests — economic, scientific, political, strategic," said Anne-Marie Brady, editor in chief of the Polar Journal and a global fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington. "But the main thing it wants at the moment would be to make sure it has a seat at any decision-making table and has access to any rights that are up for grabs. So it's great to have a friendly state like Iceland."

Some of the plans discussed by the two countries have been grandly ambitious, such as making a deep-sea port in a northern Iceland fjord to create a major shipping hub on the Northern Sea Route. It remains unbuilt, but the economic relationship between the two countries is growing steadily.

Iceland has granted the China National Offshore Oil Company permission to explore in Iceland's waters, and Beijing has tapped Icelandic expertise in geothermal power, a major industry in volcanic Iceland and a potential source of clean energy for China.

Last year, Chinese automaker Geely — owner of Volvo Cars— announced it was investing $45.5 million in Carbon Recycling International, an Icelandic company that operates the world's first renewable methanol plant. Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is working with Icelandic mobile phone firms and a state-owned Chinese firm has signed a deal to fund a new aluminum smelter in northwest Iceland.

The Chinese Embassy in Reykjavik says bilateral trade, "though still small in terms of volume, is growing rapidly." In the first nine months of 2016, Iceland's imports from China were worth $330 million and its exports $77 million, a year-on-year increase of 12.6 percent.

In an email to The Associated Press, the embassy said China could benefit from Iceland's "cutting-edge technologies in renewable energy, life-science (and) carbon-fiber industries," as well as its fresh fish, meat, dairy products and mineral water. In return, China can provide Iceland with a wide range of Chinese-made goods.

Chinese tourists — whose numbers rose from 26,000 in 2014 to an estimated 60,000 this year— are helping to drive a tourism boom that has been the savior of Iceland's economy since the financial crisis.

Cozying up to Beijing also gets tiny Iceland noticed by much larger nations. Brady notes that Iceland's politicians have become adept at "playing the big powers off each other." "They are getting a lot more attention from the United States in recent years because of their perceived very good relationship with China," she said. "And yet what the ordinary people think about that is often quite different from their government. ... the population has some misgivings about this close relationship."

Those misgivings reached a peak five years ago, when multimillionaire Chinese businessman Huang Nubo tried to buy a 300 square kilometer (120 square mile) chunk of remote northeast Iceland to build an eco-resort. Strong public opposition led the Icelandic government to block the purchase in 2011 — in part because no foreign buyer had ever bought so much land.

Suspicion lingered when the Aurora Observatory was announced for a sparsely populated region 250 miles (400 kilometers) northeast of Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. Pascal Heyman, a former official at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said in 2014 that the Chinese might want to use the equipment to keep an eye on NATO airspace.

Iceland is one of the best places in the world to observe the aurora borealis, or northern lights. The colorful phenomenon is caused when a magnetic solar wind slams into the Earth's magnetic field. Scientists hope the observatory will help them learn about the interaction between the sun and the Earth's magnetic field, which could help predict space weather.

The observatory is behind schedule — in part due to a shortage of building contractors in booming Iceland — but is due to open next fall. It will include a visitors' center, and local people have begun to capitalize on the upcoming economic opportunities, opening Aurora guesthouses and thermal baths.

Reynisson said the initial local skepticism about China's intentions has faded. "Now you might hear someone say, 'They will never finish it' — not that they are spying on us or doing something totally different from what is said to be done," he said. "Why build a station here in the valley to spy on us? Much easier to rearrange some of their satellites to spy on us."

Lawless reported from Reykjavik, Iceland.

In rare step, China bars 2 Hong Kong lawmakers from office

November 07, 2016

BEIJING (AP) — China's top legislature took the rare step Monday of intervening directly in a local Hong Kong political dispute by effectively barring two legally elected separatist lawmakers from taking office, setting the stage for further turmoil in the semiautonomous city.

Beijing moved to deny the two a second chance to take their oaths after being disqualified on their initial attempt last month for using anti-China insults and foul language. But the maneuver circumvented Hong Kong's courts, where the case is currently being heard, raising fears that the city's independent judiciary is being undermined.

The decision, while intended to nip the rise of budding separatism sentiment, has instead raised the specter of enduring political unrest in Hong Kong, two years after huge crowds of mostly young people occupied major streets for 11 weeks. Those demonstrations failed to win greater democracy but spawned an independence movement.

On Sunday, thousands took to the streets to rally against the anticipated announcement by the Chinese government. Police used pepper spray and batons against some umbrella-wielding demonstrators trying to reach Beijing's liaison office after the march ended. Four people were arrested and two officers were injured, police said.

The dispute centers on two newly elected pro-independence lawmakers, Sixtus Leung, 30, and Yau Wai-ching, 25, who altered their oaths to insert a disparaging Japanese expression for China. Displaying a flag reading "Hong Kong is not China," they vowed to defend the "Hong Kong nation." Their oaths were ruled invalid and subsequent attempts have resulted in mayhem in the Legislative Council's weekly sessions as the council's president refused to let them try again until the government's legal challenge is settled.

But Beijing decided to act more quickly. The National People's Congress Standing Committee, the country's top legislative panel, issued a ruling on a section of Hong Kong's Basic Law, or mini-constitution, covering oaths taken by officials.

It said talk of independence for Hong Kong is intended to "divide the country" and severely harms the country's unity, territorial sovereignty and national security. It also said those who advocate independence for Hong Kong are not only disqualified from election and from assuming posts as lawmakers but should also be investigated for their legal obligations.

It's the first time Beijing has stepped in to block democratically elected Hong Kong lawmakers from taking office. It's also the first time that Beijing has interpreted the Basic Law before a Hong Kong court has delivered a ruling on a case. In three of four previous interpretations, the NPC Standing Committee has delivered an opinion only after the Hong Kong government or the top court requested it.

"For the young people this is going to definitely create a backlash. This is going to further fuel the independence movement," said Samson Yuen, a politics lecturer at the Open University of Hong Kong. He added that Hong Kong's young people must be feeling helpless because every protest or collective action they've taken "has run into a dead end."

"Rationally for young people the only way out is to fight more radically," he said. At a briefing for reporters in Beijing, Li Fei, a deputy secretary general of the NPC Standing Committee, denied that the central government was escalating its interference in Hong Kong's affairs.

He said the Basic Law stipulates that Beijing holds the legal power to make interpretations, and it is the central government's duty to step in when there is a difference of legal opinion. He also warned that promoting independence was not a matter of freedom of speech.

"Breaking 'one-country two-systems' is violating the law, not voicing a political view," said Li, referring to a principle under which Beijing is supposed to let Hong Kong keep its capitalist economic and political system separate from mainland China's until 2047.

The central government's stance is absolute, he said, adding, "There will be no leniency." Li also directed his comments to the independence movement's core supporters. "The young people, I believe after some time will recognize the true face of those stirring up trouble behind the scenes and learn their lesson," he said.

Ming Sing, a professor of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said Beijing was making a "disproportionate" response to the threat of a separatist movement, given that polls show an overwhelming majority of Hong Kong citizens do not support breaking away from China or believe it to be realistic. But the harsh rhetoric could backfire and harden frustrations among the mainstream that doesn't support independence but feel increasingly pulled toward anti-mainland positions, he said.

"After today, people feel one step closer toward an authoritarian society, they feel a greater degree of deprivation of a fundamental right to elect their own legislator," he said. "Beijing has indirectly paved the way for a more imaginative, sustainable pro-democracy movement."

Eddie Chu, an independent pro-democracy lawmaker, said Beijing was making a "needless intervention" with its interpretation because Hong Kong's courts could have handled the dispute. "They are trying to create a rhetoric about the independence movement" to deter those who seek greater self-determination for the city, Chu said. "And Sixtus and Yau Wai-ching are the first victims in this new legal net."

Chu, Leung and Yau were among a group of pro-democracy candidates elected for the first time in September who advocate greater autonomy for Hong Kong. Leung and Yau are members of the radical Youngspiration party. They did not respond to media requests for comment Monday.

Hong Kong's Beijing-backed leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, said the government will fully implement the standing committee's interpretation. He told a packed news briefing that the Youngspiration duo had not only advocated independence for Hong Kong, but "even insulted the country and the Chinese people in their words and deeds."

"Their conduct has caused widespread indignation in Hong Kong and across the country," Leung said. Beijing officials struck a similar note in the closing moments of their briefing, which took an unexpected turn as Li, the standing committee official, denounced the oath-takers for using an archaic Japanese term to smear the Chinese people.

Li decried the two as "traitors" and recounted Japanese World War II atrocities in Hong Kong in graphic detail, telling of nurses raped and bodies bayoneted and tossed into the Hong Kong harbor. "I hope the people of Hong Kong won't forget the history of Japanese invaders," he said. "All the traitors who sell out the country never have good endings."

Chan reported from Hong Kong. Associated Press journalists Gillian Wong in Beijing and Josie Wong in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

Thousands in Hong Kong protest Beijing intervention

November 06, 2016

HONG KONG (AP) — Thousands of people protested in Hong Kong on Sunday, demanding that China's central government stay out of a political dispute in the southern Chinese city after Beijing indicated that it would intervene to deter pro-independence advocates. Police used pepper spray and batons to contain some of the demonstrators.

The dispute centers on a provocative display of anti-China sentiment by two newly elected pro-independence Hong Kong lawmakers at their swearing-in ceremony last month. China's top legislative panel said that Beijing must intervene to deter advocates of independence for Hong Kong, calling their actions a threat to national security. The Standing Committee of China's rubber-stamp legislature said in a statement that Beijing could not afford to do nothing in the face of challenges in Hong Kong to China's authority, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Saturday.

On Sunday, thousands of people marched in downtown Hong Kong to voice their opposition to China's plan to step in, saying the move would undermine the city's considerable autonomy and independent judiciary.

Several thousand people gathered in the evening to protest outside Beijing's liaison office. Police used pepper spray and batons on demonstrators amid some scuffling. Some protesters wore face masks and hoisted open umbrellas in the air — symbols that were reminiscent of student-led pro-democracy demonstrations in 2014 that blocked key Hong Kong streets and attracted global attention.

Helmeted police officers with shields stood in several rows, creating a blockade against the protesters. "Open the road! Open the road!" the demonstrators chanted, as police warned them not to charge.

Demonstrators held signs reading "Defend the rule of law" and calling for the city's Beijing-backed chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, to step down. Some said that if China's top legislative panel issued its own interpretation on oath-taking, it would effectively undermine a Hong Kong court's ongoing review of the case.

"In (the) long run, that will damage our confidence in the court," said Alvin Yeung, a legislator. "That will, in the long run, damage the international investors' (confidence) in Hong Kong's stability and the rule of law, and of course how our court functions."

The legislative panel in Beijing said the words and actions of the two Hong Kong lawmakers — Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching — "posed a grave threat to national sovereignty and security," Xinhua reported.

If such a situation were to persist, the Standing Committee said, it would hurt the interests of Hong Kong's residents and China's progress. "The central government cannot sit idly and do nothing," it said.

The statement followed discussions by the committee on issuing an interpretation of an article in Hong Kong's constitution, known as the Basic Law, that covers oaths taken by lawmakers. Leung, 30, and Yau, 25, who are from the radical Youngspiration party, altered their oaths to insert a disparaging Japanese term for China. Displaying a flag reading "Hong Kong is not China," they vowed to defend the "Hong Kong nation." Leung crossed his fingers, while Yau used the F-word in her pledge.

Their oaths were ruled invalid, but attempts at a do-over have resulted in mayhem in the legislature's weekly sessions. Saturday's comments indicated that the Standing Committee intended to use its interpretation of the article to send a strong message against separatism — and could ultimately lead to the democratically elected lawmakers' disqualification from office.

Such an outcome would be favorable to China's Communist leaders, who are alarmed by the former British colony's burgeoning independence movement, but is also likely to plunge their troubled relationship into fresh turmoil.

Maria Tam, a Hong Kong deputy to the National People's Congress, told reporters in Beijing on Saturday that the Standing Committee has the "final say" on the dispute, and that Hong Kong's highest court would accept the panel's interpretation as binding.

Wong reported from Beijing. Associated Press videojournalist Josie Wong in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

Japan's defense minister visits Yasukuni after Pearl Harbor

December 29, 2016

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, just back from Pearl Harbor, on Thursday visited a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals. The visit, and one by another Cabinet minister the day before, drew rebukes from neighboring South Korea and China.

Inada accompanied Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit this week to Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, where he offered condolences to those who died in the Japanese attack there in 1941. Japan's Asian neighbors harbor bitter memories of the country's atrocities before and during World War II, when it colonized or invaded much of the region. So visits by top Japanese leaders to the shrine often draw complaints from countries such as China and South Korea that see them as attempts to whitewash that history of wartime aggression.

Abe's visit to Yasukuni in December 2013 caused such an uproar that he has since instead sent gifts of money and religious ornaments. Japan's Kyodo News service reported that Abe, who was golfing outside Tokyo, refused comment when asked about Inada's visit.

The defense minister doffed her shoes on her way into the shrine, and afterward told waiting journalists, "Regardless of differences in historical views, regardless of whether they fought as enemies or allies, I believe any country can understand that we wish to express gratitude, respect and gratitude to those who sacrificed their lives for their countries."

China's CCTV news and its official Xinhua News Agency remarked on the visit's timing. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said it was "deplorable" that Inada had visited a shrine that "beautifies past colonial invasions and invasive war and honors war criminals."

The ministry summoned Kohei Maruyama, a minister at the Japanese Embassy in South Korea, to lodge a protest over the Yasukuni visit. The country's Defense Ministry expressed "serious concern and regret."

Inada's visit was her first since becoming defense minister last summer, though she has regularly visited it in the past. A lawyer-turned-lawmaker with little experience in defense, she is one of Abe's proteges and backer of his long-cherished hope to revise Japan's Constitution.

Inada has defended Japan's wartime atrocities, including forcing many Asian women into sexual servitude in military-linked brothels, and has led a party committee to re-evaluate the judgment of war tribunals led by the victorious Allies.

Her link to a notorious anti-Korea group was acknowledged by a court this year in a defamation case she lost. Inada also was seen posing with the leader of a neo-Nazi group in a 2011 photo that surfaced in the media in 2014. Reports at the time cited Inada as saying she was unaware of his status and did not subscribe to neo-Nazi ideology.

Masahiro Imamura, Japan's disaster reconstruction minister, went to Yasukuni on Wednesday, also drawing criticism from Beijing.

Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

Japan cabinet approves biggest defense budget

Tokyo (AFP)
Dec 22, 2016

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet on Thursday approved Japan's biggest annual defense budget in the face of North Korea's nuclear and missile threats and a territorial row with China.

The Cabinet approved 5.13 trillion yen ($43.6 billion) in defense spending for the fiscal year starting in April, up 1.4 percent from the initial budget for the current fiscal year.

It marks the fifth straight annual increase and reflects the hawkish Abe's attempt to build up Japan's military, which since World War II has been constitutionally limited to self defense.

Abe, who is pushing revisions to the constitution, strongly backed new security laws that took effect this year making it possible for Japanese troops fight abroad for the first time since the end of the war.

Japan is on constant alert against neighboring North Korea which has conducted two underground nuclear tests and more than 20 missile launches this year.

Under the new budget, the ministry aims to beef up Japan's ballistic missile defenses, allocating funds for a new interceptor missile under joint development with the United States.

Also reflected in the spending is Tokyo's determination to defend uninhabited islets in the East China Sea -- administered by Japan as the Senkakus but claimed by China as the Diaoyus.

The ministry said it has allocated funds for increased monitoring operations and to maintain mastery of the air and sea to counter attacks against what it euphemistically described as "island areas" - a reference to the disputed territory.

Separately, the Japan Coast Guard will increase security around the islands by allocating a record 210 billion yen, which includes two new patrol ships and the hiring of 200 more personnel.

In August, Tokyo lodged more than two dozen protests through diplomatic channels claiming that Chinese coast guard vessels had repeatedly violated its territorial waters around the disputed islands.

Also in August, Abe appointed Tomomi Inada, a close confidante with staunchly nationalist views, as his new defense minister. She has in the past been a frequent visitor to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo, which South Korea and China criticize as a symbol of Japanese militarism.

Japan has been boosting defense ties with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations, some of which have their own disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.

The defense budget earmarks funds to dispatch extra personnel to the Philippines and Vietnam to increase gathering and sharing of information.

Beijing asserts sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, dismissing rival partial claims from its Southeast Asian neighbors. It also opposes any intervention by Japan.

The defence allocation is part of a record 97.5 trillion yen national budget that will be sent to parliament for debate and approval early next year.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japan_cabinet_approves_biggest_defence_budget_999.html.

Tokyo gets November snow for first time in 54 years

24 November 2016 Thursday

Tokyo woke up Thursday to its first November snowfall in more than half a century, leaving commuters to grapple with train disruptions and slick streets.

Snow began falling before dawn with the mercury approaching zero as a cold weather system moved south.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said it was the first time snow had fallen in November in central Tokyo since 1962.

Amounts were greater in suburban areas closer to mountains but even central Tokyo saw brief accumulations, which the agency forecast to be as high as two centimeters (one inch).

That was the first November accumulation since records began in 1875, the agency said.

Tokyo, which spreads over a wide area and includes many suburbs, enjoys relatively mild winters compared to some other parts of the country where snowfall is more frequent.

Television footage showed a resident in the western suburb of Hachioji shoveling snow as the pavement, trees and park benches were covered in white powder.

Train and subway services were temporarily suspended or delayed especially in western Tokyo, affecting thousands of commuters during the morning rush hour.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/180606/tokyo-gets-november-snow-for-first-time-in-54-years.

Taiwan tells Beijing to grow up over Trump ceremony row

Taipei (AFP)
Jan 19, 2017

China should not be so "narrow-minded", Taiwan said Thursday, after Beijing pressed Washington to block the island from attending Donald Trump's inauguration.

A former premier will lead Taipei's delegation as foreign dignitaries from around the world descend on the US capital for the president-elect's swearing in.

But Beijing has asked the US to bar the self-ruling island it sees as a renegade province and part of "one China" to be reunified.

"We urge again the American side not to allow any Taiwanese official delegation to attend the US presidential inauguration ceremony and to have any kind of official contact with Taiwan," said Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China's ministry of foreign affairs, at a regular press briefing Thursday.

Former premier Yu Shyi-kun, who is leading Taiwan's delegation hit back.

"Don't be so small," Yu, who belongs to the ruling Beijing-skeptic Democratic Progressive Party, was quoted as saying by Taiwan's state Central News Agency.

"There hasn't been any leader with such a narrow mind in all Chinese dynasties," added Yu, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Since Trump was elected in November, there have been a series of diplomatic upsets, with China incensed by a protocol-smashing phone call between the billionaire and Taiwan's leader Tsai Ing-wen.

It was further angered by Trump's suggestion that the "one China" policy could be negotiable and demanded Washington ban Taipei from the inauguration.

A Taiwanese delegation has attended in previous years, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, but never includes the island's president.

Washington remains Taiwan's most powerful ally and arms supplier even though it switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

Chiu Chui-cheng, spokesman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council which handles China affairs, called Beijing's rhetoric "unhelpful for the normal development" of relations.

"There is no need for China to restrict or suppress Taiwan's regular interactions and exchanges with the US", he said.

Taiwan's delegation also includes some legislators including pro-independence rocker-turned-politician Freddy Lim of the New Power Party, which is calling for Taiwan to be recognized internationally as a country.

Ties with China have turned increasingly frosty since Tsai took office last year, with Beijing cutting off official communication with her government.

Beijing has recently stepped up military drills -- its only aircraft carrier sailed through the Taiwan Strait last week, and military aircraft passed near Taiwan twice late last year in what was seen as a show of strength.

Source: Sino Daily.
Link: http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Taiwan_tells_Beijing_to_grow_up_over_Trump_ceremony_row_999.html.