Beijing, China | AFP | Chinese President Xi Jinping urged “restraint” on North Korea in a phone call with Donald Trump Monday, as Japan joined drills with an American supercarrier heading to the Korean peninsula. The US leader has repeatedly called on China, the North’s sole major ally, to do …
Read More »China’s Xi praises normalisation of ties with Norway
Beijing, China | AFP | Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday praised the normalisation of relations with Norway, six years after a dispute over the Nobel Peace Prize, as Norway’s prime minister said she was glad to be back. The visit by Erna Solberg is the first high-level exchange since December, …
Read More »Trump drops China bashing during warm Xi summit
Palm Beach, United States | AFP | US President Donald Trump ditched his trademark anti-China bombast, hailing an “outstanding” relationship with counterpart Xi Jinping at the end of a superpower summit Friday overshadowed by events in Syria. “We have made tremendous progress in our relationship with China,” Trump said effusively …
Read More »Trump, China’s Xi look to navigate minefield in first summit
Palm Beach, United States | AFP | Donald Trump hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping at his sun-kissed Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday, a high-stakes first summit replete with pitfalls for both leaders. The stage is set for a carefully choreographed dinners with family and displays of bonhomie, but beneath …
Read More »China flexes military muscle before Trump takes office
Peking, China | AFP | An aircraft carrier in the Pacific and a newly upgraded combat aircraft: China’s military is showing off its newest equipment less than a month before the swearing-in of US President-elect Donald Trump, who has raised tensions between Beijing and Taipei. In recent days state media …
Read More »China’s Xi Jinping calls for stricter party control of universities
Beijing, China | AFP | China’s president Xi Jinping has called for the Communist Party to exert greater ideological control over universities, state media reported Friday, amid a broad crackdown on academic freedom and dissent in the world’s second-largest economy. Institutes of higher education must “serve the rule of the …
Read More »Chinese media praises Trump’s ‘experience and ideology’
Beijing, China | AFP | Chinese state-run media lauded Donald Trump Tuesday after a phone call between him and President Xi Jinping, saying that the president-elect’s emergence could mark a “reshaping” of Sino-American relations. The pair spoke Monday, when Xi said that the two powers needed to co-operate and Trump’s …
Read More »ANALYSIS: As Xi’s star rises, experts ask if the centre can hold
Beijing, China | AFP | Chinese Communist chief Xi Jinping’s ascension to the highest title in the party hierarchy formalises his position as its pre-eminent figure, analysts said, making him the country’s most powerful leader in a generation and inviting comparisons with Mao Zedong. The ruling party’s declaration that Xi …
Read More »CORE LEADER: Chinese state media urge new status for Xi
Beijing, China | AFP | Most Chinese people want Communist Party chief Xi Jinping to be a “core” leader in the mould of Mao Zedong, official media said a survey showed, as he seeks to consolidate his control. The People’s Tribune magazine, an affiliate of the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s …
Read More »ANALYSIS: China’s Xi to consolidate power at key meeting
Beijing, China | AFP | The leaders of the world’s most powerful political party gather in Beijing on Monday for a conclave that could change the course of Chinese history. In meetings at the exclusive Jinxi Hotel, safe from the public’s prying eyes, nearly 400 top members of the Chinese …
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