VATICAN CITY: The Vatican said Saturday (Oct 22) it had renewed a secretive 2018 deal with Beijing allowing China to choose bishops on the mainland and then have Rome approve them.

It said the deal had, as widely expected, been renewed for two years.

“After appropriate consultation and assessment, the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China have agreed to extend for another two years the Provisional Agreement regarding the appointment of Bishops,” read a statement from the Vatican press office.

The agreement, signed in September 2018, was previously extended in October 2020.

The accord is designed to bring closer together Catholics caught between the official state-backed church in China and an underground movement loyal to Rome and the pontiff as the church’s supreme leader.

It also provides for greater cooperation between the Vatican and Beijing, while affording the pope the final say in the appointment of Chinese bishops.

Opponents of the deal, who have highlighted restrictions on religion in China, point to the fact that only six new bishops have been appointed since the deal was first struck.

Diplomatic sources say the renewal of the accord had been called into doubt by the arrest in early May in Hong Kong of 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, one of Asia’s highest-ranking Catholic clerics.

Originally detained earlier this year under a national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong to quell dissent, he went on trial last month alongside five fellow democracy supporters over their role in running a fund to help defend people arrested in anti-government protests.

Zen was arrested for “colluding with foreign forces”.

SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida agreed on Saturday (Oct 22) to strengthen security ties between the two US allies amid China’s push for greater influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

At the annual Australia-Japan Leaders’ Meeting, held in the Western Australia capital Perth, the two signed a security cooperation agreement updating a 2007 pact, to respond to a changed regional security environment.

As part of the bolstered security partnership, Albanese said Japan’s military would train and exercise in northern Australia alongside Australian Defence Force personnel.

In their fourth summit since Albanese took office in May, they said the agreement would serve “as a compass” for security cooperation for the next decade. They agreed to consult and study responses to emergencies that could affect regional security.

Albanese and Kishida also discussed climate change, expressing support for a regional transition to net zero carbon emissions and boosting investment in clean energy tech.

“Both our countries are committed to net zero by 2050,” Albanese told reporters after a signing ceremony.

Among those efforts, the leaders agreed to help build secure supply chains between the two nations for “critical minerals, including those that are required for building the green technologies of the future,” Albanese said.

“This partnership will mean we build secure supply chains, promote investment, develop Australia’s domestic sector and make sure Japan’s advanced manufacturers have the critical minerals they need.”

As well as building a framework for secure supply chains, the partnership would promote information sharing and collaboration, including research, investment and commercial arrangements between Japanese and Australian critical minerals projects, the Australian government said in a statement.

Kishida told reporters signing the updated joint security declaration was one of the largest achievements of his visit.

“I expressed my determination that all necessary options for the defence of our country, including the so-called counterstrike capability, would become contemplated and Japan’s defence capability will be fundamentally reinforced in the next five years, which is supported by Anthony,” he said.

The Japanese leader said the two nations had been working to achieve a free and open Indo-Pacific under “an increasingly severe strategic environment”.

“Through this experience, the bonds that tie Japan and Australia together have become much stronger. And our two countries have become the central pillar of cooperation among like-minded countries,” he said.

Australia is a major supplier of iron ore, coal and gas to Japan. Locating the meeting in Perth, 3,700km from the national capital Canberra, was meant to showcase Western Australia’s importance in supplying Japan’s energy needs, including renewable energy. The state is also a key source of beef and wheat to Japan.

Canberra and Tokyo recently bolstered security ties in response to China’s growing military strength in the region. In May, Kishida and Albanese pledged to work toward a new bilateral declaration on security cooperation.

A previous joint declaration outlined security cooperation in areas such as counter-terrorism and North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programmes. The two countries in 2014 elevated their relationship to a “Special Strategic Partnership”.

ASTANA, Kazakhstan: President Vladimir Putin used a speech to Asian leaders on Thursday (Oct 13) to develop a theme that he has pressed more intensely as Russia’s military fortunes have waned: That Moscow is fighting the West to establish a fairer world.

With Western economic sanctions also tightening, Putin has shifted his emphasis from fighting alleged “fascists” in Kyiv to confronting a “collective West” that is arming Ukraine with the supposed aim of expanding its influence at Russia’s expense.

“The world is becoming truly multi-polar,” Putin said. “And Asia, where new centres of power are emerging, plays a significant, if not key, role in it.”

At a meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in the Kazakh capital Astana, Putin described the West as a neo-colonial power bent on stunting the development of the rest of the world and exploiting poorer countries.

“Like many of our partners in Asia, we believe a revision is needed of the global financial system, which has for decades allowed the self-proclaimed so-called ‘golden billion’, who redirected all capital flows and technologies to themselves to live largely at others’ expense,” Putin said.

The members of CICA have their own diverse agendas, however, and have also become more valuable to Russia as customers for the oil, gas and other commodities that it is finding hard to sell to the West.

The body includes several Central Asian ex-Soviet nations that regard Russia as their former colonial overlord – as well as China, India and some Arab and Southeast Asian nations, which have benefited from close trading ties with the West and Japan.

Kazakh authorities this month rejected a demand from Russia that they expel Ukraine’s ambassador, chiding Moscow for what they called an inappropriate tone between “equal strategic partners”.

The phrase “golden billion” became popular in Russian political discourse in the 1990s as part of a theory positing that Western nations had conspired to exploit the resources of others, above all Russia, while keeping them poor and brainwashing their populations.

The theory also supports Putin’s avowed aim of restoring Russia’s status of global power by opposing what he sees as a United States-led cabal.

Kyiv and the West deny any intention to threaten or diminish Russia, which they say is waging a war of imperialist aggression against Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday described the war in Ukraine as part of a Russian “crusade” against liberal democracy.

WASHINGTON: The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to ban approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE in the US on national security grounds, according to a document posted by the agency.

FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel last week circulated the proposed ban to the other three commissioners for final approval. The companies would not be able to sell new equipment in the United States without equipment authorisations.

In June 2021, the FCC voted to advance the plan to ban approvals for equipment in US telecommunications networks from Chinese companies deemed national security threats, including Huawei and ZTE.

That came after a March 2021 designation of five Chinese companies on the so-called “covered list” as posing a threat to national security under a 2019 law aimed at protecting US communications networks: Huawei Technologies, ZTE, Hytera Communications, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and Zhejiang Dahua Technology.

The FCC said in June 2021 it was considering banning all equipment authorisations for all companies on the covered list.

This year, the FCC added Russia’s AO Kaspersky Lab, China Telecom (Americas), China Mobile International USA, Pacific Networks and China Unicom (Americas) to the covered list.

Rosenworcel said last year that the new measures would “exclude untrustworthy equipment from (US) communications networks.

“We have left open opportunities for (Huawei and other Chinese equipment) use in the United States through our equipment authorisation process. So here we propose to close that door,” she said.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said in 2021 that the FCC had approved more than 3,000 applications from Huawei since 2018.

The FCC action would prohibit all future authorisations for communications equipment deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to national security.

In 2019, the United States placed Huawei, Hikvision and other firms on its economic blacklist.

Also in 2020, the FCC designated Huawei and ZTE as national security threats to communications networks – a declaration that barred US companies from tapping a US$8.3 billion government fund to purchase equipment from the companies.

Earlier this year, the Chinese embassy in Washington said the FCC “abused state power and maliciously attacked Chinese telecom operators again without factual basis”.

KARACHI: Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai met on Wednesday (Oct 12) with victims of Pakistan’s devastating monsoon floods, in only the second visit to her home country since being shot by the Taliban a decade ago.

Catastrophic flooding this summer put one-third of Pakistan under water, displaced eight million people, and caused at least an estimated US$28 billion in damage.

Yousafzai visited camps in rural Sindh province where she met families who have fled their submerged villages.

“The scale of the destruction is astounding and the psychosocial and economic impact on the lives of people, especially women and girls cannot be overstated,” Yousafzai said in a statement released by her organisation, the Malala Fund.

“World leaders must step up, accelerate their response plans and mobilise funds needed to help Pakistan rebuild and support impacted populations.”

The Malala Fund has committed up to US$700,000 to organisations in Pakistan.

More than three million children have also had their education disrupted while thousands of schools have been damaged.

Authorities are also battling a health crisis of malaria, dengue and malnutrition that has broken out among flood victims living in thousands of makeshift camps across the country.

Yousafzai was 15 years old when the Pakistani Taliban – an independent group that shares an ideology with the Afghan Taliban – shot her in the head over her campaign for girls’ education in the Swat Valley.

She was flown to Britain for life-saving treatment and went on to become a global education advocate and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The militant group, known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), waged a years-long insurgency that ended with a major military crackdown in 2014.

But the group has surged again in the region since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul last year, with thousands of people protesting on Tuesday against the deterioration in security.

LONDON: China’s growing technological dominance “is an increasingly urgent problem” for Western countries, who must act to defend their values and influence, the director of Britain’s GCHQ spy agency warned on Tuesday (Oct 11).

In a speech to the RUSI defence think-tank in London, Jeremy Fleming said “technology has become not just an area for opportunity, for competition and for collaboration. It has become a battlefield for control, for values and for influence”.

He cited China’s quest for dominance in new technologies such as satellite navigation – with its BeiDou system – and digital currencies, as it is in the process of launching its “digital yuan”.

The Chinese leadership sees such progress “as a tool to gain advantage through control of their markets, of those in their sphere of influence. And of course of their own citizens”, Fleming said.

Fleming, who has been head of the cybersecurity agency since 2017, urged Western countries to act and invest in next-generation technologies.

At the same time he insisted that the UK has “no issue with the people of China and the Chinese community who contribute hugely to life here in the UK”.

As China gradually extends its influence and rolls out its technology globally, particularly in developing countries, Western countries must be ready to “offer alternative solutions that are practical, that are affordable and that are backed by international funding or market investment”, the agency chief said.

“China is using all of the levers it has to challenge the international post-war consensus on economics and technology,” Fleming said.

“They see nations as either potential adversaries or potential client states to be threatened, bribed or coerced.”

Beijing reacted dismissively to excerpts from Fleming’s planned speech which were released on Monday evening.

A foreign ministry spokeswoman said the claims “have no factual basis”.

“China develops finance and technology in order to help the Chinese people enjoy better lives. It does not target anyone else and certainly does not constitute a threat,” the spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

“Holding to the ‘China threat’ theory and fanning opposition and confrontation harms both oneself and others,” Mao added.

WASHINGTON: China’s ambassador to the United States thanked Elon Musk for proposing a special administration zone for Taiwan, while Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Washington reprimanded the billionaire saying its “freedom and democracy are not for sale”.

“Taiwan sells many products, but our freedom and democracy are not for sale,” Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Washington, tweeted on Saturday (Oct 8). “Any lasting proposal for our future must be determined peacefully, free from coercion, and respectful of the democratic wishes of the people of Taiwan.”

China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, stressed Beijing’s call for “peaceful reunification and ‘one country, two systems'” for the island in a tweet on Saturday while thanking Musk.

Days after floating a possible deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine that drew condemnation in Ukraine, Musk suggested tensions between China and Taiwan could be resolved by handing over some control of Taiwan to Beijing.

“My recommendation …  would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy,” Musk told the Financial Times in an interview published on Friday.

Musk was responding to a question about China, where his Tesla electric car company operates a large factory.

Beijing, which claims Taiwan as one of its provinces, has long vowed to bring Taiwan under its control and has not ruled out the use of force to do so. Democratically ruled Taiwan’s government strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s 23 million people can decide its future.

In tweets posted on Saturday, the Chinese ambassador wrote: “I would like to thank @elonmusk for his call for peace across the Taiwan Strait and his idea about establishing a special administrative zone for Taiwan.”

“Actually, Peaceful reunification and One Country, Two Systems are our basic principles for resolving the Taiwan question … and the best approach to realizing national reunification,” he added.

“Provided that China’s sovereignty, security and development interests are guaranteed, after reunification Taiwan will enjoy a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region, and a vast space for development,” the ambassador wrote.

China has offered Taiwan a “one country, two systems” model of autonomy similar to what Hong Kong has, but that has been rejected by all mainstream political parties in Taiwan and has very little public support, especially after Beijing imposed a tough National Security Law in Hong Kong in 2020.

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand: Thai police are investigating a report that a CNN crew inappropriately entered the daycare centre where more than 20 pre-schoolers were slain as they were reporting on the attack, authorities said Sunday (Oct 9).

Danaichok Boonsom, head of the local township administration, told reporters as he left the Na Klang district police station that he had submitted his report on the incident alleging unauthorised entry onto the government property, and that police were investigating.

“Let the legal process run its course, I don’t want to disclose all the details,” he said. “Let the police do their work investigating.”

Authorities began looking into the incident after a Thai reporter posted an image on social media of two members of the crew leaving the scene, with one climbing over the low wall and fence around the compound, over police tape, and the other already outside.

CNN tweeted that the crew had entered the premises when the police cordon had been removed from the centre, and were told by three public health officials exiting the building that they could film inside.

“The team gathered footage inside the centre for around 15 minutes, then left,” CNN said in its tweet. “During this time, the cordon had been set back in place, so the team needed to climb over the fence at the centre to leave.”

BEIJING: China on Saturday (Oct 8) criticised the latest decision by the United States to tighten export controls that would make it harder for China to obtain and manufacture advanced computing chips, calling it a violation of international economic and trade rules that will “isolate and backfire” on the US.

“Out of the need to maintain its sci-tech hegemony, the US abuses export control measures to maliciously block and suppress Chinese companies,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.

“It will not only damage the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, but also affect American companies’ interests,” she said.

Mao also said that the US “weaponisation and politicisation” of science and technology as well as economic and trade issues will not stop China’s progress.

She was speaking after the US on Friday updated export controls that included adding certain advanced, high-performance computing chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to its list, as well as new license requirements for items that would be used in a supercomputer or for semiconductor development in China.

The US said that the export controls were added as part of ongoing efforts to protect US national security and foreign policy interests.

US-China relations have deteriorated in recent years over technology and security issues. The US has implemented a raft of measures and restrictions designed to prevent China from obtaining chip technology, while China has earmarked billions for investment into the production of semiconductors.

The tensions have impacted semiconductor companies in the US and globally which either export chips or manufacture chips in China.

Semiconductor companies such as Nvidia and AMD has seen a 40 per cent decline in stock price over the past year.

“We understand the goal of ensuring national security and urge the US government to implement the rules in a targeted way—and in collaboration with international partners—to help level the playing field and mitigate unintended harm to US innovation,” the Semiconductor Industry Association, which represents US semiconductor industry, said in a statement.

SEOUL: North Korea said on Saturday (Oct 8) that its missile tests are for self-defence against direct US military threats and they have not harmed the safety of neighbouring countries and regions.

North Korea carried out six missile launches in 12 days as of this week, including launching an intermediate-range missile over Japan on Tuesday.

“Our missile tests are a normal, planned self-defence measure to protect our country’s security and regional peace from direct US military threats,” said state media KCNA, citing an aviation administration spokesperson.

The missile tests “did not pose any threat or harm to the safety of civil aviation as well as the safety of neighbouring countries and regions, by a full consideration of civil aviation safety in advance”.

The message was in response to the International Civil Aviation Organization Council condemning North Korea’s missile launches for posing a serious safety risk to international civil aviation, KCNA said.

North Korea’s defence ministry was “taking a stern look at the development of the current situation, which is very worrisome”, regarding US-South Korean drills involving the nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, KCNA said in a separate statement.

The United States and South Korea held joint maritime exercises on Friday, a day after Seoul scrambled fighter jets in reaction to an apparent North Korean bombing drill.

The United States also announced new sanctions on Friday in response to North Korea’s latest missile launches.