• US lawmakers press White House for tougher enforcement of China chip rules
• US charges ex-soldier for allegedly trying to give China defense information
• US adds 42 Chinese entities to trade black list over Russia military support
• US restricts trade with 42 Chinese entities over Russia military support
• Near collision, tense encounter as Beijing flexes muscles in the South China Sea
• Exclusive: US-China tech war: RISC-V chip technology emerges as new battleground
• Analysis: Is the US strategy of engaging China working?
• [Sport] China Open: Coco Gauff sets up Iga Swiatek semi-final by beating Caroline Garcia
• Typhoon to bring heavy rain to China, Taiwan rushes aid to remote island
• China expands climate change surveillance on Himalayan peak
• [World] BBC witnesses Chinese ships blocking Philippines supply boats
• China, Vietnam prepare for possible Xi visit to Hanoi in next month -sources
• Belgian intelligence investigating logistics hub of China’s Alibaba at local airport
• [World] Watch: Formation of Chinese ships blocks Philippine boats
• Heavy rainstorms to hit southern China after Typhoon Koinu batters Taiwan
• Biden plans November meeting with China“s Xi -Washington Post
• Biden plans face-to-face meeting with China’s Xi Jinping in California

US lawmakers press White House for tougher enforcement of China chip rules

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-chips-enforcement/us-lawmakers-press-white-house-for-tougher-enforcement-of-china-chip-rules-idUSKBN3161T0

Two senior Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday pressed the Biden administration for tougher enforcement of export controls on sending advanced computing chips and the tools to make them to China.

In a letter to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Representatives Michael McCaul and Mike Gallagher, respectively chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a select committee on China, said that new advances by China's top chipmaker show that the a sweeping set of rules rolled out a year ago this month need updating to close what the lawmakers called loopholes.

The letter comes after Huawei Technologies unveiled a new Mate 60 Pro smartphone that contained advanced chips made by China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) (0981.HK) despite U.S. sanctions.

"The October 7 rules and SMIC’s growing capabilities reveal a stagnant, obscured bureaucracy that does not understand China’s industrial policy, does not understand China’s military goals, and does not understand technology at all - and does not have the will to act," McCaul and Gallagher said in the letter.

The lawmakers urged the Biden administration to update the rules and take immediate action against Huawei and SMIC. They also urged the administration cut off Chinese companies' access to powerful artificial-intelligence chips accessed through cloud computing services and to start enforcing the administration's own rules around placing restrictions on Chinese companies that do not allow U.S. officials to verify whether Chinese companies are complying with U.S. export rules.

Reuters reported this week that the Biden administration has warned China it plans to update the rules. Spokespeople for the National Security Council and the Bureau of Industry and Security, the arm of the Commerce Department that oversees export controls, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US charges ex-soldier for allegedly trying to give China defense information

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-defense-arrest/us-charges-ex-soldier-for-allegedly-trying-to-give-china-defense-information-idUSKBN3161LI

U.S. authorities have arrested a former U.S. army sergeant and charged him for attempting to pass national defense information to China, the Justice Department said on Friday.

Joseph Daniel Schmidt, whose last duty post was Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, was charged with federal felonies for attempting to deliver national defense information and retention of national defense information, the Justice Department said in a statement.

US adds 42 Chinese entities to trade black list over Russia military support

https://reuters.com/article/usa-russia-china/us-adds-42-chinese-entities-to-trade-black-list-over-russia-military-support-idUSKBN3161D2

The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday it is adding 42 Chinese companies to a government export control list over support for Russia’s military and defense industrial base.

Entities placed on the list supplied Russian firms linked to the Russian defense sector with U.S.-origin integrated circuits, the department said. Commerce said it is adding another seven entities in total from Finland, Germany, India, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

US restricts trade with 42 Chinese entities over Russia military support

https://reuters.com/article/usa-russia-china/us-restricts-trade-with-42-chinese-entities-over-russia-military-support-idUSKBN3161D2

The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday added 42 Chinese companies to a government export control list over support for Moscow's military and defense industrial base, including supplying the Russian sector U.S.-origin integrated circuits.

Another seven entities from Finland, Germany, India, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom were also added to the trade export control list.

The circuits include microelectronics that Russia uses for precision guidance systems in missiles and drones launched against civilian targets in Ukraine, the Commerce Department said in a statement.

"Today’s additions to the Entity List provide a clear message: if you supply the Russian defense sector with U.S.-origin technology, we will find out, and we will take action," Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew Axelrod said in the statement.

The U.S. action comes as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues into its second year, including a Russian missile strike in a village in northeastern Ukraine on Thursday that killed at least 52 people in one of the most deadly attacks during 20 months of fighting.

Companies are added the U.S. Entity List when Washington deems them a threat to U.S. national security or foreign policy. Suppliers must then be granted generally hard-to-get licenses before shipping goods to entities on the list.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Near collision, tense encounter as Beijing flexes muscles in the South China Sea

https://reuters.com/article/southchinasea-philippines/near-collision-tense-encounter-as-beijing-flexes-muscles-in-the-south-china-sea-idUSKBN31612L

The crew of the Philippine coastguard boat watch anxiously as an imposing Chinese vessel draws near and cuts off its path, coming within a metre of collision in a vast stretch of open water in the South China Sea.

The captain of the BRP Sindangan shuts off the engine and activates the reverse throttle. China's coastguard issues a warning via megaphone to leave as the Filipino crew watch closely on a radar that shows two vessels side by side.

"In accordance with international and Philippine national laws we are proceeding," a crew member responds.

"Request to stay clear from our passage."

Tense encounters like this, about 100 miles (185 km) off the Philippines and witnessed by a Reuters journalist, are becoming more frequent in Asia's most contested waters as China presses its claim of ownership over almost the entire South China Sea.

China rules the waves here, and the Philippine mission is symbolic of a wider battle between Beijing and neighbours determined to uphold sovereign rights in their exclusive economic zones (EEZ).

The Philippine coastguard ship is escorting smaller boats to the Second Thomas Shoal that carry supplies to a handful of troops posted to a makeshift garrison aboard the Sierra Madre, a World War Two navy ship that was intentionally grounded on the reef a quarter of a century ago.

Their constant presence aboard the rusty ship has irked China and turned the Second Thomas Shoal into a strategic battleground, with Beijing deploying its more modern coastguard ships and clusters of fishing boats as far as 620 miles (1,150 km) from the Chinese coast.

Just 800 metres away, a grey navy ship starts to follow the Sindangan, joining the four Chinese coastguard vessels and five other boats suspected by the Philippines of being militia.

The Sindangan hangs back as the supply boats advance to complete the remaining nine miles (17 km) to reach the troops aboard the Sierra Madre.

China condemned the resupply mission, saying Philippine vessels had "intruded" in its waters in the Spratly Islands without its permission. It has previously ordered the Philippines to tow the grounded ship away from the atoll.

The stakes are high if this brinkmanship turns to miscalculation in the South China Sea.

Relations between the Philippines and China have further soured this year at a time of strengthened military engagement between Manila and Washington that Beijing says risks stoking regional tensions.

The Philippines and the United States have a Mutual Defense Treaty, and the Pentagon in May made clear it would protect the Philippines if its coastguard came under attack "anywhere in the South China Sea".

Jay Tarriela of the Philippine coastguard said it was his country's right to operate freely in its EEZ and accused China of violating international law.

"They have carried out dangerous manoeuvres and blocking operations to prevent our routine operations in providing supplies for our military troops," he told reporters.

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Exclusive: US-China tech war: RISC-V chip technology emerges as new battleground

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-chips-riscv/exclusive-us-china-tech-war-risc-v-chip-technology-emerges-as-new-battleground-idUSKBN3160RG

In a new front in the U.S.-China tech war, President Joe Biden's administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China - a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders.

At issue is RISC-V, pronounced "risk five," an open-source technology that competes with costly proprietary technology from British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F). RISC-V can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence.

Some lawmakers - including two Republican House of Representatives committee chairmen, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner - are urging Biden's administration to take action regarding RISC-V, citing national security grounds.

The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current U.S. lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military. Their comments represent the first major effort to put constraints on work by U.S. companies on RISC-V.

Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House select committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters that the Commerce Department needs to "require any American person or company to receive an export license prior to engaging with PRC (People's Republic of China) entities on RISC-V technology."

Such calls to regulate RISC-V are the latest in the U.S.-China battle over chip technology that escalated last year with sweeping export restrictions that the Biden administration has told China it will update this month.

"The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is abusing RISC-V to get around U.S. dominance of the intellectual property needed to design chips. U.S. persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade U.S. export control laws," Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement to Reuters.

McCaul said he wants action from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the part of the Commerce Department that oversees export-control regulations, and would pursue legislation if that does not materialize.

The bureau "is constantly reviewing the technology landscape and threat environment, and continually assessing how best to apply our export control policies to protect national security and safeguard core technologies," a Commerce Department spokesperson said in a statement.

"Communist China is developing open-source chip architecture to dodge our sanctions and grow its chip industry," Rubio said in a statement to Reuters. "If we don't broaden our export controls to include this threat, China will one day surpass us as the global leader in chip design."

"I fear that our export-control laws are not equipped to deal with the challenge of open-source software - whether in advanced semiconductor designs like RISC-V or in the area of AI - and a dramatic paradigm shift is needed," Warner said in a statement to Reuters.

RISC-V is overseen by a Swiss-based nonprofit foundation that coordinates efforts among for-profit companies to develop the technology.

The RISC-V technology came from labs at the University of California, Berkeley, and later benefited from funding by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its creators have compared it to Ethernet, USB and even the internet, which are freely available and draw on contributions from around the world to make innovation faster and cheaper.

Executives from China's Huawei Technologies have embraced RISC-V as a pillar of that nation's progress in developing its own chips. But the United States and its allies also have jumped on the technology, with chip giant Qualcomm (QCOM.O) working with a group of European automotive firms on RISC-V chips and Alphabet's Google saying it will make Android, the world's most popular mobile operating system, work on RISC-V chips.

Qualcomm declined to comment. Its executives said in August they believe RISC-V will speed up chip innovation and transform the tech industry.

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

If Biden's administration were to regulate U.S. companies' participation in the Swiss-based foundation in the manner lawmakers are seeking, the move could complicate how American and Chinese companies work together on open technical standards. It also could create hurdles for China's pursuit of chip self-sufficiency, as well as for U.S. and European efforts to create cheaper and more versatile chips.

Jack Kang, vice president of business development at SiFive, a Santa Clara, California-based startup using RISC-V, said potential U.S. government restrictions on American companies regarding RISC-V would be a "tremendous tragedy."

"It would be like banning us from working on the internet," Kang said. "It would be a huge mistake in terms of technology, leadership, innovation and companies and jobs that are being created."

Regulating the open discussion of technologies is rarer than regulating physical products, but not impossible, said Kevin Wolf, an export-control attorney at law firm Akin Gump who served in the Commerce Department under former President Barack Obama. Existing rules on chip exports could help provide a legal framework for such a proposal, Wolf said.

Analysis: Is the US strategy of engaging China working?

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-diplomacy/analysis-is-the-us-strategy-of-engaging-china-working-idUSKBN3160M3

Early in the Biden administration, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed that the United States would only hold talks with China if they led to "tangible outcomes" to resolve disputes between the strategic rivals.

Two-and-a-half years later, that approach appears to have changed.

Since the start of the summer, the administration has embarked on a largely unreciprocated push to talk with Beijing, establishing working groups and sending three cabinet-level officials and its top climate envoy to Beijing.

The strategy, intended in part to salvage a relationship that fell to a dangerous level earlier this year when the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon, could lead to a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November, their first in a year.

"The goal truly is channels of communication and ensuring we don't veer into conflict - simple as that," said a senior Biden administration official. "Temperatures are lower than they were."

But critics say the approach carries its own risk: that the talks and working groups will only pull focus away from - and possibly delay - sanctions, export controls and competition.

"The return to high-level economic dialogues is a win for China, especially as Beijing continues to stonewall and gaslight on military risk reduction, cyber theft, and human rights," said Ivan Kanapathy, a former White House National Security Council deputy senior director for Asia.

China is a daunting diplomatic challenge for the United States. The Biden administration wants to counter the country's growing military without provoking a conflict and to push back on what it considers unfair business practices while avoiding an all-out trade war.

Officials say they are imposing tough measures when necessary while reiterating that the U.S. is open for dialogue to keep relations stable.

They point to the high-tech sector, where the U.S. has imposed sweeping restrictions on the export of semiconductors and bans on U.S. investment in certain Chinese tech companies while offering new incentives for companies to expand instead in the United States.

"The criticism we get from some on (Capitol) Hill and some in the academic community, of course, is that competing means you can't talk to China," said the administration official.

"That is a fundamental misunderstanding of diplomacy. The hard, difficult conversations are always with competitors."

Those conversations, said the official, include explaining concerns that U.S. technology is being used to improve the capabilities of China's military.

When successful, such dialogue can also ease tensions.

One possible sign of a thaw is China's recent assistance with the return of Travis King, a U.S. soldier detained in North Korea and transferred back home through Chinese territory.

Nonetheless, the rush of visits by U.S. officials to China – intended in part to queue up a meeting between Biden and Xi at November's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit in San Francisco – doesn't sit well with some critics and Republicans in Congress, who see stricter reciprocity as a wiser starting point.

A year of U.S. "diplomatic accommodation" has yielded no action to address market access for U.S. companies in China, theft of U.S. intellectual property, or Beijing's aggression in the disputed South China Sea, said Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher, who has run the House of Representative's select committee on China's Communist Party (CCP), often in close cooperation with Democratic lawmakers.

"Meanwhile, the administration has delayed, diluted or otherwise sacrificed defensive actions like tougher export controls or sanctions on CCP officials," he said.

Administration officials acknowledge China may see the U.S. push to engage as a chance to weaken or slow Washington's policies targeting China, particularly on exports in strategic industries such as semiconductors, but deny that this is happening.

They point to new fentanyl-related sanctions on China this week as evidence Beijing is not getting a pass, adding that long-delayed regulations to close loopholes on export controls to Chinese technology companies, such as Inspur Group, are coming soon.

The administration official denied the delays were to avoid upsetting China but were about "getting the technical pieces right, and balancing economic impact on our own domestic competitiveness."

Diplomats say engagement with China, while necessary, will rarely yield quick results.

A senior State Department official said the June visit to Beijing by Blinken - the first senior engagement since the spy balloon incident in February - helped reopen diplomatic channels even though it hasn't yielded tangible progress on issues such as restoring military-to-military communications, curbing fentanyl and reducing tensions in the South China Sea.

Still, said the official, those interactions have been important so that both sides can lay out clearly what their "bottom lines" are.

"This diplomacy is often very difficult. It’s often tense. Sometimes not particularly pleasant. But I think both sides believe it’s vitally important."

[Sport] China Open: Coco Gauff sets up Iga Swiatek semi-final by beating Caroline Garcia

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/67026231?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Coco Gauff extended her winning streak to 16 matches to set up a semi-final against Iga Swiatek at the China Open.

The world number three will face Swiatek, second in the rankings, after the Pole battled back from the brink of defeat against Caroline Garcia.

Garcia had been two points from victory but lost 6-7 (8-10) 7-6 (7-5) 6-1.

The top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka faces Elena Rybakina for a place in the last four, where she could meet Jelena Ostapenko or Liudmila Samsonova.

• Live scores, results and order of play
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Gauff's winning streak is the longest on the WTA Tour in 2023 and she has not been beaten since a Canadian Open quarter-final loss to Jessica Pegula on 11 August.

She has since secured her first WTA 1,000 title in Cincinnati and maiden Grand Slam in New York, winning 21 of 22 matches since a first-round exit at Wimbledon.

Gauff required just one hour and 20 minutes to move past Sakkari and did not lose serve once.

It did not prove as straightforward for Swiatek, who was replaced as world number one by Australian Open champion Sabalenka following the Belarusian's run to the US Open final.

The 22-year-old four-time major winner held her nerve after Garcia fought back from four points behind to level the second-set tie-break at 5-5.

Swiatek won the next two points to force a decider, which in contrast to the first two sets proved a one-sided charge to the finish.

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Typhoon to bring heavy rain to China, Taiwan rushes aid to remote island

https://reuters.com/article/asia-weather-koinu-china/typhoon-to-bring-heavy-rain-to-china-taiwan-rushes-aid-to-remote-island-idUSKBN316057

Heavy rainstorms and strong winds will hit southern China in the next three days as Typhoon Koinu approaches the coast of Guangdong province after killing one and injuring hundreds in Taiwan, which was rushing aid to a remote and hard-hit island.

Typhoon Koinu, which means "puppy" in Japanese, will bring heavy rain along the coasts of Guangdong and neighbouring Fujian province in the next three days, China's National Meteorological Centre (NMC) said.

The NMC said rainfall in Guangdong could reach more than 300 millimetres. It also issued a yellow alert for strong winds, the third highest in a four-coloured warning system.

Koinu killed one person and injured almost 400 people in Taiwan, causing some of the most extensive damage on remote Orchid Island off the east coast and home to around 5,000 people, although no one was injured on the island.

More than 70 boats were overturned or sunk in a harbour on the island, two schools were seriously damaged and power cut due to the typhoon.

Government and air force helicopters flew in engineers to restore electricity and telecommunications on Friday, though the first boats with supplies are not due to arrive on Orchid Island until Saturday morning. Civilian flights remain suspended.

"The situation is very bad, roads broken, cannot pump fuel and cannot buy anything from the convenience store, no food stocks and water. So everyone is collecting rain water for cooking," Orchid Island restaurant owner Judy Chiu told Reuters.

China's Guangdong province has suspended dozens of ferry routes since late Thursday and the NMC warned tourists to stay away from beach resorts on the last day of a week-long national holiday on Friday.

Koinu was travelling around 144 kph (89 mph) off the coast of the southern Guangdong city of Shanwei as of 8 a.m. on Friday, said the NMC, slowing down from the 252 kph (156mph) on Thursday in Taiwan.

The typhoon is expected to weaken into a strong tropical storm from late Friday and grow weaker as it heads west along China's southern coast, it said.

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China expands climate change surveillance on Himalayan peak

https://reuters.com/article/climate-change-china/china-expands-climate-change-surveillance-on-himalayan-peak-idUSKBN3160IE

China has set up weather stations on Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world on Tibet's border with Nepal, expanding a series of high-altitude meteorological gauges in the Himalayas to monitor the impact of climate change on Asia's "water tower".

Scientists are increasingly watching how climate change is impacting the environmentally fragile Himalayas, home to the planet's tallest peaks and the source of water for rivers that hundreds of millions of people depend on.

Since the end of September, a Chinese team has set up five automatic weather stations on Cho Oyu, at altitudes from 4,950 metres to its summit at 8,201 metres, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

Snow and ice samples at the summit had been collected for the first time, Xinhua reported.

Initial research showed that the ice layer on Cho Oyu was the thickest among peaks above 8,000 metres, with a thickness of more than 70 metres being seen, Xinhua reported.

The weather stations on Cho Oyu, which means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan, expand a Chinese meteorological network in the Himalayas that includes monitoring of the 8,848-metre Everest, also on the border with Nepal, and the 8,013-metre Shishapangma in Tibet.

Monitoring the effects of global warming has taken on urgency after one of the warmest summers in the northern hemisphere this year. Mont Blanc, Western Europe's highest peak, has lost more than two metres in height over two years because of its shrinking snowpack, researchers said on Thursday.

Torrential rain in India's northeastern Sikkim state burst the banks of a glacial lake and triggered flash floods this week, killing at least 40 people in the latest example of extreme weather events in the mountain range that scientists have blamed on climate change.

High-altitude surveillance was imperative to avoid disasters such as floods and ice avalanches as glaciers melt, Xinhua reported, citing Yang Wei, a researcher at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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[World] BBC witnesses Chinese ships blocking Philippines supply boats

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67015857?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

China, Vietnam prepare for possible Xi visit to Hanoi in next month -sources

https://reuters.com/article/vietnam-china-xi/china-vietnam-prepare-for-possible-xi-visit-to-hanoi-in-next-month-sources-idUSKBN316090

Vietnamese and Chinese officials are preparing for a possible visit from President Xi Jinping to Hanoi at the end of October or early November, on the heels of U.S. President Joe Biden's trip in September, four people familiar with the plans said.

The visit would underline the Southeast Asian manufacturing hub's growing strategic importance, as big powers jostle for influence in the region amid rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Work is under way on a joint statement that would be issued during the visit, four people informed about the negotiations told Reuters.

Two of them said the parties were discussing a reference to being together in a "community of common destiny", a phrase often used by Xi that some find controversial. Vietnamese officials were cautious about adding that reference, the two sources said.

A fifth Vietnamese source said the joint statement was likely to include that reference. It could be interpreted as an elevation of ties between the two countries, according to two of the sources, but it is unclear what that would entail and what concrete agreements might be announced.

That person, and the four informed about the negotiations, declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The visit has not been announced and could still be called off or postponed, but logistical arrangements have been explored.

"All important diplomatic activities of Vietnam would be announced to you when appropriate," Vietnam's foreign affairs ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang told a news conference on Thursday when asked about the possible visit.

The ministry did not reply to emailed questions from Reuters about the timing of the visit and the content of the joint statement.

China's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

One of the sources said China had sent a team to Hanoi to organise accommodations for Xi's delegation.

Another said the team has been looking to book 800 rooms in hotels in Vietnam's capital, a number in line with a state visit.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi was expected to visit Hanoi in mid-October to help finalise the joint statement, the source added, if sufficient progress on the text has been made.

The timing of Xi's visit would coincide with Vietnam's bi-annual monthlong parliament session, where he gave a speech during a previous trip to Hanoi in 2015.

The trip has been under preparation for months, officials had said.

Vietnam is seen as increasingly important to both superpowers, as it expands its role in global supply chains, importing industrial components from China that it assembles before exporting finished products to the United States or Europe.

Washington upgraded its ties with Hanoi in September, elevating the United States to the same top tier as China's in Vietnam after a prolonged diplomatic push.

As China's president, Xi travelled to Vietnam twice, with his latest visit in 2017, when he attended an Asia-Pacific summit with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and other leaders.

China is a top investor in its southern neighbour, having committed to spending nearly $3 billion in Vietnam in the first nine months of this year, six times more than the U.S. in the same period and second only to Singapore, according to Vietnamese government data.

Beijing and Hanoi are at odds about boundaries in the South China Sea and have a centuries-long history of conflict; China's latest war was fought against Vietnam in 1979.

(This story has been refiled to add a dropped letter in paragaraph 10)

Belgian intelligence investigating logistics hub of China’s Alibaba at local airport

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/06/belgian-intelligence-investigating-logistics-hub-of-chinas-alibaba-at-local-airport

Belgian officials are looking into risks around the presence of China’s Alibaba Group Holding at a cargo airport in the city of Liège, the country’s state security service (VSSE) said in a statement on Thursday.

Referring to the company’s main European logistics centre at Liège Airport, the security service said it was working to “detect and fight against possible spying and/or interference activities carried out by Chinese entities including Alibaba”.

Belgian authorities are looking into Alibaba’s operations at the airport based on an analysis of China’s legal framework, the statement added.

The presence of Alibaba “still constitutes a point of attention” for the VSSE, it said, due to legislation which obligates Chinese companies to share data with Chinese authorities and intelligence services.

Jonathan Holslag, a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, told the Financial Times that the main source of concern was that Alibaba, “alongside a couple of other logistical platforms that the Chinese have been proposing to European countries, is giving them a lot of insights into supply chains and into eventual vulnerabilities.”

Holslag said there was also a risk Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics arm, could access information about final consumers. “Knowledge about important changes in consumption patterns and knowledge about the logistical chain is valuable for China as a country that tries to dominate the supply chain,” he said.

In a statement Cainiao, said “we strongly deny the allegations based on prior conjecture.”

“Cainiao is in compliance with all laws and regulations where it operates.”

Alibaba signed an agreement with the Belgium government in 2018 to open an e-commerce trade hub, run by Cainiao, that would include investment in logistics infrastructure.

The Chinese e-commerce company last month filed to list Cainiao on the Hong Kong stock exchange, which would make the unit the first to be separated since Alibaba said in March it would restructure and split its business into six units.

[World] Watch: Formation of Chinese ships blocks Philippine boats

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67025727?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGAThe BBC saw first-hand how Chinese ships were manoeuvring in the South China Sea to block Philippine vessels.

Heavy rainstorms to hit southern China after Typhoon Koinu batters Taiwan

https://reuters.com/article/asia-weather-koinu-china/heavy-rainstorms-to-hit-southern-china-after-typhoon-koinu-batters-taiwan-idUSKBN316057

Heavy rainstorms and strong winds will hit southern China in the next three days as Typhoon Koinu approaches the coast of Guangdong province after killing one and injuring hundreds in Taiwan.

Typhoon Koinu, which means "puppy" in Japanese, will bring heavy rain along the coasts of Guangdong and neighbouring Fujian province in the next three days, China's National Meteorological Centre (NMC) said.

The NMC said rainfall in Guangdong could reach more than 300 millimetres. It also issued a yellow alert for strong winds, the third highest in a four-coloured warning system.

Guangdong province has suspended dozens of ferry routes since late Thursday and the NMC warned tourists to stay away from beach resorts on the last day of a week-long national holiday on Friday.

Typhoon Koinu was travelling around 144 kph (89 mph) off the coast of the southern Guangdong city of Shanwei as of 8 a.m. on Friday, said the NMC, slowing down from the 252 kph (156mph) on Thursday in Taiwan.

The typhoon is expected to weaken into a strong tropical storm from late Friday and grow weaker as it heads west along China's southern coast, it said.

Typhoon Koinu killed one person and injured almost 400 people in Taiwan, causing the most extensive damage on remote Orchid Island off Taiwan's east coast and home to around 5,000 people, although no one was injured on the island.

More than 70 boats were overturned or sunk in a harbour on the island, two schools were seriously damaged and power cut due to the typhoon. An air force helicopter was flying in engineers to restore electricity on Friday.

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Biden plans November meeting with China“s Xi -Washington Post

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-biden-xi/biden-plans-november-meeting-with-chinas-xi-washington-post-idUSKBN31523B

The White House is making plans for a face-to-face meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in San Francisco next month as the two countries seek to stabilize troubled relations, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Ties between the world's two largest economies have been strained in recent years due to a number of issues including Taiwan, the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, allegations of spying, human rights issues and trade tariffs, among others.

The newspaper, which cited senior unnamed U.S. officials, quoted one of them saying the possibility of a meeting was "pretty firm."

"We're beginning the process" of planning, the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The meeting would follow other high-level engagements between the two countries in recent months that have seen visits from U.S. officials to China like Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in August.

More recently, Blinken met Chinese Vice President Han Zheng in New York and U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Malta.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Washington Post report. The White House did not have an immediate comment.

Biden and Xi's last meeting was on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia in November 2022, which was their first in person meeting since Biden became president. They previously had five exchanges by phone and video conference after Biden took office.

China's top security agency hinted last month any meeting between Xi and Biden will depend on the United States "showing sufficient sincerity."

U.S. officials like Raimondo and Yellen have recently said the United States did not want to decouple from China but Beijing has expressed concern over U.S. approval of arms sales and military financing to Taiwan.

San Francisco will host an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November that Xi may attend. Xi recently skipped the G20 summit in New Delhi that Biden attended.

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Biden plans face-to-face meeting with China’s Xi Jinping in California

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/10/05/biden-xi-meeting-apec-summit/2023-10-05T13:56:17.188Z

The White House has begun making plans for a November meeting in San Francisco between President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping — an attempt to stabilize the relationship between the world’s two most powerful countries, according to senior administration officials.

“It’s pretty firm” there will be a meeting, said one administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the engagement has not yet been announced formally. “We’re beginning the process” of planning, the official said.

The in-person meeting will be the first between the leaders of the two largest economies since they met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last November. There, both presidents emphasized the importance of face-to-face diplomacy and expressed hope they could get U.S.-China relations back on track.

But after Biden ordered the shoot-down of a Chinese spy balloon that traveled over the continental United States in February, ties frayed further.

How an unusual weather system pushed China's spy balloon over the U.S.

In an effort to re-engage, four top Biden administration officials have traveled in recent months to Beijing, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and climate envoy John F. Kerry. Last month, national security adviser Jake Sullivan held two days of talks with his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in Malta. The White House described those conversations as “candid, substantive and constructive.”

But communications between top American military officials and their counterparts in Beijing remain frozen despite repeated overtures by the American side. In March, Xi accused Washington of leading an effort by the West to implement “containment, encirclement and suppression of China” to slow its development. And last month, China’s main spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, indicated in a cryptic and unusual post on its WeChat social media page that prospects for a Xi-Biden summit would depend on the United States “show[ing] enough sincerity.” The security agency does not usually comment publicly, especially on foreign policy.

Biden, for his part, has made comments — off the cuff at fundraisers or in brief exchanges with reporters — that have irked Beijing. In June, at a fundraiser, he called Xi a “dictator” who was unaware of the spy balloon and said that the Chinese president was “very embarrassed” when it got shot down. He also noted China was having “real economic difficulties.”

Nonetheless, Biden has repeatedly indicated over the past several months that he was expecting to meet with Xi — “sometime in the future, in the near term,” he said at a news conference in June. Last month, Xi skipped the G-20 leadership summit in New Delhi, leading Biden to express disappointment. But, he added, “I am going to get to see him.”

In remarks to the U.N. General Assembly in New York last month, he emphasized his desire to “responsibly manage the competition” between the two countries to avoid conflict. “We are for de-risking,” he said, “not decoupling with China.”

China watchers have looked to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco as the setting for the meeting. For Xi to be a no-show, coming on the heels of his G-20 absence and ducking out of a speech at a summit of developing nations in August, would be a poor look, said Danny Russel, a former White House Asia aide in the Obama administration. “People will jump to the conclusion that the domestic economic and political problems are too great,” he said. “There’s a cost to him not going.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden administration officials are proceeding with plans for a meeting at APEC. The Chinese, said the U.S. official, “want to do it.” The White House, however, has decided it will bar Hong Kong’s top government official, John Lee, from attending. Lee and 10 other Hong Kong and Chinese officials were sanctioned by Washington in 2020 after implementing a repressive national security law, imposed by officials in Beijing.

Russel, now vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the one thing both leaders have in common is a desire to stabilize ties and avoid “some international crisis or brawl” that could interfere with their domestic agendas. “But neither one of them is open to making substantial concessions,” he said. “So whatever calming effect a meeting will have will be tactical and temporary.”

Still, he added, even that would be “an improvement.”

Beyond differences over protectionist economic policies, America’s opioid crisis is a likely subject of tension between the two leaders. Most fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45, is made in Mexico using precursor chemicals from China.

After Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), then serving as House speaker, visited Taiwan in August 2022, Beijing announced it was freezing counternarcotics and law enforcement cooperation with Washington. The United States has pressed China to resume cooperation, while also targeting some China-based traffickers and individuals with sanctions.

Beijing, for its part, has been pressing the United States to ease export controls on key technologies such as advanced semiconductors. Raimondo in August said she rebuffed an appeal by Chinese officials to rescind such controls, arguing that they were imposed for national security reasons. Instead, they agreed to set up a new commercial issues working group as a forum to engage on trade and investment matters.

Other expected areas of discussion between the two leaders are China’s crackdown on foreign companies following an expansion of a counterespionage law and the release of detained Americans.

Olivier Knox contributed to this report.

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