China has said that it supports the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in carrying out an objective and professional evaluation of Pakistan’s financial situation, adding that the relevant measures should not affect normal bilateral cooperation between China and Pakistan.
India and China launched a program on Monday to train Afghan diplomats and China’s ambassador said it would likely be followed by joint programs in other fields to help war-torn Afghanistan.
The Chinese built China-Maldives Friendship Bridge connecting capital Malé with the Airport Island, which was opened about a month ago, has made travel easier and added new dimensions to local peoples‘ lives, say Xinhua journalisrs Tang Lu and Du Cailiang.
China, in its statement, said that since Pakistan didn’t agree with India on this issue, there is no “consensus” between the two directly affected parties. Beijing made it clear that China will support the issue only if Pakistan agrees with India. “If all parties come to a consensus, we will support it. But it is the parties that are rightly concerned who are not coming around to the same conclusion, like India and Pakistan don’t have the same conclusions,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on on Friday.
China on Tuesday called for “continuity and stability” in the Maldives after Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the leader of an opposition that has vowed to review Chinese projects, defeated incumbent president Abdulla Yameen in a weekend election.Before the election, the Maldives opposition said it would review China’s investments in its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, partly out of concern over terms, as experts have warned that the archipelago risked falling into a debt trap.
In an interview to Meera Srinivasan of The Hindu after the Maldivian Presidential election in which the Joint Opposition candidate Ibrahim Solih defeated the incumbent Abdulla Yameen, Nasheed said: “ If countries don’t have transparent bidding and are unwilling to engage with democratic processes, we cannot engage [with them]. Our natural partners are countries like India. We have the same films, songs, books and food.” He was contrasting India with China without naming the latter, when asked about the fate of Chinese projects which he had alleged, would push the Maldives into a debt trap.
China summoned the American ambassador and the defense attache and recalled its navy commander from a U.S. trip to deliver a strong protest against economic sanctions Washington lodged over the purchase of Russian fighter jets and surface-to-air missile equipment. “We demand that the U.S. immediately correct the mistake and revoke the so-called sanctions, otherwise the U.S. must bear the consequences,” the Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Initially India’s policy was not to construct roads on the India-China border in order to stem quick movement of invading Chinese troops. Later this policy was revised as China began to improve its roads and other communication facilities vastly. But the progress on the Indian side has been slow for want of funds and other difficulties generally faced by lndian infrastructure projects, writes Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan in The Diplomat.
The president of the U.S.-China Business Council, Craig Allen, urged Washington and Beijing to seek solutions through negotiations rather than tariffs. “We very much hope that both sides are ready for the hard work of negotiating market access, intellectual property rights and technology transfer concerns,” he told Nikkei Asian Review.
As the trade war between China and the U.S. festers, business leaders and analysts say Chinese producers are likely to circumvent import tariffs by rerouting goods, raising the question of whether such taxes can be an effective way to equalize trade relations, reports Nikkei Asian Review.