Vladimir Putin-Joe Biden-Xi Jin Ping. Sumber foto : www.sindonews.com
STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will strike a conciliatory tone when she talks about U.S.-China relations calling for “cooperation on the urgent global challenges of our day” while supporting economic restrictions on China to advance U.S national security interests.
“We seek a healthy economic relationship with China: one that fosters growth and innovation in both countries,” Yellen says in prepared remarks to be delivered at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
The US has sensitive nuclear technology at a nuclear power plant inside Ukraine and is warning Russia not to touch it, according to a letter the US Department of Energy sent to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy firm Rosatom last month.
In the letter, which was reviewed by CNN and is dated March 17, 2023, the director of the Energy Department’s Office of Nonproliferation Policy, Andrea Ferkile, tells Rosatom’s director general that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar “contains US-origin nuclear technical data that is export-controlled by the United States Government.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unveiled the details of his proposal to increase the debt limit and cut government spending, making his opening offer to Democrats while calling on President Biden to begin talks ahead of a summer deadline to avoid a default.
The GOP plan would increase the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or until the end of March 2024, whichever comes first, McCarthy said in brief remarks on the House floor Wednesday. Known as the Limit, Save, Grow Act, the 320-page bill includes $4.5 trillion in savings by cutting discretionary spending to fiscal year 2022 levels and limiting the growth of future spending, McCarthy said.
It would also reclaim unspent COVID-19 funds, cancel Mr. Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, rescind new funding for the IRS and enact work requirements for federal aid programs, among other provisions.
President Joe Biden has delivered a sweeping rebuke of House Republicans’ debt limit proposal, calling it a nonstarter that would impose deep cuts to critical programs across the board.
“That’s the MAGA economic agenda: spending cuts for working and middle class folks,” Biden said, while speaking from a Maryland union hall. “It’s not about fiscal discipline, it’s about cutting benefits for folks that they don’t seem to care much about.”
China said that it had tracked a U.S. warship crossing through the Taiwan Strait, adding that the United States had “hyped up” the transit. Chinese military spokesperson Colonel Shi Yi said troops in the area “remain on a high level of alert at all times and will resolutely defend national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability.”
A U.S. warship sailed through the waters separating Taiwan and mainland China, the U.S. Navy said, days after Beijing staged war games around the self-ruled island. Led by the United States, multiple Western navies regularly conduct “freedom of navigation operations” to assert the international status of regional waterways such as the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
Top diplomats from the Group of Seven wealthy democracies vowed a unified front against Chinese threats to Taiwan and Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, saying at the close of their meetings Tuesday that they were committed to boosting and enforcing tough sanctions against Moscow.
The G-7 communique laying out their commitments also included strong words over an unprecedented run of North Korean missile tests. But it was China’s growing assertiveness in Asia and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that highlighted the three-day summit hosted by Japan in this hot springs resort town.
“There can be no impunity for war crimes and other atrocities such as Russia’s attacks against civilians and critical civilian infrastructure,” the ministers said.
President Joe Biden’s administration has been divided at the highest levels for years over how aggressively to limit economic engagement with China. But officials now appear to be nearing an agreement on one key effort to curtail Beijing’s technological and military rise.
Unprecedented rules limiting American investments in China are expected later this month — and the administration has begun briefing industry groups like the Chamber of Commerce on the broad outlines of the executive order, which is expected to require companies to notify the government of new investments in Chinese tech firms and prohibit some deals in critical sectors like microchips.
Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787.5 million settlement agreement, the parties announced, narrowly heading off a trial shortly after the jury was sworn in. “Fox has admitted to telling lies,” John Poulos, Dominion CEO, said at a news conference after the trial ended.
Taiwan will buy as many as 400 U.S. land-launched Harpoon missiles in the face of rising threat from China, Bloomberg News reported citing a trade group’s leader and people familiar with the issue. The Pentagon announced a $1.17 billion contract for 400 of the anti-ship missiles on April 7 without naming the buyer, saying production was expected to be completed by March 2029. Bloomberg said Taiwan was the buyer.
The Pentagon declined to comment directly on the deal, but said: “the United States makes available to Taiwan defense articles and services necessary to enable it to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.”
US prosecutors have arrested two men in New York for allegedly operating a Chinese “secret police station” in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighbourhood. Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, both New York City residents, face charges of conspiring to act as agents for China and obstruction of justice. They are expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday.
China has previously denied operating the stations, calling them “service centres” for nationals overseas.
