 Susan Rice urges 'candour and openness' on Beijing visit Beijing (AFP) July 25, 2016 - National Security Advisor Susan Rice called for "candour and openness" before talks with Chinese leaders Monday during the highest-level US visit to Beijing since an international tribunal rejected China's vast maritime claims. Rice's trip is intended to prepare for a visit by President Barack Obama to a G20 summit in the city of Hangzhou in September. Before meeting State Councillor Yang Jiechi, Rice spoke positively about US-China cooperation on climate change, global health issues and nonproliferation. But, "we also find ourselves facing global issues and challenges", she said. "To the extent that we are able to surface those challenges in candour and openness, I'm confident that we will be able to work on them as we have many others in the past," she added. A major bone of contention is Beijing's claims to most of the South China Sea despite competing partial claims by neighbours. It has been building artificial islands with airstrips capable of supporting military operations. Washington has in recent months sent navy vessels close to reefs and outcrops claimed by Beijing to assert the principle of freedom of navigation, sparking anger. Tensions have mounted following the decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague this month that there was no legal basis for Beijing's claim to nearly all of the waterway. China rejected the verdict as "waste paper" and asserted its right, if it chooses, to establish an Air Defence Identification Zone controlling flights over the sea. At a regional summit in Vientiane Monday Southeast Asian nations avoided rebuking Beijing or mentioning the ruling by the UN-backed tribunal, in a joint statement seen as a victory for China. Rice made no direct mention of the July 12 tribunal ruling. But it will be a hard topic to avoid during her four-day trip, which also includes a stop in Shanghai to meet business leaders. In opening remarks of his own, Yang -- China's top foreign policy official -- said US-China relations this year had been "generally stable" and urged increased cooperation even in the face of disagreements.
|
India has refused to renew the visas of a group of journalists from China's state-run Xinhua news agency, government sources said Monday, after they reportedly made unauthorised visits to Tibetan refugee camps.
As Beijing's official media condemned what it called a "petty" decision, a senior official in New Delhi confirmed three journalists would have to leave India within the week at the security services' instigation.
"They had come to the adverse attention of the security agencies," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"They were doing activities that were not compatible with their journalist status."
The official said the trio were not being officially expelled but their annual visas would not be renewed and they would have to leave by July 31.
There was no official word on why the reporters had fallen foul of the Indian authorities.
But a report in Monday's Hindustan Times said two of them had visited Tibetan settlements in the southern state of Karnataka last year, without securing a permit from the home ministry and while using false identities.
"The journalists had not taken the PAP (Protected Area Permit) for visiting the camps but their real identities were detected when they reached there," an official told the newspaper.
India is home to thousands of Tibetan refugees who fled their Himalayan homeland when China sent in troops in 1951 to quell an uprising.
Many of those who took flight -- including Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama -- settled in and around the Indian northern town of Dharamsala where a Tibetan government in-exile functions.
Others live in designated settlements elsewhere in the country that are off-limits to foreigners, such as the one in Karnataka which is home to around 40,000 Tibetans.
The exile community held elections in April for the leadership of the Dharamsala government -- an organisation that China has consistently refused to recognise.
India's hosting of the exiled government is a long-running thorn in relations between the two neighbouring countries.
Often prickly tensions between the world's two most populous countries have also been inflamed recently by China's blocking of India's attempt to join a 48-nation nuclear trade group.
An editorial on Monday in Beijing's state-run Global Times newspaper said there was "speculation" that the decision on the journalists' visas was India's "revenge against China" over the nuclear group veto.
"If New Delhi is really taking revenge due to the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers' Group) membership issue, there will be serious consequences," it added.
The same editorial also said Beijing "should make a few Indians feel Chinese visas are also not easy to get".
| . |
|
|
Tweet |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Google
