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US Vice-President J.D. Vance said that President Donald Trump is 'thinking' about slapping new tariffs on imports from China in response to the country's purchases of Russian oil.
China has condemned Israel's plan to take control of Gaza City, urging an immediate halt to military operations in an emergency United Nations Security Council session on Sunday.
A nurse takes care of a newborn baby at a hospital in Taizhou, in China's eastern Jiangsu province, on May 12, 2023. Photo: AFP
In a major effort to tackle its deepening demographic crisis, China has launched a nationwide childcare subsidy scheme – the first of its kind by the central government.
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AllAfrica
11 minutes ago
- AllAfrica
Putin-Trump talks shift focus from ceasefire to peace deal
If you read the headlines in American and European newspapers, you would conclude that the Alaska Summit failed. It did not. Washington changed direction and abandoned its support for a ceasefire. Here is Trump's official statement: A great and very successful day in Alaska! The meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia went very well, as did a late-night phone call with [Ukrainian] President Zelensky of Ukraine, and various European Leaders, including the highly respected Secretary General of NATO. It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere ceasefire agreement, which often does not hold up. President Zelensky will be coming to DC, the Oval Office, on Monday (August 18) afternoon. If all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin. Potentially, millions of people's lives will be saved.' The summit's major outcome was that the push for a ceasefire agreement, a non-starter for the Russian side, has been taken off the table. This will come as a big shock for Zelensky and Europe, although Zelensky has already announced he will be in Washington on Monday to meet with Trump. The agenda is an actual peace agreement, not a ceasefire. We don't know anything about the terms Trump will suggest, but it will involve territorial adjustments. Trump will try and convince Zelensky to cooperate, but it is a good bet that he won't. Nor will his backers in Europe. Should the above prediction hold, Trump will have to figure out what to do next. He could go back to trying to squeeze the Russians with more sanctions or other punishments. But that would require yet another reversal and won't achieve anything. The foreign policy crowd has been betting that the Russian economy is so bad that the whole Russian enterprise might collapse if the West jacks up the pressure on Russia. A good result, in this estimation, would be for Russia to surrender or for Putin's government to collapse. Even under dire circumstances, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the ruble, with massive unemployment, shut-down factories and crazy-high inflation, Boris Yeltsin, then president, found a way forward, and Russia did not have a civil war, and government institutions started to restore their authority. Yeltsin's administration lasted eight years and was replaced by a more conservative and authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin. It is very hard to accurately read sentiment in Russia. Generally speaking, the Russians like order and certainty, and dislike war. If there was a hard sense in the Russian public, especially the top echelons of Russian society, that the Ukraine war was a disaster, then one would expect to see evidence that this was the case. When the Russian invasion of Afghanistan went sour, the Russian people, especially the nomenklatura, demanded that Russia's military involvement come to an end. After nearly ten years of war in Afghanistan, the Russian army began to pull out in May 1988, and all the Russian troops were gone by February 1989. Russians objected to the Afghan war mainly because of casualties. Russia suffered some 26,000 killed and 35,000 wounded, far less than the casualties in Ukraine. In the Chechen wars, on Russia's territory, the Russian army perhaps lost 15,000 troops, although official numbers are not available. Regarding Chechnya, research outfits such as the Jamestown Foundation argue that the Russian public supported a negotiated settlement and were against continuation of the fighting. In the end, the Russian army flattened the Chechen resistance and the Russian public remained mostly passive. One of the asymmetries of the Ukraine conflict is the political impact of Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on Russian territory. These attacks presumably are designed to answer Russia's relentless aerial strikes on Ukraine's critical infrastructure, on military targets and in limited cases on civilian targets. But the other side of the coin is the impact of Ukraine's drone and missile strikes in garnering public support for the Russian 'Special Military Operation' in Ukraine. Ukraine's attacks reinforce public opinion in favor of the SMO. It is noteworthy, as illustrated by a recent Gallup poll in Ukraine, that despite the Russian drone and missile strikes, public opinion in Ukraine is turning decisively against continuing the war without a political settlement. Young men and women, in large numbers, are leaving Ukraine to escape the war and military conscription. According to the London Telegraph, at least 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age have fled the country since the conflict with Russia escalated in 2022. This number does not include the thousands who are currently hiding from the authorities or paying bribes to stay out of the Ukrainian army. A Ukrainian soldier and a militia man help a fleeing family. Image: Emilio Morenatti / AAP Zelensky hews to a tough no-compromises line on any settlement with Russia. He rejects any territorial deal. So when he bargains with Washington, he likely will do two things: try and get his supporters here in Washington to back up his position on no territorial concessions; and attempt to refocus Trump on providing security guarantees for Ukraine, demanding a Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. He will most certainly ask Trump for more weapons and money, and for heavy sanctions on Russia. It isn't clear after the summit with Putin how Trump will respond. As for security guarantees, despite some who support sending troops to Ukraine, the sad reality is that no European state, let alone the UK, France or Germany, is going to send even one soldier unless they go there as a backup to US forces. Trump has previously said no US boots on the ground in Ukraine, so any security guarantee would have to be virtual, not with troops, or limited to flyovers and satellite surveillance. It is unlikely Zelensky will like a virtual security guarantee, even one with flyovers. Of course, Trump could change his mind, but it would risk his presidency if the net result is US physical involvement in the Ukraine war. It is too bad we do not have a detailed readout on the actual conversation at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Trump's use of provocative symbols, F-35s and a flyover involving a B-2 stealth bomber, and the lack of the usual protocols (no honor guard and no national anthems), was hardly conducive to a diplomatic encounter of heads of state. Moreover, the use of a military base, explained as a 'security measure,' was inappropriate, but the Russians, anxious to state their case to Trump and intent on showing deep respect for the United States, accepted the venue and the conditions, even the escort of Putin's presidential aircraft by US fighter jets. The view from Putin's window. The bottom line is, at least for now, US policy has shifted. The US and Trump no longer support a ceasefire but want to settle the Ukraine war through negotiations. How long that will take, and even if it is possible, remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the war continues, and for the most part, Russia will continue pushing to take Pokrovsk and to expand the contact line further to the west. Ukraine, already stretched and now with uncertainties on military supplies, is facing a crisis. Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared in his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
AllAfrica
4 hours ago
- AllAfrica
Trump-Putin shake but no deal in Alaska
Hours before meeting Russia's leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Donald Trump said he wanted to see a ceasefire in Ukraine and was 'not going to be happy' if it wasn't agreed today. The US president appears to have left Alaska with no such agreement in place. 'We didn't get there,' Trump told reporters, before later vaguely asserting that he and Putin had 'made great progress.' Trump is likely to return to the idea of engaging Putin in the coming weeks and months, with the Russian leader jokingly suggesting their next meeting could be held in Moscow. A land-for-ceasefire arrangement, an idea Trump has repeatedly raised as an almost inevitable part of a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine, could still reemerge as a possible outcome. In fact, in an interview with Fox News after the summit, where Trump was asked how the war in Ukraine might end and if there would be a land swap, Trump said: 'Those are points that we largely agreed on.' Securing territorial concessions from Ukraine has long been one of Moscow's preconditions for any negotiations on a peace deal. Putin is likely betting that insisting on these concessions, while keeping Ukraine under sustained military pressure, plays to his advantage. Public fatigue over the war is growing in Ukraine, and Putin will be hoping that a weary population may eventually see such a deal as acceptable and even attractive. Russia launched a barrage of fresh attacks against Ukrainian cities overnight, involving more than 300 drones and 30 missiles. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who was excluded from the Alaska summit, has maintained that Kyiv will not agree to territorial concessions. Such a move would be illegal under Ukraine's constitution, which requires a nationwide referendum to approve changes to the country's territorial borders. The assumption behind a land-for-ceasefire deal is that it would enhance Ukrainian and European security. Trump sees it as the first step in bringing Putin to the negotiation table for a broader peace deal, as well as unlocking opportunities for reconstruction. In reality, such a deal would do little to diminish the longer-term Russian threat. Moscow's efforts to shore up and modernize its defense capabilities and neo-imperial ambitions would remain intact. Its hybrid attacks on Europe would also continue, and Ukraine's capacity to secure meaningful reconstruction would be weakened. Russia currently occupies almost one-fifth of Ukraine's land. Institute for the Study of War Whether or not Russia ever opts for a direct military strike on a European Nato member state, it has no need to do so to weaken the continent. Its hybrid operations, which extend well beyond the battlefield, are more than sufficient to erode European resilience over time. Russia's disinformation campaigns and sabotage of infrastructure, including railways in Poland and Germany and undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland and Baltic Sea, are well documented. Its strategic objectives have focused on deterring action on Ukraine and sowing disagreement between its allies, as well as attempting to undermine democratic values in the West. Europe is under pressure on multiple fronts: meeting new defence spending targets of 5% of GDP while economic growth is slowing, reducing the dependence of its supply chains on China and managing demographic challenges. These vulnerabilities make it susceptible to disinformation and have deepened divisions along political and socioeconomic fault lines – all of which Moscow has repeatedly exploited. A land-for-ceasefire deal would not address these threats. For Ukraine, the danger of such a deal is clear. Russia might pause large-scale physical warfare in Ukraine under a deal, but it would almost certainly continue destabilising the country from within. Having never been punished for violating past agreements to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity, such as when it annexed Crimea in 2014, Moscow would have little incentive to honour new ones. The government in Kyiv, and Ukrainian society more broadly, would see any accompanying security guarantees as fragile at best and temporary at worst. The result would probably be a deepening of Ukraine's vulnerabilities. Some Ukrainians might support doubling down on militarisation and investment in defense technologies. Others, losing faith in national security and reconstruction, could disengage or leave the country. Either way, in the absence of national unity, reconstruction would become far more difficult. Ukraine's reconstruction will be costly, to the tune of US$524 billion, according to the World Bank. It will also require managing a web of interconnected security, financial, social and political risks. These include displacement and economic challenges brought on by the war, as well as the need to secure capital flows across different regions. It will also need to continue addressing governance and corruption challenges. A permanent territorial concession would make addressing these risks even more difficult. Such a deal is likely to split public opinion in Ukraine, with those heavily involved in the war effort asking: 'What exactly have we been fighting for?' Recriminations would almost certainly follow during the next presidential and parliamentary elections, deepening divisions and undermining Ukraine's ability to pursue the systemic approach needed for reconstruction. Ongoing security concerns in border regions, particularly near Russia, would be likely to prompt further population flight. And how many of the over 5 million Ukrainians currently living abroad would return to help reconstruct the country under these conditions is far from certain. Financing reconstruction would also be more challenging. Public funds from donors and international institutions have helped sustain emergency energy and transport infrastructure repairs in the short term and will continue to play a role. But private investment will be critical moving forward. Investors will be looking not only at Ukraine's geopolitical risk profile, but also its political stability and social cohesion. Few investors would be willing to commit capital in a country that cannot guarantee a stable security and political environment. Taken together, these factors would make large-scale reconstruction in Ukraine nearly impossible. Beyond fundamental issues of accountability and just peace, a land-for-ceasefire deal would be simply a bad bargain. It will almost certainly sow deeper, more intractable problems for Ukraine, Europe and the West. It would undermine security, stall reconstruction and hand Moscow both time and a strategic advantage to come back stronger against a Ukraine that may be ill-prepared to respond. Trump would do well to avoid committing Ukraine to such an arrangement in further talks with Putin over the coming months. Olena Borodyna is senior geopolitical risks advisor, ODI Global This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
RTHK
9 hours ago
- RTHK
Zelensky heads for US after Trump briefs EU leaders
Zelensky heads for US after Trump briefs EU leaders Volodymyr Zelensky says, after being briefed by Donald Trump on the main points of the summit with Vladimir Putin, he will be in Washington on Monday. File photo: Reuters US President Donald Trump had a "lengthy call" with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on the flight back to Washington after the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday yielded no ceasefire, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Zelensky said on Saturday that he will meet Trump on Monday in Washington to discuss "ending the killing and the war". Kyiv, he said, is ready for constructive cooperation and supports trilateral meeting of leaders of United States, Ukraine and Russia. "Ukraine reaffirms its readiness to work with maximum effort to achieve peace," he said on X social network. "We support President Trump's proposal for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the USA and Russia. Ukraine emphasizes that key issues can be discussed at the level of leaders, and a trilateral format is suitable for this." Zelensky – who is, according to an X post by Axios reporter Barak Ravid on Saturday, planning to meet Trump in Washington as soon as Monday – says Trump informed him on the "main points" of his talks with Putin. Trump also spoke with Nato leaders, Leavitt told reporters on Air Force One. The president disembarked from the plane at 2.45 am Saturday local time, or 2.45pm Hong Kong time, and did not respond to reporters' questions. He spoke with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Polish President Karol Nawrocki, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, European Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta said. She gave no details of the roughly hour-long conversation. European leaders held a second call afterwards to discuss the next steps in the Ukraine conflict, she said. There was no immediate comment from Zelenskyy or from other European leaders, who didn't have a place at the table at Friday's summit. Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said on Russian state television on Saturday that a potential trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky had not been raised in US-Russia discussions. 'The topic has not been touched upon yet,' Ushakov said, according to Russian state news agency Ria Novosti. (Agencies)
