Iran war and 'Trump doctrine' blur China's multipolar vision
WASHINGTON/HONG KONG -- On the afternoon of June 19, six days after Israel conducted a strike on Iranian nuclear and political targets, Chinese President Xi Jinping jumped on a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin was in his hometown of St. Petersburg to attend an economic forum. The two dived straight into the Middle East, according to readouts from both sides.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
2 hours ago
- Japan Today
Japan seeks to end living expenses aid to foreign doctoral students
Japan's education ministry plans to restrict living expenses support for doctoral students to Japanese nationals only, a panel proposal showed Thursday after parliamentary debate over foreign students accounting for over a third of recipients of the public grants. The plan to abolish foreigners' access to living subsidies of 1.8 million yen to 2.4 million yen per annum is expected to take effect in fiscal 2027, pending approval from a committee. According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 10,564 people received the subsidies in fiscal 2024, of whom 4,125, around 39 percent, were from overseas. Chinese nationals made up 76% of the non-Japanese cohort at 3,151 people. In March, the findings were raised during a parliamentary session by a lawmaker who called for the funds to be limited to Japanese nationals in principle. The government launched a support program in fiscal 2021 to boost the number of doctoral students by supporting their living and research expenses. The proposal presented at a meeting of panel members says that the changes "reflect the program's aims to ease Japanese students' worries about their financial situations to enable them to advance to doctoral study," adding that many foreign students fund their education privately. Foreign students will remain eligible for research support of up to 1.1 million yen under the program. © KYODO
Japan Today
2 hours ago
- Japan Today
Iran denies any meeting with U.S. next week, foreign minister says
Iran currently has no plan to meet with the United States, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday in an interview on state TV, contradicting U.S. President Donald Trump's statement that Washington planned to have talks with Iran next week. The Iranian foreign minister said Tehran was assessing whether talks with the U.S. were in its interest, following five previous rounds of negotiations that were cut short by Israel and the U.S. attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. The U.S. and Israel said the strikes were meant to curb Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons, while Iran says its nuclear program is solely geared toward civilian use. Araqchi said the damages to nuclear sites 'were not little' and that relevant authorities were figuring out the new realities of Iran's nuclear program, which he said would inform Iran's future diplomatic stance. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Today
2 hours ago
- Japan Today
Japan chipmaker Renesas postpones achieving 2030 sales goal by 5 years
Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp said Thursday it will push back its target of achieving sales of over $20 billion in 2030 by five years in the face of stiff competition from Chinese rivals. The goal is to more than double its sales of 1.35 trillion yen in 2024. Also, Renesas, a major maker of automobile chips, now aims to boost its market capitalization sixfold by 2035, instead of the previously targeted 2030, Renesas CEO Hidetoshi Shibata said at a meeting with investors. "The environment surrounding us has significantly changed. It is not easy now to face off squarely against Chinese firms and beat them," Shibata said. Renesas sees Chinese companies improving their manufacturing skills and technology as they have been facing U.S. export restrictions amid the U.S.-China chip war. On Monday, the company said it expects a loss of about 250 billion yen in the first six months of this year, related to its restructuring support for a U.S. business partner, Wolfspeed Inc. Wolfspeed has suspended the development of silicon carbide wafers for next-generation power semiconductors, which will be used in electric vehicles, among others, even as the U.S. company agreed to supply the wafers to Renesas. © KYODO
