Chinese carriers in Pacific show country's 'expansionist' aims, Taiwan says
TAIPEI, June 11 (Reuters) - The two Chinese aircraft carriers spotted conducting simultaneous operations in the Pacific for the first time send a political message about the country's "expansionist" aims, Taiwan Defence Minister Wellington Koo said on Wednesday.
Japan's defence minister said the previous day that the appearance of the Chinese aircraft carriers signified Beijing's intention to further widen its capabilities beyond its borders.
Koo said the armed forces had a "full grasp" of the carriers' movements.
"Crossing from the first island chain into the second island chain sends a definite political message and their expansionist nature can be seen," he told reporters in Taipei.
The first island chain refers to an area that runs from Japan down to Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo, while the second island chain spreads further out into the Pacific to include places like the U.S. territory of Guam.
China's navy, which has been honing its abilities to operate further and further from the country's coast, said on Tuesday the carrier operations were a "routine training" exercise that did not target specific countries or regions.
Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, keeps a close watch on Chinese military movements given the regular drills and war games Beijing stages around the island.
Since May, China has been flexing its muscles by sending an unusually large number of naval and coast guard vessels through a swathe of East Asian waters, according to security documents and officials, in moves that have unnerved regional capitals.
Japan's defence ministry confirmed the two carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, were operating in separate areas in the Pacific on Saturday, both near remote southern islands belonging to Japan.
Earlier, Japan said the Liaoning sailed within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) near Minamitorishima, a remote island east of Iwo Jima.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
AstraZeneca in deal with China firm worth up to £4bn
AstraZeneca has agreed a deal that could be worth almost £4billion with a Chinese company to use AI in the production of new treatments for chronic diseases. Britain's largest listed company announced the tie-up with biotech firm CSPC Pharmaceuticals following controversy over its involvement in China. The pharmaceuticals giant will pay CSPC an upfront fee of £81m while a total further payment of up to £3.8billion is available if the drugs reach development and sales-related milestones. AstraZeneca has been ploughing cash into the country, including announcing a £1.8billion research and development hub in the capital Beijing. The firm's former boss in China, Leon Wang, was arrested in October and is still thought to be in detention. More recently, former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has accused the pharma giant of 'turning a blind eye to the nature of the Chinese government'. AstraZeneca boss Sir Pascal Soriot said in February: 'We all think about Leon and miss him, but the reality is we are not able to talk to him. We are not allowed.'
The Independent
10 hours ago
- The Independent
The deadline approaches for Trump's ‘90 deals in 90 days.' So far he has ‘frameworks' for two
President Donald Trump and his team promised '90 trade deals in 90 days,' but so far he has only 'framework' agreements for two countries in place. Trump's sweeping 'Liberation Day' tariffs ushered in on April 2 are set to go into effect on July 8. Skeptics said little progress has been made on making trade deals, leaving American businesses to deal with economic uncertainty. 'We were promised '90 deals in 90 days.' What we have at this point are 'general frameworks' for the U.K. and China,' Marc Short, who served in Trump's first administration as legislative affairs director, told Politico. Short, who also served as Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, said the Trump administration will 'hail these general frameworks as really significant breakthrough deals,' but other countries are watching closely. 'Other countries are seeing that, if I wait this out, [Trump's] going to be overly sensitive to bond market yields, or he's going to get himself into trouble, and then he's going to need to get out of it with a deal,' Short added. This week's trade deal progress with China has been touted as a major win by the White House. 'We're in a solid place going forward in these negotiations, because the country that could most push back here, tried to push back and it didn't really go well for them,' a White House official told Politico, adding that the administration 'feels good' about negotiations with others. Trump declared the deal was 'done' pending a 'final approval' by him and Chinese President Xi Jinping in a Truth Social post Wednesday. Last month the U.K. achieved a series of significant carve-outs from sweeping U.S. tariffs on its carmakers, steelworks and farmers. But the odds of scoring '90 deals in 90 days,' as White House trade adviser Peter Navarro touted in April, are now looking unlikely. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it was 'highly likely' the July 8 deadline could slide for countries who are engaging in good faith negotiations with the U.S. 'There are 18 important trading partners. We are working toward deals on those, and it is highly likely that those countries — or trading blocs, as in the case of the EU — who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue good faith negotiations,' Bessent told the House Ways and Means Committee this week. Trump also suggested he would be open to deadline extensions but said he did not believe it was 'a necessity.' 'We're rocking in terms of deals,' Trump said Wednesday. 'We're dealing with quite a few countries and they all want to make a deal with us.' The president said that letters specifying the terms of trade deals with dozens of countries would be going out in the coming weeks. 'At a certain point, we're just going to send letters out ... saying, 'This is the deal. You can take it, or you can leave it,'' Trump said. 'So at a certain point we'll do that. We're not quite ready.'
The Independent
11 hours ago
- The Independent
Consumer sentiment rose in June for 1st time this year as inflation remains stayed tame
Consumer sentiment increased in June for the first time in six months, the latest sign that Americans' views of the economy have improved as inflation has stayed tame and the Trump administration has reached a truce in its trade fight with China. The preliminary reading of the University of Michigan's closely watched consumer sentiment index, released Friday, jumped 16% to 60.5. The large increase followed steady drops that left the preliminary number last month at the second-lowest level in the nearly 75-year history of the survey. Consumer sentiment is still down 20% compared with December 2024. ' Consumers appear to have settled somewhat from the shock of the extremely high tariffs announced in April and the policy volatility seen in the weeks that followed,' Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, said in a written statement. 'However, consumers still perceive wide-ranging downside risks to the economy.' Americans have largely taken a darker view of the economy's future after President Donald Trump unleashed a wide-ranging trade war, imposing steep tariffs on China, the European Union, and dozens of other countries. Yet in April Trump postponed a set of sweeping tariffs on about 60 nations and last month reached a temporary truce with China, after both sides had sharply ratcheted up tariffs on each other. U.S. duties remain elevated compared with historical levels, but so far they have not worsened overall inflation.
