Tag: China

Jerry Brown Is Angry: Why Is America Barreling Into a Cold War With China?

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Call him America’s last true dove.
Edmund G. Brown Jr., who turns 85 on Friday, is one of this country’s most enduring public figures, enjoying a resilience and relevance into old age matched by few this side of the current occupant of the Oval Office. Unlike President Biden, who’s remained a Washington fixture from his 1972 election through the present, Brown has led a more itinerant political life.
The namesake of a governor who defeated Nixon only to lose to Ronald Reagan, the younger Brown has been governor for 16 years over three decades, state Democratic chairman, Oakland’s mayor, California’s attorney general and its secretary of state, a Jesuit seminarian, a student of Buddhism and an aspiring president three times, officially.

The namesake of a governor who defeated Nixon only to lose to Ronald Reagan (right), Jerry Brown has been governor for 16 years over three decades, state Democratic chairman and Oakland’s mayor, among other things.
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Now, he spends most of his time on 2,514 acres of his family’s land in rural Colusa County, well north of Sacramento, with his wife, Anne, and their dogs, Colusa and Cali.
Brown is not exactly living the serene life of a gentleman farmer, though. And he sure isn’t ready to discuss his legacy, rejecting in characteristic Jerry Brown fashion the very construct itself.
“What’s George Deukmejian’s legacy?” he demands, alluding to his little-remembered Republican successor in the 1980s before lamenting how even some giants are nearly forgotten. “You ask people about Earl Warren, people don’t know who Earl Warren was.”
Brown isn’t focused on the past because, as ever, he’s fixated on the here and now. To speak to him for over an hour is to see affirmation in the title of a superb recent biography: Man of Tomorrow.
So I’m a little reluctant to suggest that the topic Brown comes back to again and again in our conversation is his final mission, or some other catchy, sum-it-up phrase he’d detest as glib.

However, what worries Brown the most about tomorrow, in America and across the planet, is we won’t have very many of them if we stumble into a nuclear-tipped conflict with China.
“I’m very worried,” Brown told me. “And I don’t think the people in Washington are worried enough.”
Why not?
“That’s the big question: why are they not worried when nuclear powers are becoming so hostile to each other and there’s so little attempt at dialogue or reaching some modus vivendi, some way of co-existing.”
It’s easy to dismiss Brown as an alarmist.
After all, he’s been fretting about nuclear catastrophe for decades. I can recall him self-assigning a stop at the New York Times Washington bureau as governor a few years ago, where he came in to a quickly assembled group of reporters interested in politics, climate, immigration and all things Donald J. Trump (and, perhaps, Linda Ronstadt) and spent most of his time warning the group about the ticking doomsday clock before Armageddon.
However, our most recent conversation in San Francisco took place on the same day the Senate finally repealed the congressional authorization of force that sanctioned the U.S.’s war in Iraq. It was also just a few days after the 20^th anniversary of an invasion that had strong bipartisan support at the time and now carries even stronger bipartisan regret today.
And at a moment when the two political parties are supposedly polarized, not even agreeing on the same facts, there sure does seem to be a great deal of bipartisan consensus about taking a hard line on China.
Look no further than the current visit of Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen. She met with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries when she was in New York, sat down with a bipartisan group of senators in the city and Wednesday, in a setting plainly aimed at sending a confrontational message to the Chinese, was feted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and a large, bipartisan group of lawmakers at a bunting-laden mini summit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. (Unlike the Nixon Library down the road in Yorba Linda, there’s no section in Simi Valley dedicated to peace-making with Peking.)
That Republicans are taking a hawkish posture toward China is not surprising to Brown, but he’s plainly uneasy that so many in his own party are doing the same.
“There’s not much dissent, the chorus on China is overwhelming,” he says.
Iraq, Brown notes, “was a very minor power” while China “with 23 percent of the world’s population contrasts with our 4.1 percent.”
He continues: “So the notion that we can scare China and push them around or contain them and suppress their growth and development is utter folly. But it does seem to be widespread.”
Brown’s solution: diplomacy, and more of it between the country’s two leaders, and a continuation of the longstanding U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to Taiwan.
“This requires intensive exchange of views and ideas by the nation’s leaders,” Brown says. “In China, one guy counts. If you’re not talking to him, you’re not getting to the essence of what’s going on. So Biden is going to have to talk to Xi and they can’t talk for just an hour.”
The former governor doesn’t necessarily think Biden should visit China, but he favorably invoked how former President Barack Obama met with Xi Jinping at Sunnylands, the Annenberg estate near Palm Springs, in 2013. (Brown himself also met with Xi on that trip and subsequently in Beijing, making him one of the few governors to have such high-level contact)
Brown called Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s decision to cancel his trip to China following the balloon affair “a mistake if you want to have communication,” and minimized the incursion over American airspace.
“We have balloons, we have satellites, everybody is observing the other guy,” he said.
The closest Brown will come to criticizing Beijing’s autocracy, human rights abuses or any of its other transgressions is to acknowledge that “there are things in China we find horrendous.” But in the next breath, he says “not everything we have done has been perfect, so we ought to have a little humility.”
Nuclear conflagration aside, Brown deems it’s naïve to think China can be isolated. “Even a serious decoupling could mean a real deterioration in the American and the world economy,” he says, adding: “We get another serious banking failure, mortgage meltdown, we can’t stabilize the world economy without China. Whether we like it or not this is the world we live in.”
It’s worth quoting from Brown at length on China, if for no other reason than he’s right about this: few in the corridors of power today are willing to make the case for restraint.
Yet as blunt as he is about issues, he requires some reading between the lines, or at least repeated questioning, when it comes to people.
Take one of his predecessors as California’s state party chair, Nancy Pelosi. Didn’t her trip to Taiwan last year exacerbate U.S. tensions with China?
“I’m not going to bite on that one,” he says
Why not?
“Nancy Pelosi is a good friend of mine, I’m not offering advice,” he explains.
You sound like a politician all the sudden, I say, what happened to freewheeling Jerry Brown?
“You sound like a reporter, looking for your lede,” he shoots back. “I’m not going to give you those ledes.”
Brown, however, is more forthcoming when it comes to Biden who, Brown notes without prompting, was elected to the Senate two years after he was elected to his first office, secretary of state.
Brown has conveyed his views on China to the president through intermediaries, “people who are close to Biden,” and relays that he’s told it’s Beijing that’s now not being responsive to Washington’s entreaties, a bit of intelligence borne out in my colleagues’ reporting this week.
It’s hard to be the grand old man of the Democratic Party, a sage of hard-won wisdom, however, when the current president has been in the fray as long as you have.
Which brings us to what you’re likely wondering: yes, Brown thinks he could serve as president today.
“I can handle the job but I don’t think the politics can handle my age,” he says. “We’re not like the old Soviet Union, where they had all those men in the Politburo, people want some fresher faces.”
And that in turn raises the question of whether he thinks Biden should run for re-election.
“Well, you know, it depends on what the alternatives are,” Brown says, pausing. “I’d say this it’s not a slam dunk any way you look at it.”
If he were younger, yes, he concedes he’d mount a primary of his own. “It would probably be hard to hold me back,” he says in a moment of self-awareness, recalling his “very stupid” challenge of then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

“It would probably be hard to hold me back,” Jerry Brown says in a moment of self-awareness, recalling his “very stupid” challenge of then-President Jimmy Carter (right) in 1980.
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AP Photo
It takes more pressing, though, to elicit his actual view of Biden, but it’s worth the effort and fitting that he’s seated on a couch as he offers his assessment of who this president is.
“It’s similar to my father’s politics,” Brown offers. “There’s a sense of right and wrong, there’s a sense of fairness, there’s a certain old-fashioned quality about it.”
He calls it “Eastern seaboard Catholic Democratic politics” and its virtues include a “respect for the verities that have made us what we are and hold us together.”
And the downside? “That you can’t respond to changed circumstances.”
Speaking of sibling (or paternal!) rivalries.
If Brown is eventually forthcoming on Biden, he’s at his most uncomfortable when I shift the topic to the Californian who may succeed the president — and who was state attorney general when Brown was governor a decade ago.
Of the other Democrats who could run in 2024, I point out, Vice President Kamala Harris would be an obvious contender.
“Of the people on offer, there’s no doubt Biden is the strongest,” Brown says, suddenly coming around to Biden’s re-election.
Is Harris ready to be president, I ask?
“I don’t think vice presidents are ever ready,” he says, recalling that Eisenhower didn’t think his vice president was ready. (There’s Nixon again.)
Yes, but does this vice president have the capacity for the job?
“People thought John Kennedy was kind of a lightweight but he rose to the occasion,” he says, again turning to history for a vivid non-answer before chiding me for asking him to make “all these judgements.”
He insists he has “a good relationship” with Harris and that he’s “texted her a few times” as vice president but he doesn’t put much effort into the case before sounding like one of those old-school politicians he was talking about a few minutes earlier: “She’s been friendly to me and I’ve been friendly to her.”
He will, though, offer the vice president a bit of advice, and it comes tinged with envy from somebody who in our conversation has casually referenced Leo Tolstoy, Samuel Huntington, George Ball and his own piece in the New York Review of Books.
“Surround yourself with the best thinking on foreign policy, particularly, and domestic issues,” Brown says he’d tell Harris, noting that “she has access to everybody.”
He adds, longingly: ”She has the catbird seat as far as being where history is being made.”
It’s clear why Brown believes he never got closer to that catbird seat.
When I bring up how tomorrow can often be glimpsed first in California, a cliché I thought worth pursuing to get the futurist in him revving, he interrupts me.
“It’s an important place except when it comes to electing presidents, well you know the history,” he says, arguing that Reagan is the exception because “he was the leader of a conservative movement, he was national in scope.”
California, Brown notes, is more liberal than the states required to carry the Electoral College.
Could that hamper Gov. Gavin Newsom’s future ambitions, I ask?
Again, he turns to history to answer the question by way of dodging it.
“Well, I think it handicapped me running against Bill Clinton, him coming from Arkansas,” he says of his 1992 race.
Come on, I press him, would Newsom make a good president?
“I think he’s been a pretty good governor, so who the heck knows,” he responds before turning back the clock again. “I don’t even know if I would be a good president.”
On the California race of the moment, the campaign to succeed Senator Dianne Feinstein, Brown is clear about what he thinks America’s largest state deserves in the Capitol.
“Somebody of stature and very large conception,” he says, invoking Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and William Fulbright of Arkansas.
He initially says he won’t comment about which of the candidates has reached out to him, but it doesn’t take much guesswork for him to reveal that he’s yet to hear from Rep. Katie Porter but has talked to Reps Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee, who have a much longer history in California politics than their younger colleague from Orange County.
Brown isn’t much interested in the early shadow boxing for a 2024 race, though, or really any politics-heavy conversation.
Which isn’t to say he’s uninterested in domestic issues. Although he talks about generational differences in lingo with his father — “he called it necking and we call it making out” — Brown sounds quite different from today’s liberals.
He largely eschews identity issues and, perhaps even more notable, appears unbothered by the threats to American democracy that alarm so many on the left and middle in the Age of Trump.
When I ask about the former president and whether he’s an extension of the backlash politics Brown witnessed up close in California or a more profound threat to the country, Brown quickly dispenses with Trump and comes back to China, Russia and the nuclear threat.
The domestic challenges he’s most fixated on are the ones he sees up close in California: climate change, homelessness, affordable housing and adequate education.
“Unless America can find some kind of convergence among its diverse groups it’s going to be paralyzed,” he warns.
There’s a more dangerous reason, Brown continues, to be concerned about the tug of identity politics on the right and left.
“As national identity weakens, smaller identities increase,” he says. “People want to identify with something.”
Now he’s onto Samuel Huntington and an essay Huntington wrote for Foreign Affairs in 1997 “bemoaning multi-culturalism” and arguing that “America needs a great national purpose which takes an enemy, and China isn’t strong enough but they will be someday.”
In case I had missed the point, Brown warns: “The fragmentation of America will be resolved by war.”
And just like that, he’s brought the conversation back to where he wants it.
Not surprisingly, when I close by asking what his one plea to Biden would be, Brown says: “They can’t demonize Xi Jinping to the point where dialogue is impossible.”
Returning to his nostalgia for Nixon’s diplomacy in Moscow and Peking, he says today we’ll “inherit a world with three nuclear powers on hair-trigger alert.”
However, nobody, Brown laments, “asks for my advice.”
But as we get up to leave, he wants to make sure his counsel will get through.
“Now what’s the lede?” he asks.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 6, 2023
India elected to UN statistical body; China suffers diplomatic rout

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United Nations: In a sign of India’s diplomatic influence, it has been elected to the UN Statistical Commission and two other bodies while China suffered a diplomatic rout unable to get the required votes for the Commission when it squared off against India.
India was elected unopposed in two elections on Wednesday by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the Programme Coordinating Board of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS.
In the election to the Statistical Commission where China was competing with India for seats earmarked for the Asia Pacific region, India received 46 of the 53 votes for the Statistical Commission electing it to one of the two seats for the Asia Pacific region in the first round of voting.

China came in third with paltry 19 votes, while South Korea received 23 and the United Arab Emirates 15, necessitating a second round of ballotting because none of them received the majority of 27 votes required for election to the region’s second seat under the rules.
In the runoff between China and South Korea, they tied with 25 votes each and under the rules, ECOSOC President Lachezara Stoeva drew lots to break the tie and Seoul was picked.
India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar tweeted, “India’s expertise in the field of statistics, diversity & demography has earned it a seat on the UN Statistical Commission.”
He congratulated India’s UN Mission team for “for coming through so strongly in a competitive election”.
Seats on most UN bodies are allocated by region, although all countries vote to pick the candidates from the region.

India, which will begin its term on the Statistical Commission in 2024, returns after 20 years having completed its last term in 2004.
The Statistical Commission bills itself as “the highest body of the global statistical system bringing together the chief statisticians from member states from around the world”.
It sets statistical standards and develops concepts and methods, at the national and international levels.
China’s poor performance in the Statistical Commission election, securing only 19 votes and trailing South Korea was a surprise because of the extensive diplomatic and economic campaigns it has undertaken around the world.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 6, 2023
China is ghosting the United States

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Beijing’s current aversion to sustained high-level engagement underscores the particularly fraught nature of U.S.-Chinese relations over the past few months. What was a two-sided desire to stabilize an increasingly volatile relationship is becoming much more about Washington reaching out and the Chinese government demurring.
Beijing is increasingly resentful about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and official contacts that China says encourage Taiwan’s pro-independence elements.
There’s always a certain degree of diplomatic theater to the canceling of high-level meetings between the United States and China. But ensuring stable communications with major adversaries like China and Russia has long been a U.S. preference. Some U.S. officials worry Beijing’s thin-skinned diplomacy is hampering crucial communication between the rivals in a way that could have global fallout in a major crisis.
“The Chinese have been reluctant to engage in discussions around confidence building or crisis communications or hotlines,” National Security Council Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said at a Center for a New American Security event last week. “Given the fact that our forces operate in proximity, we’re going to have increasing challenges.”
The United States has its own limits on engagement, with the scuttled Blinken trip as a prime example. But U.S. officials called that decision a postponement and have stressed the U.S. isn’t cutting off relations with China.
Beijing, however, is pointing to the upcoming Tsai-McCarthy meeting as an unacceptable escalation.
The meeting “undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said Tuesday.
The speed and enthusiasm with which China reengages on a high level with American officials could depend on how McCarthy and Tsai present their meeting to the world.

If the Tsai-McCarthy visit comes across as too formal and elaborate, casting Tsai in a head of state role that China denies exists, Beijing could further extend its freeze-out of high level U.S. representatives.
Tsai and McCarthy “must manage a delicate balancing act: one that telegraphs solidarity without giving Beijing a license to overreact,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Past such “transit visits” by Tsai (she’s made seven so far) have also angered China, but diplomatic relations have quickly rebounded. A Tsai-McCarthy meeting absent the formal trappings of an “official” visit means that “diplomatic interactions should restart” after Tsai returns to Taipei, said Steve Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
China also is pressing back particularly hard on the proposals for a Xi-Biden call.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters last month that the White House was hoping to nail down a call following the March 13 closure of the annual meeting of China’s parliament. China’s Foreign Ministry responded by making clear that Beijing was in no hurry to reconnect the two leaders. “Communication should not be carried out for the sake of communication,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters. The White House needed to “show sincerity … to help bring China-U.S. relations back to the right track,” Wang said.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby refloated the U.S. desire for a Biden-Xi call a week later. Beijing hasn’t responded publicly. Kirby said Biden’s administration also wants to broker a visit to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and get Blinken’s Beijing trip “back on the calendar.” China’s Commerce Ministry has said it “welcomes Secretary Yellen’s hope for a visit to China” and that it’s “open to Raimondo’s wish to visit,” but had yet to receive formal notification of Raimondo’s intentions. But the Chinese government hasn’t indicated any timetable for when Yellen, Raimondo or Blinken may travel to China.
On Tuesday, in response to a request for comment from the White House, a senior administration official said in a statement: “We have been keeping open lines of communication with the [People’s Republic of China] on shared issues of concern in the U.S.-China relationship, and we will continue to do so.”
The Biden administration is dealing with Chinese counterparts on normal day-to-day matters. The U.S. official and the former State Department official familiar with the issue confirmed that a Blinken visit and a Biden call with Xi have come up in the conversations with Chinese officials. The former State Department official said the current talks are mostly mid-level conversations about regular operational issues.
Like others quoted in this article, the U.S. official and the former State Department official were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues.
There have been scattered interactions with top officials, but not enough to restore meaningful dialogue. Sullivan spoke with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi last week, “and that is an important channel, but used sparingly” because of the sensitivities of such communications, the former State official noted. And overall communications will expand when China’s new ambassador in Washington, Xie Feng, is fully in place, the former official predicted.
The two governments may be practicing some shuttle diplomacy ahead of a resumption of high-level diplomatic contact following Tsai’s meeting. Rick Waters, a deputy assistant secretary of State for China and Taiwan, quietly visited China last month. Waters’ trip overlapped with a visit to Washington by Cui Tiankai, China’s former ambassador to the United States.
One of two people who confirmed Cui’s visit said he included stops at the State Department and the National Security Council. “We remain committed to maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage bilateral relations,” a State Department spokesperson not authorized to speak on the record said, without denying Cui’s visit.
The snubs have been accumulating. As tensions spiked in early February over the U.S. shootdown of the spy balloon, Chinese officials declined a U.S. request to have Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speak with his counterpart.
And bilateral military crisis communications remain hamstrung due to what senior administration officials say is Beijing’s refusal to engage with the U.S. on the development of reliable systems that could help prevent an incident in the South China Sea from spiraling into a military crisis.
Late last year and earlier this year, Chinese leaders appeared eager to talk to the United States and other Western countries, even putting on a charm offensive. That came as China’s economy was struggling amid the ending of its zero-Covid policy and after a meeting between Xi and Biden in November in which the pair agreed to lower tensions.
In that context, Blinken got ready for a visit to Beijing in early February. But the spy balloon incident led the administration to kill the visit; U.S. officials said they feared every move Blinken made would be overshadowed by questions about the balloon.
Although there’s no China visit on the horizon, Blinken is due to be in Asia in mid-April, another U.S. official familiar with his travel plans said. A quick trip to China would be an easy add-on.
Getting the Chinese to stay in regular, meaningful communication has been a challenge for the administration since Biden took office. And even when there are communications, they have often produced little substance, leading U.S. officials to crave higher-level contacts, especially with Xi.
The Chinese leader has dramatically consolidated power in the autocratic system, so what he says matters much more than the words of his underlings. In fall 2021, for instance, U.S. officials successfully pushed for a virtual summit between Xi and Biden after finding that lower-level discussions weren’t going anywhere.
“We also believe that leader-level engagement, particularly given the centralization of power in Xi Jinping’s hands, is essential to facilitating effective communication between our two governments,” a senior administration official said at the time.
If Beijing does eventually agree to a date for a Blinken visit, it could open up space for more communication — especially if Blinken gets to see Xi.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 5, 2023
Why China wants Macron to drive a wedge between Europe and America

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping had one overriding message for his visiting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron this week: Don’t let Europe get sucked into playing America’s game.
Beijing is eager to avoid the EU falling further under U.S. influence, at a time when the White House is pursuing a more assertive policy to counter China’s geopolitical and military strength.
Russia’s yearlong war against Ukraine has strengthened the alliance between Europe and the U.S., shaken up global trade, reinvigorated NATO and forced governments to look at what else could suddenly go wrong in world affairs. That’s not welcome in Beijing, which still views Washington as its strategic nemesis.

This week, China’s counter-offensive stepped up a gear, turning on the charm. Xi welcomed Macron into the grandest of settings at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, along with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. This was in sharp contrast to China’s current efforts to keep senior American officials at arm’s length, especially since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off a trip to Beijing during the spy balloon drama earlier this year.
Both American and Chinese officials know Europe’s policy toward Beijing is far from settled. That’s an opportunity, and a risk for both sides. In recent months, U.S. officials have warned of China’s willingness to send weapons to Russia and talked up the dangers of allowing Chinese tech companies unfettered access to European markets, with some success.
TikTok, which is ultimately Chinese owned, has been banned from government and administrative phones in a number of locations in Europe, including in the EU institutions in Brussels. American pressure also led the Dutch to put new export controls on sales of advanced semiconductor equipment to China.
Yet even the hawkish von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, has dismissed the notion of decoupling Europe from China’s economy altogether. From Beijing’s perspective, this is yet another significant difference from the hostile commercial environment being promoted by the U.S.
Just this week, 36 Chinese and French businesses signed new deals in front of Macron and Xi, in what Chinese state media said was a sign of “the not declining confidence in the Chinese market of European businesses.” While hardly a statement brimming with confidence, it could have been worse.
For the last couple of years European leaders have grown more skeptical of China’s trajectory, voicing dismay at Beijing’s way of handling the coronavirus pandemic, the treatment of protesters in Hong Kong and Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslims, as well as China’s sanctions on European politicians and military threats against Taiwan.
Then, Xi and Vladimir Putin hailed a “no limits” partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. While the West rolled out tough sanctions on Moscow, China became the last major economy still interested in maintaining — and expanding — trade ties with Russia. That shocked many Western officials and provoked a fierce debate in Europe over how to punish Beijing and how far to pull out of Chinese commerce.
Beijing saw Macron as the natural partner to help avoid a nosedive in EU-China relations, especially since Angela Merkel — its previous favorite — was no longer German chancellor.
Macron’s willingness to engage with anyone — including his much-criticized contacts with Putin ahead of his war on Ukraine — made him especially appealing as Beijing sought to drive a wedge between European and American strategies on China.
Xi Jinping sees Macron as the natural to Angela Merkel, his previous partner in the West who helped avoid a nosedive in EU-China relations | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Not taking sides
“I’m very glad we share many identical or similar views on Sino-French, Sino-EU, international and regional issues,” Xi told Macron over tea on Friday, in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, according to Chinese state media Xinhua.
Strategic autonomy, a French foreign policy focus, is a favorite for China, which sees the notion as proof of Europe’s distance from the U.S. For his part, Macron told Xi a day earlier that France promotes “European strategic autonomy,” doesn’t like “bloc confrontation” and believes in doing its own thing. “France does not pick sides,” he said.
The French position is challenged by some in Europe who see it as an urgent task to take a tougher approach toward Beijing.
“Macron could have easily avoided the dismal picture of European and transatlantic disunity,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Berlin-based Global Public Policy Institute. “Nobody forced Macron to show up with a huge business delegation, repeating disproven illusions of reciprocity and deluding himself about working his personal magic on Xi to get the Chinese leader to turn against Putin.”
Holger Hestermeyer, a professor of EU law at King’s College London, said Beijing will struggle to split the transatlantic alliance.
“If China wants to succeed with building a new world order, separating the EU from the U.S. — even a little bit — would be a prized goal — and mind you, probably an elusive one,” Hestermeyer said. “Right now the EU is strengthening its defenses specifically because China tried to play divide and conquer with the EU in the past.”
Xi’s focus on America was unmistakable when he veered into a topic that was a long way from Europe’s top priority, during his three-way meeting with Macron and von der Leyen. A week earlier the Biden administration had held its second Summit for Democracy, in which Russia and China were portrayed as the main threats.
“Spreading the so-called ‘democracy versus authoritarianism’ [narrative],” Xi told his European guests on Thursday, “would only bring division and confrontation to the world.”

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 4, 2023
Trump’s tariff time bomb threatens to blow up transatlantic trade

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BRUSSELS — The next big transatlantic trade fight is primed to explode.
Negotiators from Brussels and Washington are scrambling to solve a five-year dispute over steel and aluminum dating back to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on European imports. They have until October to get a deal but are still so far apart that European officials now fear the chances of an agreement are slim.
Without a deal, both sides could reimpose billions of dollars worth of trade tariffs on each other’s goods — potentially spreading well beyond steel to hit products including French wines, U.S. rum, vodka and denim jeans.

While U.S. negotiators are still hopeful that an agreement can be reached in time, the political fallout of failure for President Joe Biden would be serious, with U.S. exports facing a hit just ahead of his potential re-election battle in 2024. More broadly, another breakdown in trade relations between Europe and the United States would heap further pressure on a relationship that is already under strain from Biden’s green subsidies package for American industries.
With a more assertive China threatening to disrupt supply lines, and Russia’s war in Ukraine straining global commerce, the last thing world trade needs is a new crisis between major Western allies. Six EU officials briefed on the talks worry that’s exactly what will happen.
“The start positions are just too far away,” said one of the officials, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive matters. “The huge concessions that would have to be made are politically not realistic in that timeframe.”
The transatlantic disagreement is a hangover from the days of Trump, who imposed tariffs on €6.4 billion worth of European steel and exports in 2018. The tariffs were extra sensitive because Trump had imposed them on grounds of national security.
After he came to power, Biden agreed to a temporary cessation of hostilities rather than a complete end to the dispute. His aim was for negotiators to work jointly on making steel production greener and fighting global overcapacity. The unofficial U.S. goal is also to squeeze Beijing’s dumping of Chinese steel, which is made with far more coal-fired power.
But unless a new deal is struck by October, the risk is that tariffs return. A summit between Biden and EU leaders has now been penciled in for October, potentially to coincide with the final leg of talks on the dispute.
China hawks
Officials in Brussels see the ongoing negotiations as just another push from the U.S. to force them into taking a harder line against China. “The language just seems written to tackle one country specifically,” said one of the European officials.
Discussions only recently picked up pace through the exchange of a U.S. concept paper and then an EU response. Those texts showed how far apart the two sides are on key issues, the officials said.
Washington wants to impose tariffs on imported steel or aluminum products, which would increase progressively based on how carbon-intensive the manufacturing process is, according to the proposal seen by POLITICO. Countries that join the agreement, which would be open to nations outside the EU, would face lower tariffs, or none at all, compared to those that do not.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally at Waco airport | Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The EU’s response — also seen by POLITICO — does not include any form of tariffs, according to the officials. Brussels fears the American plan for tariffs goes against the rules of the World Trade Organization, which is a no-go for the EU.
But a senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, told POLITICO that tariffs should not be off the table.
“That’s a pretty powerful tool for driving the market both to reduce carbon intensity as well as to reset the playing field to counteract non-market practices and excess capacity,” the U.S. official said. “What we’ve been trying to understand and respond to, in part, is what are those reasons that the EU has to have concerns about a tariff-type structure.”
Karl Tachelet, deputy director general of European steel association Eurofer, said: “We haven’t seen any real ambition or vision to use this as an opportunity to tackle excess capacity or decarbonization. So it can only lead to a clash of views.”
Americans don’t see it that way.
“The U.S. and the EU share a commitment to tackling the dual threat of non-market excess capacity and the climate crisis, and the Biden administration is committed to developing a high-ambition framework that accomplishes those objectives for our workers and these critical industries,” said Adam Hodge, spokesperson for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
A student does steel work in Dayton, Ohio | Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images
But the senior Biden administration official argued that the EU proposal lacks ambition. It makes “tweaks around the margin” without actually attacking “the fundamental problem” that the two sides agreed to address when they called their truce.
“Our concern with the EU’s paper is that it doesn’t really change the dynamic of trade,” the U.S. official said.
“If we’re going to change the course of the impact of non-market excess capacity on market economies like the U.S. and EU, as well as really thinking about how can we use trade as a tool to drive decarbonization, we need to produce something that’s different and more ambitious,” the official added.
Several officials said Washington is also seeking an exemption from the EU’s carbon border tax, which imposes a tax on some imported goods to make sure European businesses are not undercut by cheaper products made in countries with weaker environmental rules.
Such an exemption for the U.S. is another no-go for Brussels. A European Commission spokesperson said giving the U.S. a pass on the carbon border tax would constitute a breach of WTO rules and “cannot be compared with” the U.S. steel and aluminum measures.
Workers at LB Steel LLC in Illinois manufacture wheel assemblies for high-speed trains | Scott Olson/Getty Images
Another European concern is that the U.S. wouldn’t scrap the possibility of re-imposing tariffs on the EU, even though the WTO branded them as illegal. Under Trump, Brussels argued only a complete withdrawal of the tariffs would satisfy the EU, contending the duties were an illegal slap in the face of an ally.
The senior U.S. official said that using national security to justify the tariffs — a rationale that would surely draw opposition in Brussels — “hasn’t been a part of our conversation with the EU to date.” But the Biden administration’s concept paper wasn’t written with WTO compliance top of mind, the official added.
Landing zone
Brussels and Washington are now negotiating to find a landing zone.
“Both sides are coming from two different positions on this,” said one of the European officials, while stressing that “there is a mutual interest to find a solution.”
Others were more pessimistic. Either way, a Plan B is taking shape in the background. Several of the European officials stressed the EU and the U.S. can also buy more time by prolonging the current ceasefire. “The deadline is always flexible,” said Uri Dadush, a Washington-based fellow at the Bruegel think tank. “Both sides can easily agree to extend.”
Steven Overly reported from Washington. Sarah Anne Aarup and Camille Gijs contributed reporting from Brussels.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 4, 2023
Macron fails to move Xi Jinping over Russia’s war on Ukraine

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BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping showed no sign of changing his position over Russia’s war on Ukraine after talks Thursday with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
On the second day of Macron’s state visit to China, Xi took his long-standing line on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — saying that “all sides” have “reasonable security concerns” — and gave no hint he would use his influence to help end the conflict.
“China is willing to jointly appeal with France to the international community to remain rational and calm,” was as far as the Chinese leader would go during a press conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

“Peace talks should be resumed as soon as possible, taking into account the reasonable security concerns of all sides with reference to the U.N. Charter … seeking political resolution and constructing a balanced, effective and sustainable European security framework,” he added, sitting next to Macron.
The French president arrived in China on Wednesday in the hope of pushing China to use its leverage with Russia to end the conflict, and to get Beijing to speak out against the Kremlin’s threat to host nuclear missiles in Belarus.
During his private meeting with Xi, Macron raised Western concerns that Beijing will deliver weapons to China, according to a French diplomat with knowledge of the talks. But the French leader didn’t seem to get far.
“The president urged Xi not to make deliveries to Russia that would help its war against Ukraine. Xi said this war is not his,” the diplomat said, speaking anonymously to describe the private session.
The talks — which an Elysée Palace official nonetheless described as “frank and constructive” — ultimately lasted an hour and a half.
Afterward, the action moved to a signing ceremony, where officials and business leaders inked several deals, including the sale of 160 Airbus aircraft. According to the Elysée, the Chinese government approved the purchase of 150 A320 Neo planes and 10 A350s — a delivery that was part of a €36-billion deal Airbus announced last year. The information contradicted previous information from an Elysée official, who said a new sale was being negotiated.
During the deal-signing ceremony, every Chinese minister and business executive bowed deeply to Xi before signing the contracts with their French counterparts.
Xi and Macron then stepped in for their joint appearance, billed as a “press conference with Communist characteristics” — essentially meaning no press questions allowed.
The two leaders’ contrasting styles were immediately apparent. Xi read his carefully scripted remarks while staring straight ahead before ceding to Macron. The French leader then proceeded to speak for roughly twice as long as his host — a protocol faux pas that members of Xi’s Chinese entourage noticed.
Xi himself at times looked impatient and annoyed as Macron continued speaking. The Chinese leader heaved several deep sighs and appeared uncomfortable as Macron addressed him directly while apparently ad-libbing on the Ukraine war and their joint responsibility to uphold peace.
Macron also appealed to Xi to explicitly condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Speaking about peace and stability means talking about the war waged by Russia against Ukraine. You’ve made some important comments,” the French leader said. “This is a war that involves all of us because a member of the Security Council has decided to violate the U.N. charter. We cannot accept that.”
Macron and Xi spent one and a half hours in bilateral talks that were described as “frank and constructive” by an Elysée Palace official | POOL photo by Ng Han Guan/AFP via Getty Images
French lawmaker Anne Genetet, who also held talks Thursday with Chinese officials, admitted there were “no surprises” in the Chinese position on Ukraine, but argued it was still useful to lay some groundwork on the issue.
“It’s the beginning,” Genetet said. “There will be more talks and some private moments [between Xi and Macron]. Maybe we’ll get some other messages.”
Xi and Macron will head to the Chinese city of Guangzhou on Friday, where they will hold more talks and a private dinner.
However, in what will be read as a concession to the French, Xi did talk about the need for the warring parties to “protect victims including women and children,” which comes after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Putin over his role in illegally transferring Ukrainian children to Russia.
Xi didn’t explicitly mention Russia in his remarks, though. And in a move likely to irk U.S. officials, Xi also said that China and France should “resume exchanges between the legislative bodies and militaries.” He then included France in a common refrain that Chinese officials use to criticize the U.S.
“China and France shall continue to … oppose Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation, joining hands in addressing all types of global challenges,” Xi said.
On Thursday, Xi also held talks with Macron and with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was invited by Macron to showcase European unity but who will not take part in many of the events between the Chinese and French leaders.
Indeed, von der Leyen held her own solo press conference as night fell on Thursday in Beijing. Unencumbered by the formalities of a state visit, the EU leader took questions from reporters and sent several pointed messages to Beijing.
She warned it against aiding Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine: “Arming the aggressor is a clear violation of international law — he should never be armed,” she said. “This would indeed significantly harm the relationship between the European Union and China.”
And she touched a diplomatic third rail: Taiwan.
“Nobody should unilaterally change the status quo by force in this region,” she said, alluding to China’s threats toward the self-governing island. “The threat of the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Von der Leyen did echo Macron’s message, however, that China could play an important role in Ukraine, calling Beijing’s stance “crucial.”
She added: “We expect China will play its role and promote a just peace, one that respects Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.”
Clea Caulcutt and Jamil Anderlini reported from Beijing. Stuart Lau reported from Brussels.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 4, 2023
Europe must resist pressure to become ‘America’s followers,’ says Macron

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Cet article est aussi disponible en français.
ABOARD COTAM UNITÉ (FRANCE’S AIR FORCE ONE) — Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”
He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.
Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend.
Those exercises were a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s 10-day diplomatic tour of Central American countries that included a meeting with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she transited in California. People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated “Taiwan encirclement” exercise.

Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade in recent years and has a policy of isolating the democratic island by forcing other countries to recognize it as part of “one China.”
Taiwan talks
Macron and Xi discussed Taiwan “intensely,” according to French officials accompanying the president, who appears to have taken a more conciliatory approach than the U.S. or even the European Union.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron for part of his visit, said she told Xi during their meeting in Beijing last Thursday. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron in Guangdong on April 7, 2023 | Pool Photo by Jacques Witt / AFP via Getty Images
Xi responded by saying anyone who thought they could influence Beijing on Taiwan was deluded.
Macron appears to agree with that assessment.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon,” said Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”
In his trilateral meeting with Macron and von der Leyen last Thursday in Beijing, Xi Jinping went off script on only two topics — Ukraine and Taiwan — according to someone who was present in the room.
“Xi was visibly annoyed for being held responsible for the Ukraine conflict and he downplayed his recent visit to Moscow,” this person said. “He was clearly enraged by the U.S. and very upset over Taiwan, by the Taiwanese president’s transit through the U.S. and [the fact that] foreign policy issues were being raised by Europeans.”
In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said. But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.
‘Vassals’ warning
Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.
He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.
Macron has long been a proponent of strategic autonomy for Europe | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system. Some in Europe have complained about “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington, which forces European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary sanctions.
While sitting in the stateroom of his A330 aircraft in a hoodie with the words “French Tech” emblazoned on the chest, Macron claimed to have already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe.
He did not address the question of ongoing U.S. security guarantees for the Continent, which relies heavily on American defense assistance amid the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
As one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the only nuclear power in the EU, France is in a unique position militarily. However, the country has contributed far less to the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion than many other countries.
As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and “proofreading” all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 4, 2023
‘Don’t help a villain’, China urges Japan not to back US tech restriction

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Beijing: Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday urged his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi not to “help a villain do evil” by backing the US tech restrictions against Beijing as the two ministers held rare talks here amid China’s increasing criticism against Tokyo’s backing for Washington-led Indo-Pacific strategy.
The United States “used bullying tactics to brutally suppress the Japanese semiconductor industry, and now it is repeating its old tricks against China”, Qin told Hayashi.
“Japan has suffered that pain, and should not help a villain do evil. The containment will only further stimulate China’s determination to become self-reliant,” Qin said, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

The talks between the two ministers took place two days after Japan announced it would restrict semiconductor equipment exports from July, following months of lobbying by the US.
The two countries should “overcome obstacles and move forward”, Qin said, adding that “clique-forming” and containment was “not helpful” to managing conflicts, in an apparent reference to Japan’s backing for the Indo-Pacific strategy.
China opposes the Quad comprising the US, India, Japan and Australia, saying that it is aimed to contain its rise.
“Peaceful coexistence and friendly cooperation are the only correct choices for China-Japan relations,” he said.
“In the face of contradictions and differences, forming cliques, exerting pressure through rhetoric will not help solve the problem, but will only deepen the estrangement between each other,” he said.

“(We) hope that Japan will establish a correct understanding of China, show political wisdom and responsibility, and work together with China to strengthen dialogue and communication, and promote practical cooperation,” he said.
This was the first visit by the Japanese Foreign Minister to China since 2019.
China and Japan have a long-festering dispute over uninhabited East China Sea islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China.
The islands are called as the Senkakus by Japan, while China named them as Diaoyu.
Taiwan also claims the islands but has forged agreements with Japan to avoid any conflict as Japan maintains close defence ties with Taipei.
Ahead of Hayashi’s visit, China and Japan on Friday set up a military hotline to strengthen their capability of managing and controlling maritime and air incidents arising out their aggressive patrolling of the disputed waters in the East China Sea.
Hayashi said the two countries were neighbours separated by “a narrow strip of water”.
China is also opposing Japan’s move to discharge nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
Qin asked his Japanese counterpart to handle the disposal responsibly, as it is a major issue concerning public health and the safety of humanity.
On the question of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of it, Qin said it is the very core of the core interests of China, which bears on the political foundation of China-Japan relations. He asked Tokyo to refrain from interfering in the Taiwan question or undermining China’s sovereignty in any form.
In the case of a Japanese citizen suspected of engaging in espionage activities in China, Qin stressed China would handle it following relevant laws.
According to Japanese media reports, Hayashi’s talks with Qin lasted around four hours, longer than the planned two and half hours. The two also agreed to resume trilateral dialogue with South Korea.
Hayashi also met Premier Li Qiang and had dinner with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 2, 2023
China granted visas to over 18,000 Indians since January: Diplomat

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Kolkata: China has issued visas to over 18,000 Indians in the last three months, a Chinese diplomat said.
Interacting with a group of journalists in Kolkata, Minister Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in India, Chen Jianjun, said he was looking forward to more Chinese being given visas by India.
“The number of visa applications for China has been on the rise. Since January, we have given visas to 18,560 Indians,” he said.

“Since August, 9,409 student visas have been issued to Indian students,” he said.
However, Jianjun said, the number of visa applications is yet to reach the pre-pandemic levels.
In June last year, China announced plans to provide visas to Indian professionals and their families stranded in India following the strict restrictions imposed by Beijing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Separately, it also started processing visa applications of thousands of Indian students studying in Chinese universities who conveyed their interest to rejoin their colleges and universities. About 23,000 Indian students, mostly studying medicine were stranded back home due to the restrictions.
Jianjun said China was working with India for an early resumption of direct flights between the two countries.

Flight services between the two countries have been disrupted ever since coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan in late 2019 and spread across the world.
The flight disruption turned out to be a major problem for hundreds of Indian students as well as families of Indians working in China and businessmen to travel back and forth.
Indians are currently travelling to China through Sri Lanka, Nepal and Myanmar, and some other countries, shelling out an exorbitant amount of money on steep airfares.
Jianjun also said that his country was looking forward to a more fair and friendly business environment in India.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 1, 2023
Border trade between Pakistan & China to resume next week after 3 years

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Islamabad: After a three-year hiatus, Pakistan and China are set to resume trade from Monday through the Khunjerab Pass – the only land route between the two all-weather allies, a media report said on Saturday.
The Khunjerab Pass was closed in November 2019 to contain the transmission of the COVID-19 virus between the two countries.
The arrangements to reopen the border point for bilateral trade and other activities under the China-Pakistan Eco nomic Corridor (CPEC) have been finalised by both sides, the Dawn newspaper reported.

The USD 60 billion CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Balochistan with China’s Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The CPEC is a network of roads, railways, pipelines, and ports in Pakistan connecting China to the Arabian Sea.
Gilgit-Baltistan Home Secretary Rana Mohammad Saleem Afzal said that officials on both sides agreed to reopen Khunjerab Pass for trade and travel activities from April 3. He added that the process of issuing border passes would start soon, the report said.
“Most important aspect is that it’s a CPEC route. CPEC consignments will enter Pakistan through Khunjerab Pass from China,” he said.
Under an agreement, trade and travel activities between the two countries through the Khunjerab Pass start annually on April 1 and close on November 30. Daily bus service also plies from the Sost Valley of the Gilgit-Baltistan region to the Xinjiang province of China, the report said.
The first trade activity between China and Pakistan under the CPEC started via the Karakoram Highway in November 2016.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Hina Rabbani Khar, said that the federal government had been working to revive CPEC activities, the report said. She added that all hurdles in the bilateral trade’s way would be removed.
The prolonged closure of the Khunjerab Pass caused immense financial hardships to the local business community, and thousands of workers became jobless, the report said, quoting officials.
During the last three years, the Pass was occasionally opened for emergency cargo transportation from China to Pakistan on specific days.
The volume of trade between the two countries would increase after the reopening of the Khunjerab Pass, Gilgit-Baltistan Collector of Customs Syed Fawad Ali Shah was quoted as saying in the report.
He said all required arrangements had been finalised for normal trade at the Sost dry port. Shah added that he met traders, the port management and other stakeholders, who were all happy and assured the administration of their cooperation in smooth trade activities at the dry port.
Haji Liaquat of the Gilgit-Baltistan Importers and Exporters Association said that the people affiliated with trade between the two countries were optimistic about the revival of economic activities in the region, according to the report.
He added that the people of the region and the government exchequer suffered losses worth billions of rupees owing to the prolonged halt of trade at the Sost dry port.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 1, 2023