Ground staff members transport missiles near a Taiwan Air Force Mirage 2000-5 aircraft at Hsinchu Air Base, in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Taiwan scrambled jets and put missile, naval and land units on alert on May 23 over Chinese military exercises being conducted around the self-governing island democracy where a new President took office this week.

China’s military said its two-day exercises around Taiwan were punishment for separatist forces seeking independence. Beijing claims the island is part of China’s national territory and the People’s Liberation Army sends navy ships and warplanes into the Taiwan Strait and other areas around the island almost daily to wear down Taiwan’s defences and seek to intimidate its people, who firmly back their de facto independence.

China’s “irrational provocation has jeopardised regional peace and stability,” the island’s Defence Ministry said. It said Taiwan will seek no conflicts but “will not shy away from one.

“This pretext for conducting military exercises not only does not contribute to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, but also shows its hegemonic nature at heart,” the Ministry’s statement said.

In his inauguration address on Monday, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te called for Beijing to stop its military intimidation and pledged to “neither yield nor provoke” the mainland Communist Party leadership.

Lai has said he seeks dialogue with Beijing while maintaining Taiwan’s current status and avoiding conflicts that could draw in the island’s chief ally the U.S. and other regional partners such as Japan and Australia.

“The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command said the land, navy and air exercises around Taiwan are meant to test the navy and air capabilities of the PLA units, as well as their joint strike abilities to hit targets and win control of the battlefield,” the command said on its official Weibo account.

“This is also a powerful punishment for the separatist forces seeking independence’ and a serious warning to external forces for interference and provocation,” the statement said.

The PLA also released a map of the intended exercise area, which surrounds Taiwan’s main island at five different points, as well as places such as Matsu and Kinmen, outlying islands that are closer to the Chinese mainland than Taiwan.

While China has termed the exercises as punishment for Taiwan’s election result, the Democratic Progressive Party has now run the island’s government for more than a decade, although the pro-China Nationalist Party took a one-seat majority in the Parliament.

Speaking in Australia, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Stephen Sklenka, the deputy commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, called on Asia-Pacific nations to condemn the Chinese military exercises.

“There’s no surprise whenever there’s an action that highlights Taiwan in the international sphere the Chinese feel compelled to make some kind of form of statement,” Mr. Sklenka told the National Press Club of Australia in the capital Canberra, in a reference to Monday’s Presidential inauguration.

“Just because we expect that behavior doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t condemn it, and we need to condemn it publicly. And it needs to come from us, but it also needs to come, I believe, from nations in the region. It’s one thing when the United States condemns the Chinese, but it has a far more powerful effect, I believe, when it comes from nations within this region,” Mr. Sklenka added.

Japan’s top envoy weighed in while visiting the U.S., saying Japan and Taiwan share values and principles, including freedom, democracy, basic rights and rule of law.

“(Taiwan) is our extremely important partner that we have close economic relations and exchanges of people, and is our precious friend,” Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa told reporters in Washington, where she held talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

She said the two Ministers discussed Taiwan and the importance of the Taiwan Strait, one of the world’s most important waterways for shipping, remaining peaceful.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 14
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv on May 14 in an unannounced diplomatic mission to reassure Ukraine that it has American support as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks.

The visit comes less than a month after Congress approved a long-delayed foreign assistance package that sets aside $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, much of which will go toward replenishing badly depleted artillery and Air Defense systems.

On his fourth trip to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Mr. Blinken will underscore the Biden administration’s commitment to Ukraine’s defense and long-term security, U.S. officials said. They noted that since President Joe Biden signed the aid package late last month, the administration has already announced $1.4 billion in short-term military assistance and $6 billion in longer-term support.

It is “trying to really accelerate the tempo” of U.S. weapon shipments to Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

“What I am going to suggest is that the level of intensity being exhibited right now in terms of moving stuff is at a 10 out of 10”, Sullivan told reporters at a White House briefing May 13.

Artillery, Air Defense interceptors and long-range ballistic missiles have already been delivered, some of them already to the front lines, said a senior U.S. official traveling with the secretary on an overnight train from Poland.

Blinken will “send a strong signal of reassurance” to Ukrainian leaders and civil society figures he will meet during his two-day visit, said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of Blinken’s meetings.

In a statement released after Blinken’s arrival, the State Department said he would meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian officials “to discuss battlefield updates, the impact of new U.S. security and economic assistance, long-term security and other commitments, and ongoing work to bolster Ukraine’s economic recovery.”

Delays in U.S. assistance, particularly since Israel’s war with Hamas began to preoccupy top administration officials, triggered deep concerns in Kyiv and Europe. Blinken, for example, has visited the Middle East seven times since the Gaza conflict began in October. His last trip to Kyiv was in September.

The U.S. official added that Blinken also would give a speech later on May 14 extolling Ukraine’s “strategic successes” in the war. It is intended to complement a Blinken address last year in Helsinki, Finland, deriding Russian President Vladimir Putin for Moscow’s strategic failures in launching the war.

Since the Helsinki speech, however, Russia has intensified its attacks, most noticeably as the U.S. House sat on the aid package for months without action, forcing a suspension in the provision of most U.S. assistance. Those attacks have increased in recent weeks as Russia has sought to take advantage of Ukrainian shortages in manpower and weapons while the new assistance is in transit.

Top Biden administration officials and Ukrainian National security officials held a call Monday “about the situation on the front, about the capabilities that they are most in need of, and a real triage effort to say, ’Get us this stuff this fast so that we can be in a position to effectively defend against the Russian onslaught,” Sullivan said.

Zelenskyy said over the weekend that “fierce battles” are taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to push back a significant Russian ground offensive.

The Kremlin’s forces are aiming to exploit Ukrainian weaknesses before a big batch of new military aid for Kyiv from the U.S. and European partners arrives on the battlefield in the coming weeks and months, Ukrainian commanders and analysts say. That makes this period a window of opportunity for Moscow and one of the most dangerous for Kyiv in the two-year war, they say.

The new Russian push in the northeastern Kharkiv region and a drive into the eastern Donetsk region come after months when the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line barely budged. In the meantime, both sides have used long-range strikes in what largely became a war of attrition.

The senior U.S. official said despite some recent setbacks, Ukraine could still claim significant victories. Those include reclaiming some 50% of the territory Russian forces took in the early months of the war, boosting its economic standing and improving transportation and trade links, not least through military successes in the Black Sea.

The official acknowledged that Ukraine faces “a tough fight” and is “under tremendous pressure” but argued that Ukrainians “will become increasingly more confident” as the new U.S. and other Western assistance begins to surge.

Mr. Blinken said on May 12 that there was “no doubt” the monthslong delay in aid caused problems but that “we are doing everything we can to rush this assistance out there”.

“It’s a challenging moment,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We are not going anywhere, and neither are more than some 50 countries that are supporting Ukraine. That will continue, and if Putin thinks he can outlast Ukraine, outlast its supporters, he’s wrong”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect some 1.4 million Palestinian civilians in Rafah and warned an Israeli attack could create an insurgency by failing to kill all Hamas fighters in the southern Gazan city.

“Israel is on a trajectory potentially to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas fighters left or if it leaves a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” Blinken said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

Hamas fighters, he said, already are returning to areas of northern Gaza that Israel claimed to have cleared.

Israel’s planned invasion of Rafah has helped fuel the deepest tensions in relations between Israel and its main ally in generations.

NBC and CBS News aired interviews with Blinken dominated by President Joe Biden’s decision to pause a shipment to Israel of bombs over fears of massive civilian casualties in Rafah and a State Department report that Israel’s use of US-supplied arms may have broken international law.

The report, which was unrelated to the bomb shipment, found no specific violations justifying withholding US military aid, saying the chaos of war prevented verification of individual alleged breaches.

Hamas’ use of civilian infrastructure and tunnels “makes it very difficult to determine, particularly in the midst of war,” what happened in specific instances, Blinken said, defending the report criticized by some lawmakers of Biden’s Democratic Party and human rights groups.

Defending the pause on the shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs, Blinken said Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering in Rafah.

He told CBS that the shipment was the only US weapons package being withheld.

But that could change, he said, if Israel launches a full-scale attack on Rafah, which Israel says it plans to invade to root out entrenched Hamas fighters.

If Israel “launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we’re not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation,” said Blinken.

Israel needs to “have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven’t seen,” he said.

Rafah is hosting some 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them displaced from elsewhere in Gaza by fighting and Israeli bombardments that have devastated the seaside enclave.

Israel also has not developed a post-war plan for the security, governance and reconstruction of Gaza, Blinken said, adding on CBS that the United States is working with Arab governments and others on such a plan.

“We have the same objectives as Israel,” he said. “We want to make sure that Hamas cannot govern Gaza again.”

The death count in Israel’s military operation in Gaza has passed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel says 620 soldiers have been killed in the fighting.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken snapped up a Taylor Swift album along with one by classic Chinese rocker Dou Wei during an unexpected detour to a Beijing record store on Friday after talks in China meant to ease superpower tensions.

En route to the airport after a visit that included a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Blinken popped into the LiPi record store in the Chinese capital’s arts district where the owner handed him an album by Dou Wei, which he bought along with Taylor Swift’s 2022 record “Midnights”.

One of the aims of Blinken’s trip has been to emphasize the importance of what the State Department calls “people-to-people ties” as part of efforts to improve relations.

In the Beijing record store, he described mega pop star Swift, whose hits include “Bad Blood” from her fifth album in 2014, as a successful American export.

In 2019, Swift’s album “Lover” broke a new record for an international artist in China as it surpassed one million combined total streams, downloads and sales within a week of its release. The combined total made it China’s most-consumed full-length international album ever in such a short space of time.

Blinken, an avid musician and guitar player, described music as “the best connector, regardless of geography”, and said he loved vinyl records because of the liner notes.

Asked by the shop owner what music he was into, Blinken, who is 62, said he loved everything but added: “I’m a bit stuck in the ’70s.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held wide-ranging talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on October 27.
| Photo Credit: AP

President Joe Biden has emphasised that the United States and China need to manage competition in the relationship responsibly and maintain open lines of communication as he met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi ahead of a potential meeting with President Xi Jinping next month to reset bilateral ties.

President Biden met Wang at the White House on October 27 after the top Chinese diplomat held wide-ranging talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Wang’s visit is expected to lay the groundwork for a potential meeting between Mr. Biden and Chinese President Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco in mid-November.

“The President emphasised that both the United States and China need to manage competition in the relationship responsibly and maintain open lines of communication. He underscored that the United States and China must work together to address global challenges,” the White House said in a readout of the meeting between Mr. Biden and Wang.

Mr. Sullivan and Wang had candid, constructive, and substantive discussions on key issues in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, the Israel-Hamas conflict, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and cross-Strait issues, among other topics, said the National Security Council in a readout of the meeting.

During the meeting, Mr. Sullivan discussed concerns over China’s dangerous and unlawful actions in the South China Sea. He raised the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Also read: View From India | Dispute in the South China Sea

China views Taiwan as a rebel province that must be reunified with the mainland, even by force. China has been conducting provocative military exercises around the self-ruled island.

“The two sides reaffirmed their desire to maintain this strategic channel of communication and to pursue additional high-level diplomacy, including working together towards a meeting between President Biden and President Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November,” said the readout.

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said Mr. Blinken and Wang discussed a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including addressing areas of difference as well as exploring areas of cooperation.

“The Secretary reiterated that the United States will continue to stand up for our interests and values and those of our allies and partners,” he said.

The relationship between the world’s two largest economies began to deteriorate during the Trump administration. In 2018, former President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum that would impose retaliatory tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese imports.

The U.S. and China have one of the world’s most important and complex bilateral relationships. Since 1949, the countries have experienced periods of both tension and cooperation over issues including trade, climate change, the South China Sea, Taiwan and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Biden administration has sought to re-establish normal diplomatic ties with China after an incredibly fraught period, most notably over the Chinese surveillance balloon incident in February.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shake hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in Amman, Jordan, on October 13, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived, on October 13, at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv to meet with senior government leaders and see firsthand some of the U.S. weapons and security assistance that Washington rapidly delivered to Israel in the first week of its war with the militant Hamas group.

Mr. Austin is the second high-level U.S. official to visit Israel in two days. His quick trip from Brussels, where he was attending a NATO Defence Ministers meeting, comes a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the region on October 12.

Mr. Blinken is continuing the frantic Mideast diplomacy, seeking to avert an expanded regional conflict. Mr. Austin is expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, and the Israeli War Cabinet.

His arrival comes as Israel’s military directed hundreds of thousands of residents in Gaza City to evacuate “for their own safety and protection,” ahead of a feared Israeli ground offensive. Gaza’s Hamas rulers responded by calling on Palestinians to “remain steadfast in your homes and to stand firm” against Israel.

Defence officials travelling with Mr. Austin said he wants to underscore America’s unwavering support for the people of Israel and that the United States is committed to making sure the country has what it needs to defend itself.

A senior defence official said the U.S. has already given Israel small diameter bombs as well as interceptor missiles for its Iron Dome system and more will be delivered. Other munitions are expected to arrive on October 13.

Mr. Austin has spoken nearly daily with Gallant, and directed the rapid shift of the U.S. ships, intelligence support and other assets to Israel and the region.

Within hours after the brutal Hamas attack across the border into Israel, the U.S. moved warships and aircraft to the region.

The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group is already in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and a second carrier was departing on Friday from Virginia, also heading to the region.

Mr. Austin declined to say if the U.S. is doing surveillance flights in the region, but the U.S. is providing intelligence and other planning assistance to the Israelis, including advice on the hostage situation.

A day after visiting Israel to offer the Joe Biden administration’s diplomatic support in person, Mr. Blinken was in Jordan on Friday and held talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II. They did not speak to reporters after the meeting.

Antony Blinken then went on to a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has a home in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

In the meeting with the king, Mr. Blinken discussed Hamas’ attack last Saturday and efforts to release all hostages the militants seized, as well as efforts to “prevent the conflict from widening,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

Mr. Blinken “underscored that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination and discussed ways to address the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza while Israel conducts legitimate security operations to defend itself from terrorism.” The monarch rules over a country with a large Palestinian population and has a vested interest in their status while Abbas runs the Palestinian Authority that controls the West Bank.

According to a palace statement, Abdullah stressed the need to open humanitarian corridors for medical aid and relief into Gaza while protecting civilians and working to end the escalation of the conflict.

He appealed against hindering the work of international agencies and warned against any attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza and elsewhere, or to cause their internal displacement.

Earlier on Friday, Israel’s military had told some one million Palestinians living in Gaza to evacuate the north, according to the United Nations — an unprecedented order for almost half the population of the sealed-off territory ahead an expected ground invasion by Israel against the ruling Hamas.

The King also urged for the protection of innocent civilians on all sides, in line with shared human values, international law, and international humanitarian law.

Later Friday, Mr. Blinken is to fly to Doha for meetings with Qatari officials who have close contacts with the Hamas leadership and have been exploring an exchange of Palestinian prisoners in Israel for the release of dozens of Israelis and foreigners taken hostage by Hamas during the unprecedented incursion of the militants into southern Israel last weekend.

Antony Blinken will make a brief stop in Bahrain and end the day in Saudi Arabia, a key player in the Arab world that has been considering normalising ties with Israel, a U.S.-mediated process that is now on hold. He will also travel to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt over the weekend.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
| Photo Credit: AP

“More than 30 Atlantic countries on four continents committed, on September 18, to bolster coordination on economic development, environmental protection, maritime issues and more,” the White House said.

The adoption of the Declaration on Atlantic Cooperation was completed on Monday evening at a meeting hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ahead of the start of the annual UN General Assembly meeting.

“The Atlantic connects and sustains us like never before,” Mr. Blinken told the gathering. He noted that the Atlantic hosts the largest amount of international shipping and, through undersea cables, is a thoroughfare for data traffic than any other ocean.

However, he said the Atlantic is also threatened by climate change, which has brought stronger and more devastating storms to vulnerable coastal communities and illegal fishing. “It’s the heating and cooling of the Atlantic that is driving global climate and weather patterns,” he said.

The declaration includes a commitment to an open Atlantic region free from interference, coercion or aggressive action. The signatories also agreed to uphold sovereign equality, territorial integrity and political independence of states, and recognises the role that each of the nations play in the Atlantic.

The effort to tighten coordination between coastal Atlantic countries across Africa, Europe, North America and South America was launched on the sidelines of last year’s General Assembly with the creation of the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, a forum conceived by the Biden administration.

Nations that endorsed Monday’s declaration are: Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Canada, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Iceland, Ireland, Liberia, Mauritania, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, the Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Spain, Togo, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay.

The White House pitched the forum as a way to improve cooperation between northern and southern Atlantic countries on key issues and come to agreement on a set of principles for the Atlantic region.

The World Bank estimates that Atlantic Ocean commerce contributes $1.5 trillion annually to the global economy and it expects that figure to double by 2030. Sustainable ocean economy sectors are estimated to generate almost 50 million jobs in Africa and to contribute $21 billion to the Latin American economy. But challenges include illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing; natural disasters; and illicit trafficking.

The declaration comes as thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of New York as world leaders gather in New York for the General Assembly. The activists are pushing world leaders to act with greater haste to curb climate change.

Many of the leaders of countries that cause the most heat-trapping carbon pollution will not be in attendance for this year’s General Assembly. And some who are in attendance, including President Joe Biden, aren’t planning to attend a climate-focused summit on Wednesday organised by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.