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.

Displaced Palestinian children wait to receive free food at a tent camp, amid food shortages, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Hamas-run Health Ministry said on February 29 more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war between the militant group and Israel began nearly five months ago.

While mediators say a truce deal between Israel and Hamas could be just days away, aid agencies have sounded the alarm of a looming famine in Gaza’s north.

Children have died “due to malnutrition, dehydration and widespread famine” at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, said the Health Ministry, whose spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra has called for “immediate action” from international organisations to prevent more of these deaths.

Citing the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, USAID head Samantha Power said Israel needed to open more crossings so that “vitally needed humanitarian assistance can be dramatically surged”. “This is a matter of life and death,” Ms. Power said in a video posted on social media platform X.

“The latest overall toll for Palestinians killed in the war came after at least 79 people died overnight across the war-torn Gaza Strip,” the Health Ministry said on February 29.

Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been seeking a six-week pause in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which in response vowed to eliminate the Palestinian Islamist group that rules in Gaza.

Negotiators are hoping a truce can begin by the start of Ramadan, the holy Muslim month that kicks off March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.

The proposals reportedly include the release of some Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

Short of the complete withdrawal Hamas has called for, a source from the group said the deal might see Israeli forces leave “cities and populated areas”, allowing the return of some displaced Palestinians and humanitarian relief.

U.S. President Joe Biden is “pushing all of us to try to get this agreement over the finish line”, said his Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Famine imminent in northern Gaza: World Food Programme

The crucial southern Gaza city of Rafah is the main entry point for aid crossing the border from neighbouring Egypt.

But the World Food Programme said no humanitarian group had been able to deliver aid to the north for more than a month, accusing Israel of blocking access. Neighbouring Jordan has coordinated efforts to air-drop supplies over southern Gaza.

“If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director Carl Skau said.

Israeli officials have denied blocking supplies, and the Army on Wednesday said “50 trucks carrying humanitarian aid” had made it to northern Gaza in recent days.

The war was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Militants also took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has left hundreds of thousands displaced, with nearly 1.5 million people now packed in Rafah.

In a sign of growing desperation among Gazans over living conditions, a rare protest was held on February 28 by residents over the soaring prices of commodities.

“Everyone is suffering inside these tents,” said Amal Zaghbar, who was displaced and sheltering in a makeshift camp. “We’re dying slowly.”

Israel has repeatedly threatened a ground offensive on Rafah, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying a truce would only delay it, as such an operation was needed for “total victory” over Hamas.

Egypt, which borders Rafah, says an assault on the overcrowded city would have “catastrophic repercussions”.

Stop this insane war: Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki

While Israel’s plans for post-war Gaza exclude any mention of the Palestinian Authority (PA), its top ally the United States and other powers have called for a revitalised PA, which governs the occupied West Bank, to take charge of the territory.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said a “technocratic” government without Gaza’s rulers Hamas was needed to “stop this insane war” and facilitate relief operations and reconstruction.

His government, based in the West Bank, resigned this week, with Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh citing the need for change after the war ends.

A government that includes Hamas — long-time rivals of president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, which controls the PA — would “be boycotted by a number of countries”, Mr. Maliki told a news conference in Geneva.

On February 29, Palestinian factions — including Hamas and Fatah — were expected to arrive in Moscow for a meeting at Russia’s invitation.

“The central goal is how to unite the Palestinian ranks,” Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative — a civilian political party — told Qatar state TV from Moscow. In Israel, Netanyahu has come under increasing pressure to bring the hostages home. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant insisted the government was “making every effort”.

A group of 150 Israelis started a four-day march from Reim, near the Gaza border, to Jerusalem, calling for the government to reach a deal. “No one should be left behind,” said Ronen Neutra, father of captive Omer Neutra, an Israeli soldier who is also a U.S. citizen.

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. President Joe Biden. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President Joe Biden said on October 20 he thought Hamas was motivated to attack Israel in part by a desire to stop that country from normalising relations with Saudi Arabia.

“One of the reasons … why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Mr. Biden said at a campaign fundraiser. The U.S. President indicated that he thinks Hamas militants launched a deadly assault on October 7 because, “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognise Israel” and were near being able to formally do so.

Israel-Hamas war, Day 15 LIVE updates | Biden says Hamas attacked Israel to stop historic agreement with Saudi Arabia

Jerusalem and Riyadh had been steadily inching closer to normalisation, with Mr. Biden working to help bring the two countries together, announcing plans in September at the Group of 20 summit in India to partner on a shipping corridor.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Mr. Biden on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September and told him, “I think that under your leadership, Mr. President, we can forge a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”

The Saudis had been insisting on protections and expanded rights for Palestinian interests as part of any broader agreement with Israel. An agreement would have been a feat of diplomacy that could have enabled broader recognition of Israel by other Arab and Muslim-majority nations that have largely opposed Israel since its creation 75 years ago in territory where Palestinians have long resided.

But talks were interrupted after Hamas militants stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip where Palestinians live into nearby Israeli towns.

The October 7 attack coincided with a major Jewish holiday. It led to retaliatory airstrikes by Israel that have left the world on edge with the U.S. trying to keep the war from widening, as 1,400 Israelis and 4,137 Palestinians have been killed. Hamas also captured more than 200 people as hostages after the initial assault.

The normalisation push began under former President Donald Trump’s administration and was branded as the Abraham Accords. It is an ambitious effort to reshape the region and boost Israel’s standing in historic ways. But critics have warned that it skips past Palestinian demands for statehood.

What are Israel’s options after the Hamas attack? | Analysis

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said soon after the Hamas attacks that the militant group’s leadership may have been driven in part by a desire to scuttle the United States’ efforts at the sealing of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Such a pact between Jerusalem and Riyadh would be a legacy-defining achievement for Joe Biden, Mr. Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

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.