A two-hour virtual meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, failed to yield progress on efforts to halt the war in Ukraine, while leaving relations between Washington and Beijing locked in a stalemate. A month into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has proven unable to convince Beijing to end its diplomatic tap dance around the conflict. But Beijing views its long-term rivalry with Washington as its chief geopolitical concern, making it unlikely to abandon Moscow, its new strategic partner, over the war. Xi spoke to Biden on Friday at the latter’s request, following a [...]
As the war in Ukraine rages on and China faces growing pressure to end its diplomatic tap dance around the conflict, Beijing is increasingly shifting its attention toward providing humanitarian aid and brokering peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. But although Chinese officials continue to insist on Beijing’s neutrality on what it describes as “the Ukraine crisis,” China’s refusal to take a side may come at a high cost. At the moment, Western observers are even worried that China might begin to actively back Russia in the conflict. Russia has already turned to China for military hardware and aid in [...]
After two years of controlling the coronavirus pandemic with stringent border restrictions and social distancing measures, Hong Kong’s zero-COVID policy has collapsed under the weight of the omicron variant. In the past few months, the city has experienced its largest outbreak of coronavirus cases to date, with tens of thousands of daily infections and a total of over 500,000 recorded cases as of Tuesday. The fatality rate has also soared, as the coronavirus ravages nursing homes in the city and afflicts its large population of undervaccinated elderly residents. Medical experts have attributed the spike in cases to a series of [...]
