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July
US needs to speed up delivery of weapons to Taiwan, US general says
Written by Nur Yasmin
The United States and its allies need to speed up the delivery of weapons to Taiwan in the coming years to help the island defend itself, the top U.S. general said on Friday.
The United States is Taiwan's most important arms supplier. Beijing has repeatedly demanded the sale of U.S. weapons to Taiwan stop, viewing them as unwarranted support for the democratically governed island that Beijing claims.
"The speed at which we, the United States, or other countries assist Taiwan in improving (their) defensive capabilities, I think that probably needs to be accelerated in the years to come," U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters during a visit to Tokyo.
Milley said Taiwan needed weapons like air defence systems and those that could target ships from land.
"I think it's important that Taiwan's military and their defensive capabilities be improved," he said.
Taiwan has since last year complained of delays to U.S. weapon deliveries, such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, as manufacturers turned supplies to Ukraine as it battles invading Russian forces. The issue has concerned some U.S. lawmakers.
Taiwan has said that its defence spending this year will focus on preparing weapons and equipment for a "total blockade" by China, including parts for F-16 fighters and replenishing weapons.
China staged war games around the island in August, firing missiles over Taipei and declaring no-fly and no-sail zones in a simulation of how it would seek to cut Taiwan off in a war.
In recent days, China's military has been practicing joint force operations at sea ahead of Taiwan's annual war games at the end of the month when it will simulate breaking a Chinese blockade.
Milley said that relations between the United States and China were at a "very low point" and recent diplomatic meetings, including between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, were important to reduce the chances of escalation.
Milley said the United States was looking at whether it needed to change where some U.S. forces were based within the Asia Pacific.
The majority of U.S. forces in the region are in northeast Asia, including 28,500 in South Korea and 56,000 troops in Japan.
"We are seriously looking at potential alternative basing options," Milley said. (Reuters)
July
In rare UN appearance, North Korea defends missile launch
Written by Nur Yasmin
North Korea's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was an exercise of its right to self-defense "to deter dangerous military moves of hostile forces and safeguard the security of our state," the country's U.N. envoy told the Security Council on Thursday during a rare appearance.
The 15-member Security Council met after North Korea said it tested on Wednesday its latest Hwasong-18 ICBM, adding the weapon is the core of its nuclear strike force.
"We categorically reject and condemn the convening of the Security Council briefing by the United States and its followers," North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Kim Song told the council.
North Korea last spoke at a council meeting on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in December 2017, diplomats said.
North Korea - formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) - has been under U.N. sanctions for its missile and nuclear programs since 2006. This includes a ban on the development of ballistic missiles.
In a separate statement on Friday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, "strongly denounced" the U.N. meeting as unfair and biased, blaming the United States for escalating tensions in the region.
"The price the U.S. would have to pay for provoking us won't be light," Kim said, vowing to push for the "most overwhelming" nuclear deterrence until Washington drops what she called its hostile policy against Pyongyang.
For the past several years the council has been divided over how to deal with Pyongyang. Russia and China, veto powers along with the United States, Britain and France, have said more sanctions will not help and want such measures to be eased.
China and Russia blame joint military drills by the United States and South Korea for provoking Pyongyang, while Washington accuses Beijing and Moscow of emboldening North Korea by shielding it from more sanctions.
"Russia and China have prevented this council from speaking with one voice. And with these repeated launches, Pyongyang is demonstrating it feels emboldened," Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, told the council.
CHINA SLAMS NATO
DeLaurentis said the U.S. was committed to diplomacy and "publicly and privately and at senior levels we have repeatedly urged the DPRK to engage in dialogue." He said Washington had made clear there were no preconditions for engagement and it would "discuss any topic of concern to Pyongyang."
"The DPRK has not responded to our offers," he said.
China's U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun told the council that Beijing was committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the settlement of the issue through dialogue.
He described the situation as "tense" and said it was getting "ever more confrontational." China has "taken note" of North Korea's latest missile launch, Zhang said.
"The Cold War has long since ended, but the specter of the Cold War mentality lingers. It has not only rendered the Peninsula issue intractable, but also intensified antagonism and conflict around the world," he said.
He went on to slam a communique by NATO leaders this week, telling the council it was as "long-winded as it was harping the same old tunes filled with Cold War mentality and ideological prejudices." Zhang said NATO should do some "soul-searching."
NATO leaders in the communique said China challenged NATO's interests, security and values with its "ambitions and coercive policies."
"China does not cause trouble, nor does it fear trouble," Zhang said. "We stand ready to respond firmly and forcefully to any act that violates China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, undermine China's development and security interests and breach the peace and stability in China's neighborhood." (Reuters)
July
India’s Modi sparks political storm with pitch for common civil code
Written by Nur Yasmin
Nine months before a general election, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have dusted off a potentially divisive plan to enact a common set of personal laws for all, irrespective of religion.
Currently, India's Hindus, Muslims, Christians and large tribal populations follow their own personal laws and customs, alongside an optional secular code, for marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance.
The Law Commission, a government-appointed advisory body, has sought public opinion by Friday on creating a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). It had received more than 5 million responses online on the eve of the deadline.
The BJP says the common code is necessary to ensure gender justice, equality through uniform application of personal laws, and to foster national unity and integration.
"If there is one law for one family member and another for another family member, can that family function smoothly? How can a country function with such dual systems?" Modi said at a BJP meeting late last month, just days after he returned from state visits to the U.S. and Egypt.
The comments were his most forceful in favour of the common code and set off a political storm.
Critics call the push for a common civil code a cynical attempt to divide communities and consolidate Hindu votes for the BJP ahead of the 2024 general election. Supporters, who include some Muslim women's rights groups, say it is much needed reform to end discriminatory Islamist practices.
"The idea is to send a message to the majority community so that you are able to keep the majority community polarised in favour of BJP," said Sanjay Kumar, political analyst and psephologist at New Delhi’s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.
"This is a kind of a tool to divide and mobilise," he said.
India's Muslims, the country's largest minority with about 200 million of the 1.4 billion population, are mostly sharply opposed to the plan.
Although no draft of the UCC has been presented, BJP leaders have said it primarily has to do with reforming Muslim personal laws as other personal laws have progressed over the decades.
Many Muslims say they see it as interference with centuries-old Islamic practices and another weapon for a majoritarian political party that they accuse of being anti-Muslim.
NO VALID GROUND
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a voluntary body that represents the interests of Indian Muslims on personal law issues, has sent its objections to the Law Commission saying "mere projection of uniformity is not a valid ground for uprooting established systems of laws governing personal matters".
"Majoritarian morality must not supersede personal laws, religious freedom, and minority rights in the name of a code which remains an enigma," it said.
India's next general election has to be held by May 2024 and follows commanding wins for BJP in 2014 and 2019. Critics say the party's campaign playbook has been to polarise voters along religious lines and take advantage of the heavy Hindu majority, although the BJP maintains it represents all Indians and that it wants growth for all.
Modi and the BJP are widely expected to win a third term, but the ruling party got a scare when it lost elections to the main opposition Congress party in Karnataka state in May. Opposition groups are now working to pose a united challenge in 2024.
Some analysts say the UCC plan will force opposition parties into a corner. They cannot support it, and if they oppose it, they will be accused of being reactionary and pandering to conservative Muslims.
The Congress, for instance, has only said it questions the timing of the plan and has asked to see a draft.
Sushil Modi, a senior BJP leader and member of parliament, said the UCC plan was not related to the election.
"In India you have elections all the time," said Modi, who is not related to the prime minister. "Someone has to show the courage, someone has to take the initiative. We are showing the courage and doing it."
Key Muslim personal law issues that are expected to be addressed are the age of marriage, polygamy and inheritance, said another BJP leader and a judiciary source, who both declined to be identified.
Muslim personal laws in India for instance, allow Muslim males and females to marry after attaining puberty while all other Indian males have to be 21 years old and females 18 years old to get married.
Muslim men are allowed to have up to four wives at the same time and Muslim men get double the share of female siblings during inheritance.
KEEP ALIVE
To start with, the government could raise the age of marriage for Muslims to match others, outlaw polygamy and mandate an equal share of inheritance for Muslim men and women, the BJP source said.
Just a handful of these changes may not qualify to be called UCC in the true sense, yet it would be major reform and a political achievement, the source said.
Legal experts and political analysts say even this would need extensive consultations and political consensus to get past parliament and there isn’t enough time before the elections.
BJP’s aim, therefore, appears to be to keep the issue in the public eye and enact the code if it returns to power as expected, they said.
"It will be raised in the run-up to 2024, it will be used, harnessed," said Zakia Soman, co-founder of the Indian Muslim Women's Movement, which strongly supports the UCC despite its reservations about the politics linked to it.
"The fact that it is being championed by the BJP government doesn’t help because the onslaught (on Muslims) has been very consistent and that gives credence to the conservative bogey that this is an attack on Muslims, an attack on Islam," she said. (Reuters)
July
ASEAN ministers call for unity in tackling Myanmar conflict
Written by Nur Yasmin
ASEAN foreign ministers on Wednesday called for regional unity in addressing an intensifying conflict in Myanmar, amid doubts over the bloc's capability to implement a two-year-old peace process that has yet to get off the ground.
The gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta comes as patience wears thin among its 10 members over Myanmar's military rulers' refusal to halt hostilities and start inclusive dialogue, as agreed to by its top general in April 2021.
Myanmar has been beset by fighting since the military seized power in early 2021 before unleashing a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy opponents, which prompted a wave of retaliatory attacks by a resistance movement and ethnic minority armies.
ASEAN chair Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said she and her counterparts discussed implementation of the "five-point consensus", which is the only diplomatic process in play for achieving peace in Myanmar, where the United Nations estimates 1.5 million people have been displaced.
All members emphasised unity on the issue, she said, adding, that "without cessation of violence, there would never be a conducive environment needed for the start of dialogue and the delivery of aid".
Retno's remarks come after a Thai-led meeting last month attended by Myanmar's military leaders who have been barred from high-level ASEAN meetings. Most ASEAN members shunned that meeting, which Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai defended, saying Thailand was suffering in terms of its border, trade and refugee problems.
On Wednesday, Don revealed he had met with ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in detention since shortly after the 2021 coup and is currently appealing sentences of 33 years in jail.
Suu Kyi was in good health, he said, without providing further details.
The Thai foreign ministry said in a separate statement the two had a "private one-hour meeting".
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Wednesday said the agreed peace plan should remain ASEAN's focus.
"Any other efforts must support the implementation of the five-point consensus," she said.
Rizal Sukma, an international relations expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, said it was crucial that ASEAN stick with its plan.
"It provides legitimacy for ASEAN to get engaged in this issue, not to mention intervene," Sukma said.
"Without the five-point consensus, there is no basis for the intervention."
Indonesia is also working behind the scenes to kick-start the process by trying to bring all stakeholders together for talks.
Wednesday's retreat is also expected to discuss the protracted talks on an ASEAN-China code of conduct on the South China Sea, which started in 2017, 15 years after the idea was hatched.
China's coast guard has been accused by the Philippines of "aggressive acts" several times this year, while Vietnam has complained about a Chinese research ship and a flotilla of suspected militia lingering near its offshore energy projects.
China, which claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, maintains it is operating lawfully.
The Jakarta meetings come ahead of Friday's East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Regional Forum, with top diplomats of the United States, Russia and China among those attending. (Reuters)
July
Australia gives more Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine after NATO meet
Written by Nur Yasmin
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, attending a meeting of NATO leaders in Lithuania, said his nation would provide another 30 Bushmasters to Ukraine after a request for the protected vehicles, used to carry troops in frontline areas.
Albanese met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday, after speaking at a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and its partners, including four Indo-Pacific countries.
"In today's interconnected world, Ukraine is not just fighting for its own national sovereignty, it is fighting for the international rule of law to be applied, and this is a struggle that has implications for the entire world," Albanese told reporters in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on Wednesday.
The additional 30 Bushmasters, worth A$100 million ($67 million), brings a total of 120 protected vehicles supplied to Ukraine by Australia, one of the largest non-NATO contributors to the West's support for Ukraine.
The leaders of Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, who are NATO partners, joined the NATO meeting on Wednesday.
Beijing has said it opposed any attempt by the military alliance to expand its footprint into the Indo-Pacific region, and criticised NATO's accusation that China challenges the bloc's interests and security.
In a communique on Tuesday, NATO said China challenged its interests, security and values with its "ambitions and coercive policies".
"Australia is sending a strong message that we will push back against states seeking to change the international system by force," Albanese wrote on Twitter after his meeting with Zelenskiy.
A government review of Australia's defence forces in April said China was undertaking the largest military build-up of any country since the end of World War Two, "without transparency". (Reuters)
July
UN rights body passes disputed motion on religious hatred after Koran burning
Written by Nur Yasmin
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday approved a disputed resolution on religious hatred in the wake of the burning of a Koran in Sweden, prompting concern by Western states who say it challenges long-held practices in rights protection.
The resolution, introduced by Pakistan on behalf of the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), calls for the U.N. rights chief to publish a report on religious hatred and for states to review their laws and plug gaps that may "impede the prevention and prosecution of acts and advocacy of religious hatred."
It was strongly opposed by the United States and the European Union, who say it conflicts with their view on human rights and freedom of expression. While condemning the burning of the Koran, they argued the OIC initiative was designed to safeguard religious symbols rather than human rights.
An Iraqi immigrant to Sweden burned the Koran outside a Stockholm mosque last month, sparking outrage across the Muslim world and demands by Muslim states for action.
The vote's outcome marks a major defeat for Western countries at a time when the OIC has unprecedented clout in the council, the only body made up of governments to protect human rights worldwide.
Twenty-eight countries voted in favour, 12 voted against, and seven countries abstained. Representatives of some countries clapped after the resolution passed.
Marc Limon, director of the Geneva-based Universal Rights Group, said the outcome showed "the West is in full retreat at the Human Rights Council."
"They're increasingly losing support and losing the argument," he said.
Michele Taylor, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council, said the United States' concerns about the initiative "were not taken seriously."
"I believe with a little more time and more open discussion, we could have also found a way forward together on this resolution," she said.
After the vote, Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the U.N. in Geneva, Khalil Hasmi, accused the West of "lip service" to their commitment to prevent religious hatred.
"The opposition of a few in the room has emanated from their unwillingness to condemn the public desecration of the Holy Koran or any other religious book," he said.
"They lack political, legal and moral courage to condemn this act, and it was the minimum that the Council could have expected from them." (Reuters)
July
North Korea condemns US plan to send cluster munitions to Ukraine as 'criminal'
Written by Nur Yasmin
North Korea on Tuesday condemned U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine as a "criminal act" and demanded an immediate withdrawal of the plan.
The fact that Biden had admitted it was a difficult decision showed he was aware of the disastrous consequences of the use of cluster munitions, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
"I, on behalf of the DPRK government, vehemently denounce the U.S. decision to offer WMD (weapons of mass destruction) to Ukraine as a dangerous criminal act to bring a new calamity to the world, and strongly demand the U.S. withdraw the decision immediately," she said.
DPRK refers to the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Reclusive North Korea has forged closer ties with the Kremlin and backed Moscow after it invaded Ukraine in February last year.
"The U.S. has made a very dangerous choice ... which brings to light once again its true colours as destroyer of peace regarding aggression and massacre as its national policy and mode of existence," Choe said.
The United States announced last week it would send Ukraine the weapons controversial for the danger they pose to civilians long after fighting ends as part of an $800 million security package.
Many U.S. allies and partners helping aid Ukraine are among the 111 state parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits all use, stockpiling, production and transfer of cluster munitions and came into force in 2010.
North Korea is not a party to the convention. Russia, Ukraine and the United States have also not signed the convention
Ukraine said the U.S. decision would help to liberate Ukrainian territory but promised the munitions would not be used in Russia. (Reuters)
July
Myanmar crisis, South China Sea tensions loom over ASEAN meet
Written by Nur Yasmin
Southeast Asia's top diplomats will gather in Indonesia on Tuesday amid pressure to address a bloody political crisis in Myanmar and resolve tensions in the South China Sea where some ASEAN members have overlapping territorial claims with China.
The meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comes as doubts mount over the credibility and unity of the bloc in dealing with the region's thorniest challenges.
Chief among them is the lack of meaningful process on an ASEAN peace plan for Myanmar, which was agreed with the country's military rulers after they seized power in a 2021 coup and calls for an immediate halt to violence.
More than 3,400 people have been killed and almost 22,000 arrested in the military's crackdown on dissent, according to a United Nations report published in June.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk recently urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the escalating violence to the International Criminal Court, and for countries to stop supplying weapons to the junta.
ASEAN has barred Myanmar's junta leaders from attending high-level meetings like the one in Jakarta this week, but as the bloc's chair this year, Indonesia has been intensely engaging the junta and opposition groups behind the scenes.
But two sources familiar with the efforts say attempts to create an inclusive dialogue have been complicated by conditions put forward by all sides to start even informal talks.
"As long as the approach that the parties take is a zero-sum approach, durable peace will never be achieved," Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said of the efforts last week.
Indonesia is also seeking during this week's forum to accelerate talks on a long-stalled code of conduct on the South China Sea. The talks would advance a 2002 commitment by the bloc and China to create a set of rules to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight in the strategic waterway.
More than $3 trillion in trade passes through the South China Sea each year, and overlapping territorial claims by China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei have led to a spate of confrontations.
ASEAN will also hold the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Regional Forum later this week, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov both slated to attend. (Reuters)
July
China's foreign minister, not seen in weeks, to miss ASEAN
Written by Nur Yasmin
China's foreign minister Qin Gang will not attend a diplomatic gathering in Indonesia as expected this week, sources familiar with the matter said, extending an unexplained public absence that has lasted for more than two weeks.
Three sources, who declined to be identified because they are not authorised to speak to media, said top diplomat Wang Yi would represent China at the meetings in Jakarta instead.
Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China are scheduled to meet on Thursday, before Friday's East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum.
Qin, 57, took over from Wang as foreign minister in December and was last seen in public on June 25 in Beijing after meeting officials from Sri Lanka, Russia and Vietnam.
The Chinese foreign ministry did not respond to a query about Qin's whereabouts.
His absence has not gone unnoticed.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin was asked last Friday about an article in U.S. political news website Politico that cited speculation that health issues may be behind Qin's absence. He said he had "not heard about" the report.
Qin was supposed to meet European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week in Beijing but the meeting was pushed back after China informed the EU that the dates were "no longer possible", an EU spokesperson said.
The EU was informed of the postponement just two days before Borrell's scheduled arrival on July 5, according to a source familiar with the plans.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also due to attend the meetings in Jakarta this week, presenting another opportunity for talks with China as Washington seeks to put a floor under souring relations between the big powers.
Blinken met Qin and Wang Yi in Beijing last month, the first visit to China by a U.S. secretary of state in five years.
Wang Yi, who is the foreign policy chief for the Chinese Communist Party, ranks above Qin, who as the foreign minister is the government's foreign policy chief. (Reuters)
July
North Korea accuses U.S. of repeatedly entering its economic zone
Written by Nur Yasmin
North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, on Tuesday accused a U.S. military spy plane of entering the country's Exclusive Economic Zone eight times, state media KCNA reported.
Kim warned that the U.S. forces will face a "very critical flight" if they continue what it called "illegal intrusion," repeating an accusation it made on Monday that the U.S. had violated its airspace by conducting surveillance flights. It also warned such flights may be shot down.
The Pentagon earlier brushed aside Pyongyang's accusations of airspace violations and said the U.S. military had adhered to international law.
"So those accusations are just accusations," Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters.
Kim accused the U.S. Air Force of intruding into the North's "economic water zone" on Monday off the east coast of the Korean peninsula in the sky above the sea 435 km (270 miles) east of Tongchon of Gangwon Province and 276 km southeast of Uljin of North Gyeongsang Province.
A country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) - which extends 200 nautical miles from the 12 nautical-mile territorial zone around the coast - is a right to exploit marine resources within but does not confer sovereignty over the water's surface or the airspace above it.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller urged North Korea "to refrain from escalatory actions" and reiterated a call for it "to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy" when asked about the North Korean statements at a regular news briefing on Monday.
Calling the issue "one between the Korean People's Army and the U.S. forces," she told South Korea to refrain from getting involved in a statement carried by KCNA.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Pyongyang was escalating tensions by using threats over what it said was "normal flight activity" by the South Korea-U.S. alliance in a statement Monday night. (Reuters)