VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

FILE PHOTO: The Chinese national flag is seen in Beijing, China Apr 29, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Thomas Peter) - 

China has relinquished its rights to host the 2023 Asian Cup finals due to the COVID-19 situation in the country, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced on Saturday.

The event, which is played every four years and features 24 national teams from across the continent, was due to be held in 10 cities from Jun 16 to Jul 16 next year.

"Following extensive discussions with the Chinese Football Association (CFA), the Asian Football Confederation has been officially informed by the CFA that it would not be able to host the AFC Asian Cup 2023," the confederation said in a statement.

"The AFC acknowledges the exceptional circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the relinquishment by China PR of its hosting rights."

The AFC said a decision about the hosting of the tournament would be revealed in due course.

The Asian Cup is the latest international sporting event to be affected by China's attempts to tackle the pandemic.

Earlier this month, Asian Games organisers the Olympic Council of Asia postponed the next edition of the multi-sport event, due to be held in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in September, until 2023.

China continues to implement a zero-COVID policy and cities across the country have faced tight restrictions as a result of a recent outbreak of the Omicron variant.

Shanghai has been under lockdown for more than a month while other cities, including the capital Beijing, are facing a wave of additional curbs, frequent testing and targeted lockdowns.

Most international sporting events in China have been postponed or cancelled since the start of the pandemic, with the notable exception of the Winter Olympics, which went ahead in Beijing under strict health controls in February.

The Chinese Formula 1 Grand Prix has been not been held since 2019, while WTA events have been suspended due to a standoff over concerns relating to the safety of Chinese player Peng Shuai.

China is scheduled to host four ATP events this year, including the Shanghai Masters and the China Open in October.

The Chinese Super League is yet to announce when the new football season will begin.

The Chinese Football Association also gave up the right to host July's East Asian Championships, with that tournament now taking place in Japan.

China had been due to host the Asian Cup for the first time since 2004 when the national team lost in the final in Beijing's Workers' Stadium to Japan//CNA

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speaking to journalists in Washington on May 13, 2022. (Photo: Ministry of Communications and Information) - 

The ASEAN-US Special Summit shows that US values its partnership with Southeast Asia amid a “very significant moment” in world affairs, said Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday (May 13).

"We have the war in Ukraine, Russia has invaded, we’re post-COVID, coming out from COVID. We also have issues in the region. US-China relations are complicated and difficult.

"And in the midst of all this, for the US to focus on ASEAN and to bring the ASEAN leaders here and cultivate that relationship and develop it further, I think it shows that the US values its partnership with ASEAN, Southeast Asia, and that they would like to do more with us ... That's good for the region and good for us.

"Singapore's view has been for a long time that the US plays a constructive impact, indispensable role in our region. Nobody else can replace them in that role and the regional balance is shifting, but all the more we appreciate the US continuing to remain engaged."

Mr Lee was speaking to Singapore journalists at the end of his visit to Washington DC to attend the ASEAN-US Special Summit.

In a joint statement released after the summit, ASEAN member states and the US committed to establishing an ASEAN-US Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in November.

The countries also reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining and promoting peace, security and stability in the region.

At a meeting with US President Joe Biden on Friday, Mr Lee said Singapore welcomes the upgrade of the ASEAN-US Strategic Partnership to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

"We look forward to a meaningful, substantive and mutually beneficial Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, one that allows us to explore further cooperation in important areas such as public health goods and infrastructure, and renewable energy infrastructure," he said.

The joint statement also addressed the situation in Myanmar, over which ASEAN member states and the US said they remain "deeply concerned".

Urging Myanmar to implement the Five-Point Consensus in a "timely and complete" manner, the leaders committed to support ASEAN's efforts to facilitate a peaceful solution.

"We reiterate our commitment to peace and stability in the region and continue to call for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar and for the release of all political detainees, including foreigners," the statement read.

In the meetings, Singapore discussed bilateral cooperation with the US, and the US "put some new ideas on the table", said Mr Lee, noting Mr Biden's announcement to commit US$150 million to the region.

"And of course, talking about the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which is not strictly US-ASEAN, but US with many countries in the region and quite a number of ASEAN countries, are interested in this," he said.

Some ASEAN countries are likely to pick up interest and will participate in the launch of the economic framework, he added.

While Singapore had hoped that the US would join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Mr Lee noted that former US president Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the partnership when he came into office.

"But we know and we hope, and the US also knows, that US participation in the Asia Pacific cannot be only limited to security and defence. It must also consist of economic cooperation, and also include other areas such as on environmental issues," said Mr Lee, speaking in Mandarin in response to a question from a Lianhe Zaobao journalist.

"The ideal situation is for the US to rejoin the TPP, but US' domestic politics does not allow them to do so. So the US has come up with an alternative construct, which is the IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework)."

While there is "not much substance yet" in the framework in terms of investment and trade, "it has its own value" from "another angle", said the Prime Minister.

"It is after all a new start. Although the US is not ready to participate in trade or investment cooperation, hopefully with the IPEF, we will be able to work from there and eventually restore economic cooperation fully."

Mr Biden also announced on Friday that he would nominate his chief of staff and executive secretary at the National Security Council Yohannes Abraham to serve as ambassador to ASEAN.

ASEAN has not had a US ambassador since January 2017.

On Friday, Mr Lee also met Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry for a bilateral meeting, and attended a working lunch hosted by Ms Harris focused on maritime cooperation and pandemic recovery.

Mr Lee responded to questions from journalists about the ASEAN leaders' engagement with Mr Biden on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

While ASEAN has taken a stand and issued a statement "as a whole", the statement is "not as strong as it could be" because different countries have different views, he said.

For example, when the UN General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council, Vietnam and Laos abstained, while the other countries voted for it, Mr Lee noted. Singapore also abstained from the vote.

"If you look at the national statements and the national actions, I think Singapore's is the most forthright statement, which we issued and we also had some targeted sanctions on Russia," he said, adding that Cambodia also took a strong stance on the issue.

"I think Prime Minister Hun Sen was quite unambiguous and emphatic in his explanation of his position that there must be absolute rules against violating territorial integrity and sovereignty and independence of other countries. Otherwise, where do small countries stand?" said Mr Lee.

The Prime Minister also told journalists he may make changes to the Cabinet in early June.

Mr Lee was responding to a question on whether there were any updates on Cabinet movements and succession plans, about a month after Finance Minister Lawrence Wong was chosen as the leader of the People's Action Party's (PAP) fourth-generation, or 4G, leadership team.

The announcement, made on Apr 14 in Singapore, paves the way for Mr Wong to become Singapore's next Prime Minister. He was the first choice by an "overwhelming majority", said retired minister Khaw Boon Wan at the time.

"I've had to focus on this trip and I have another trip coming up in two weeks' time going to the Nikkei conference (in Japan)," Mr Lee said. "But I'm working at it. I hope I shall be able to do it once I'm done with my trips, which means early June."

At a press conference after Mr Wong was named as the 4G leader in April, Mr Lee had said that whether he or Mr Wong would lead the PAP in the next election was a decision that would be made later.

"I will discuss with Lawrence, and we will decide later what the best strategy is for us to fight the next general election,” the Prime Minister told reporters at the time, adding that it will depend on “how things evolve”. 

The next General Election must be held by 2025//CNA

North Korea held its second Politburo meeting this week, overseen by leader Kim Jong Un, who said that the outbreak was causing "great turmoil" in the country, KCNA reported. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace) - 

North Korea announced 21 new "fever" deaths on Saturday (May 14) and said more than half a million people had been sickened nationwide, two days after confirming its first cases of COVID-19.

Despite activating its "maximum emergency quarantine system" to slow the spread of disease through its unvaccinated population, North Korea is now reporting tens of thousands of new cases daily.

On Friday alone, "over 174,440 persons had fever, at least 81,430 were fully recovered and 21 died in the country", the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

North Korea confirmed on Thursday that the highly contagious Omicron variant had been detected in the capital Pyongyang, with leader Kim Jong Un ordering nationwide lockdowns.

It was the North's first official admission of COVID-19 cases and marked the failure of a two-year coronavirus blockade maintained at great economic cost since the start of the pandemic.

From late April to May 13, more than 524,440 people have fallen sick with fever, KCNA said, with 27 deaths in total.

The report did not specify whether the new cases and deaths had tested positive for COVID-19, but experts say the country will be struggling to test and diagnose on this scale.

North Korea has said only that one of the first six deaths it announced Friday had tested positive for COVID-19.

"It's not a stretch to consider these 'fever' cases to all be COVID-19, given the North's lack of testing capacity," said Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute.

"The actual number of COVID-19 cases could be higher than the fever figures due to many asymptomatic cases," he said, adding that the pace of infection was growing "very fast".

Kim said the outbreak was causing "great upheaval" in North Korea, as he oversaw a second Politburo meeting in three days to discuss the situation.

Kim is putting himself "front and centre" of the country's COVID-19 response, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

"The language he's used suggests the situation in North Korea is going to get worse before it gets better," he told AFP.

"Engagers see this rhetoric preparing the way for international assistance, but Kim may be rallying a population on the verge of further sacrifice," he added.

The meeting of the nation's top officials discussed medicine distribution and other ways of "minimising the losses in human lives", KCNA said.

North Korea has a crumbling health system - one of the worst in the world - and no COVID-19 vaccines, antiviral treatment drugs or mass testing capacity, experts say.

But the country will "actively learn" from China's pandemic management strategy, Kim said, according to KCNA.

China, the world's only major economy to still maintain a zero-COVID policy, is battling multiple Omicron outbreaks - with some major cities, including financial hub Shanghai, under stay-at-home orders.

North Korea has previously turned down offers of COVID-19 vaccines from China and the World Health Organization's Covax scheme, but both Beijing and Seoul issued fresh offers of aid and vaccines this week.

Kim's comments indicate North Korea "will try getting supplies from China", said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

It also looks likely Pyongyang "will adopt a Chinese-style anti-virus response of regional lockdowns", Yang added.

So far, Kim said Saturday, North Korea's outbreak was not "an uncontrollable spread among regions" but transmission within areas that had been locked down, KCNA said.

Despite its COVID-19 outbreak, new satellite imagery indicates that North Korea has resumed construction at a long-dormant nuclear reactor.

"I can't tell you when the reactor will be ready to go, but it is about 10x larger than the existing reactor at Yongbyon," Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies wrote in a Twitter thread on Saturday.

It would produce 10 times more plutonium for nuclear weapons, he said, adding: "This would make good on Kim's pledge to increase the number of nuclear weapons."

The United States and South Korea have warned that Kim is preparing to conduct another nuclear test - which would be the regime's seventh - and that it could come any day now.

Analysts have warned Kim could speed up his nuclear test plans in a bid to "distract" North Korea's population from a disastrous COVID-19 outbreak//CNA

US Vice President Kamala Harris (center) welcomes Southeast Asian leaders to a lunch at the State Department (Photo: AFP/OLIVIER DOULIERY) - 

Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday (May 13) that the United States was committed to Southeast Asia for the long haul as the region's leaders held a first summit in Washington.

"Our administration recognises the vital strategic importance of your region, a role that will only grow with time," Harris told leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations over a working lunch at the State Department.

"As an Indo-Pacific nation, the United States will be present and continue to be engaged in Southeast Asia for generations to come," she said.

President Joe Biden will address the leaders later Friday after inviting them Thursday night to the White House for a dinner of poached chicken, ravioli and vanilla ice cream.

The Biden administration is hoping to demonstrate a sustained interest in Southeast Asia after months focused on repelling Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Biden took office saying that his top foreign policy priority would be the global competition with China, which has surpassed the United States as Southeast Asia's top trading partner and has been increasingly assertive on territorial disputes in the region.

The Biden administration promised US$150 million in new initiatives during the summit including support for maritime security, with the US Coast Guard to deploy a cutter in Southeast Asia to help fight illegal fishing and other crime.

Biden is expected to announce a broader package, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, when he travels next week to Japan and South Korea.

The Biden administration has made some headway in Southeast Asia in opposing Russia's invasion, with all 10 ASEAN nations either supporting or abstaining in a UN General Assembly vote of condemnation.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, meeting Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said ASEAN's largest nation believed in "respecting territorial integrity and sovereignty of a country to another country".

"Our hope is to see the war in Ukraine stop as soon as possible, and we give the peaceful resolution of a conflict a chance to succeed," she said.

"Because we know that if the war continues, all of us will suffer."

Indonesia is the host of the Group of 20 summit in November and has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite US calls to isolate him, but in a compromise said it would also welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy//CNA