In a major policy speech on Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the world will not allow China to treat the strategically important South China Sea (SCS) as its 'maritime empire' and vowed to support worried Southeast Asian countries against Beijing's 'campaign of bullying' to control the resource-rich region.
Jack Ma, China's billionaire and founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, has travelled to Europe for an agriculture study tour, his first trip abroad since he ran into trouble with the Chinese government last year over violating anti-monopoly regulations.
The Chinese military, on the last day of its largest-ever military exercises to vent out its anger over United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, carried out island saturation attack drills in the Taiwan Straits, amid global concerns of a full-scale attack to annex the breakaway island which Beijing claims is part of its territory.
"We have made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterised as a pandemic," WHO DG Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "WHO's mandate is public health. But we are working with many partners across all sectors to mitigate the social and economic consequences of this COVID-19 pandemic," he added.
A few days back, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged the start-up community and public to deal in cryptocurrency with caution because everything that was floating around was not currency. In the first week of August, the country's top nine crypto exchange platforms were summoned by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in Hyderabad. The exchanges were questioned for money laundering, especially over a number of Indian non-banking financial companies and their fintech partners for predatory lending practices in violation of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines and by using tele-callers who misuse personal data and use abusive language to extort high interest rates from the loan takers.
Maritime resources will be key to sustained growth and development of nations across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) in the ongoing century, he said delivering his keynote address at the IOR Defence Ministers' Conclave held on the margins of Aero India-2021, India's premier defence and aerospace show.
The Indian and Chinese armies have been locked in a bitter standoff at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh for over eight weeks since May 5.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said that during his recent visit to India, he "keenly felt" that both sides had agreed to adhere to the leaders' consensus that the two countries are not a threat to each other and handle and manage their differences.
There is no official announcement yet on the fate of the 123 passengers and nine crew members as hopes receded about finding any survivors, considering that the plane crashed and exploded in a mountainous area.
The "bumper" 40 per cent increase followed a number of sweeping reforms intended to transform the "bloated People's Liberation Army, into a more modern, nimble fighting force".
Taking a dig at China, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said 'some irresponsible nations' with their narrow partisan interests and hegemonic tendencies are coming up with wrong definitions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
'The Chinese are retaining geostrategic pressure on India by keeping troops there and building infrastructure continually.'
More than India's alignment with the Quad, India's defence cooperation and partnership with the USA is of critical importance, notes Rup Narayan Das.
India, Australia, Japan and the US on Friday pledged to work together for ensuring peace and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific and the world, as top leaders of the Quad grouping announced a slew of new initiatives to take on common challenges, amidst muscle flexing by an assertive China in the strategic region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday described India and America as "natural partners" as he held the first in-person meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House during which they decided to further cement the Indo-US strategic partnership and discussed global issues of common interest, including threats to democracy and the Indo-Pacific.
The heightened state of alert was only relaxed after Wang met his Jaishankar in Moscow on Friday on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, a second source said.
The plane crashed in the city of Wuzhou, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region of China, causing a forest fire, Sputnik reported citing China Central Television (CCTV).
If the initial analysis of this YJ-21 is correct, then China becomes the first country in the world to operationally field such a missile from a naval vessel.
Bolton said that the arguments for China joining the World Trade Organisation was that it would become a more market-oriented rules-based society.
'Once positions are hardened and troops start building defences, it is difficult for soldiers to step back.'
The Chinese navy's growing aggression in the Western Pacific is bringing together a range of allies.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that he had a productive meeting with visiting External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar during which they discussed the bilateral ties, COVID-19 relief efforts, India-China border situation and Afghanistan and vowed to work together to address areas of shared concern.
The US said it has strong evidence that China has deployed anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missile systems and electronic jammers to contested features in the Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea.
The government has adopted a multi-pronged approach involving the Army, the Indian Air Force and the Navy as well as diplomacy and economic measures to send out a firm and clear message to China that its misadventure in eastern Ladakh was not acceptable at all.
It is the first-ever visit by a head of the Indian Army to South Korea.
"Most worrisome are China's technological advances in the spheres of cyber and space domain, which often transcend beyond the military, to include critical national infrastructure as well," General Bipin Rawat said at the three-day Indian Air Force Conclave.
'Sullivan and Jaishankar welcomed the cooperation in recent weeks that resulted in deliveries of over USD 500 million in COVID-19 relief supplies from the US federal and state governments, US companies and private citizens across America for the people of India'
China hiked its annual defence budget by 7.1 per cent.
In a boost for the country's surveillance capabilities to monitor activities of both military warships and merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the 'Sindhu Netra' satellite developed by a team of young scientists from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was successfully deployed in space on Sunday.
A naval formation consisting of aircraft carrier Liaoning has conducted take-off and landing drills in the South China Sea.
Quad leaders are also planning to roll out vaccine deliverables and announce a series of measures in the field of healthcare and infrastructure sector, officials in Washington, DC said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison in Washington, DC, ahead of the first in-person Quad meeting to be hosted by US President Joe Biden and discussed a broad range of issues of bilateral, regional and global importance, including the Indo-Pacific.
London hopes to convince New Delhi's naval planners to power India's second indigenous aircraft carrier with the Queen Elizabeth's integrated all-electric propulsion system.
The Chinese coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific, it said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official asserted that US President Donald Trump, during his presidency, has really strengthened all aspects of the US-India security and defence cooperation to build a comprehensive, enduring and mutually beneficial defence partnership.
India will be the most consequential partner for the US in the Indo-Pacific this century, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday ahead of the 2+2 ministerial dialogue between the two countries next week. Esper on Tuesday told a Washington audience that he and the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be travelling to New Delhi next week for the 2+2 ministerial with their respective Indian counterparts Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
A state-run Chinese newspaper on Wednesdy included India among the nations which supported China's stand on the strategic South China Sea after Beijing rejected the verdict of a United Nations-backed tribunal that struck down the Communist giant's claims of "historical rights" in the disputed area.
'Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC),' said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The agreement would divert China's attention and keep them busy in the Pacific theatre, probably resulting in a reduction in threat perception in our area of interest in the Indian Ocean, notes Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Future conflict will involve bypassing of frontiers to strike at critical vulnerabilities directly and in the hinterland at the appropriate time, explains Lieutenant General Anil Chait (retd), who served as chief of the Integrated Defence Staff and Central Army Commander.
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