Blinken Visits Asia Amid Growing Tensions With China | China In Focus

America's top Diplomat dashing around Asia to tackle hot issues in the region and sharing an important message from his travels even as we are intensely focused on the crisis in Gaza uh we're also very much uh engaged in focused on the important work that we're doing in the indopacific how strong is the China threat that's unnerving us allies there a reply from the state department NTD White House correspondent Iris asked about China's effort to block an American company from performing in South Korea and a tug-of war between world powers all about ports in South Asia sitting on crucial trade routes that Supply the world's oil a congressional investigation are American retirement funds helping a top adversary what do you think let us know below and subscribe if you haven't already welcome to China in Focus I'm Don ma in for Tiffany Meyer today the US grappling with one Global challenge after another America's top Diplomat Anthony blinkin arriving in South Korea on Wednesday he slated to talk to his counterpart about North Korea's close military ties with Russia that's not the only issue that needs to be dealt with though linkoln was in Tokyo on Tuesday meeting with foreign Ministers of the G7 world's seven largest advanced economies solid Unity between Japan and the US is especially critical at this time the group talked about a wide range of issues from Israel Hamas War to Russia's invasion of Ukraine to China we'll continue to Der risk our economies to strengthen our resilience to push back on economic coercion we'll also continue to stand up to China over its actions in the South and East China seas in the East China Sea an increasingly aggressive Beijing is unnerving two US treaty allies Japan and South Korea the Communist Regime is on its way to build a worldclass military by 2049 and Japan may be nervous about it it released a defense white paper saying China is Japan's quote greatest strategic challenge adding China Russia and North Korea have become the most complex Security in environment since World War II Japan is also shooting for a 133% increase in its defense budget next year over $ 53 billion Chinese and Japanese Coast Guard ships also faced off near disputed Islands this year China and Russia's military jets also entered South Korea's air defense identification Zone South Korea scrambled its own fighter jets in response blink's Asia trip comes on the heels of his visit to the Middle East the top Diplomat sending out one message despite the hot war in the Middle East the threat in Asia is not being forgotten I think that's uh evidence of the fact that even as we are intensely focused on the crisis in Gaza uh we're also very much uh engaged and focused on the important work that we're doing in the Indo Pacific Lincoln's next STP is India he set to join the defense dialogue there with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the state department briefing on Tuesday ntid White House correspondent Iris ta asked about China's economic corion towards South Korea in particular ongoing efforts by the Chinese Embassy in South Korea to block American Performing Arts companies Shin Yun from performing in the country here's what happened the classical Chinese dance show which is widely popular around the world is banned in China due to its portra of some human rights persecutions in mainland China and the state department told me that they continue to be concerned about such practices by Beijing to use this economic leverage to try to pressure our Democratic allies watch does it remain a concern by the state department that in such incidents like this China's it's using its economic pressure to influence the freedom of expression in an ally country of course continues to remain of concern uh the PRC has a very clear track record of using um economic coercion otherwise in a uh in a in a wide array of countries this is of course something that we're going to continue to address meanwhile President Biden is set to meet with China shiin ping next week during the Apex Summit in San Francisco of course remains to be seen how issues such as human right abuses by China as well as China's increasingly aggressive actions toward other countries including Espionage activities here in the US will be discussed shenyun Performing Arts is based in New York according to its mission statement the performance showcases Chinese culture before communism ntid investigation revealed that the Chinese Embassy in South Korea had pressured theaters there to keep shenyun from appearing in the country while blinkin is meeting with China's neighbors the Chinese Communist party has been busy ramping up its military ties with Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting a top Chinese General Wednesday Putin said modern weapons will ensure the security of both Russia and China but he added they do not intend to build a cold war style military Alliance the Russian defense minister also met with the Chinese General that's the second meeting between the two in just 10 days American investments into green energy could be turning red Congress is now investigating whether us Pension funds are being used to fund the Chinese Communist Party entity's Aran Pasdar has the highlights from a recent hearing about ESG funds the goal of ESG is not better financial performance it is to force compliance to one view the house Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday investigating retirement plans being invested into ESG funds ESG stands for environmental social and governance in the past pension managers had to aim for maximum profit over everything else however in 20122 the Biden Administration changed the rules saying they may consider climate change and other environment social and governance factors in selecting retirement Investments numbers now show such Investments do bring less returns they could have had 11 1 12% return but they've only had a 42% return that's not keeping Pace with inflation this witness Jay n former Texas State representative and director of Life powered says such Investments do more damage besides hurting returns now Isaac says ESG funds directly play into the hands of the Chinese Communist party going as far as to call it the China ESG agenda he says that as soon as rules changed in 2022 asset managers pulled their money out of American energy production and they now use those same funds to instead invest in energy production in China and Isaac explains the consequences of that take a look and we're seeing dollars flow into Iran from China to the tune of 50 to 80 billion dollar because of the ESG agenda and guess who's going to be refine buying the refined product s that China is producing because they've expanded their refining capacity the United States will be buying jet fuel Diesel and home heating oil made from Iranian oil that is funding this war on terror Republican Congress woman Claudia Tenny asked another one of the witnesses what people can do to counter the ESG Trend each of us as consumers need to have our voices heard when we see companies politicizing their business like we saw with budlight and Target that we don't patronize those businesses Democrats at the hearing often criticized Republicans for what they called wasting time on a hearing about ESG they said there are more important topics to be discussed right now such as funding the government for example Aran pastar NTD news between the US and China and it all ties back to a sea port in Sri Lanka with a significant geopolitical significance the US announced over 550 50 million in financing on Wednesday for a ports terminal in the Asian country that's as Washington looks to curb beijing's influence in the region the investment is made by the US International Development Finance Corp a government agency the project aims to transform the deep water Port of Columbo into a worldclass logistics Hub that's really the the uh priority of President Biden through his partnership for uh Global infrastructural infrastructure and investment uh to have high quality high standard uh projects that respect local laws and conditions that are transparent uh that don't burden uh countries with debt at a sovereign level but instead help Finance the private sector the announcement comes as Sri Lanka struggles to recover from a dire financial and economic crisis China is the country's largest bilateral creditor having lent out more than7 billion dollar in loans Sri Lanka is a key player of beijing's belt and Road initiative an infrastructure Outreach scheme that the US has criticized as debt trap diplomacy through this project Beijing also took hold of another port in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka borrowed money from China to build the port but was later unable to pay back its debt in exchange Sri Lanka leased the port to China in 2017 China has used its um economy and its worldwide presence diplomatic presence to be begin to reshape the world in its own image Sri Lanka's location makes it a prime target of the push pole for influence between world powers the island sits halfway between several trade routes responsible for bringing oil from the Middle East to areas around the world including China President Biden is slated to meet Chinese leader xingping next week the talks are expected to become the highlight of a global Summit in California hosted by the asia-pacific economic cooperation or Apec the organization's members represent 60% of global economic power thousands of world leaders and CEOs will attend the conference here's ntid's David Zang with more on what to expect 20,000 attendees representing 21 member economies will be in the city of San Francisco but what are the highlights other than heightened security massive road closures and protests I think it's particularly significant this year because with the tension between the United States and China the opportunity to have President XI meet with President Biden is a very important one the White House announced last week that US President Biden will meet with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping making the first time the two leaders will speak in person since a year ago chairmanship is facing a lot of pressure of down downturn economy in China he want American Business to uh to go to China to make more investment and he also want Americans to buy more products from China uh so that's why he's coming both sides have been showing signs of easing up the tensions as I've said since the beginning of my Administration we seek competition not conflict with China we're not looking for a new Cold War treasury secretary Janet yelen is also scheduled to host Chinese Vice Premier KH fun for two days for talks in San Francisco before the start of Apex Summit this all comes on the heels of California governor news's recent week-long visit to China a meeting with the Chinese president she the key discussions of this year's Summit will center around trade technology transfer and economic development the United States is very concerned about technology transfer to China the United States has been very aggressive in pushing restrictions on semiconductors and that's been a very important issue for us because we're very concerned about the transfer of technology to China potentially for defense purposes but others are skeptical of China's position and economic sector more than 90% of of Americans have negative opinions about China so I don't think she is going to be very successful to attract a lot of Investments to China while APAC is intended to be an economic Forum political topics do come up during discussions among world leaders especially when International tensions Run High with the current Russia Ukraine war and conflict in the Middle East meanwhile San Francisco is aggressively clearing homeless encampments increasing drug rated arrests to improve the city's image as delegations arrive Germany is giving the green light of support for taiwan's top semiconductor maker the country's top competition regulator just approved investments from three German companies in a new semiconductor plant based in the German city of dresen the project has been dubbed the European semiconductor manufacturing company or esmc founded by Taiwanese chipmaker tsmc Bosch Infineon and nxp will each purchase a 10% stake in the plant with tsmc holding the remaining 70% and operating the plant it's a Taiwanese company's first facility in Europe and one of just a handful outside of Taiwan and China Berlin has been aiming to promote its domestic chip industry with which its automakers relying on the announcement comes alongside a survey from the German chamber of industry and commerce it notes that of the 3600 German companies pulled many are planning to invest more in North America North Africa the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region excluding China and Taiwan the caution toward the two comes amid growing tensions between Beijing and the west and that's all for today's China and focus on YouTube we're now sharing a shorten ver version of our program here after being demonetized for more than 2 years last month YouTube removed our de demonetization status but it reimposed it within days if you would like to support us subscribe to our partner platform Epoch TV or consider donating find us at donorbox.org chin in-focus here's what to look out for in our second half Beijing has loaned out over a trillion dollars to developing countries as part of the belt and Road initiative has the Outreach paid off for China and its economy or is the end near for beijing's top infrastructure project we sat down with China economic analyst Antonio grao for his Insight thanks for watching China in Focus I'm Don ma see you soon