Connect with us

World News

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to meet Monday to handle rivalry responsibly

Published

on

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Steph Deschamps / November 11, 2022

U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with his counterpart Xi Jinping on Nov. 14 in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the G20 summit, the White House announced Thursday, at a time of high tension between the two superpowers.
 
The two leaders, whose first meeting in the flesh since the election of Joe Biden, will discuss how to “responsibly manage” the rivalry between China and the United States while trying to “work together where our interests are aligned,” said in a statement the White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, echoing the formulas usually used by the Americans.
 
Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, who have already spoken several times by phone and video conference, will also discuss a series of “international and regional” topics, she said, but without explicitly mentioning the fate of Taiwan, which concentrates all the tensions.
 
What I want to do with him, when we talk, is to determine the type of red lines” that we must respect, said Wednesday the Democratic leader at a press conference in Washington.
 
“The doctrine on Taiwan has not changed at all,” Biden repeated, avoiding rephrasing previous comments that had angered Beijing, according to which the U.S. military would defend Taiwan if the island was attacked.
 
Xi Jinping won a third term at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress last month, reinforcing his status as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Tse-tung. This has raised fears in Taiwan, but also in Washington, that China is redoubling its efforts to achieve reunification with the island.
 
Joe Biden frequently emphasizes his long-standing relationship with the Chinese leader, which began when he was still Barack Obama’s vice president.
 
Their last conversation dates back to the end of July and the White House teams had been working for weeks to organize a face-to-face meeting in Bali.
 
Since then, the tension between Washington and Beijing has hardly subsided, on the contrary.
 
It concerns Taiwan, but also the positioning of each power in relation to Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as their technological and commercial rivalry, at a time when the Americans are trying to revive their own high-tech industry to reduce their dependence on China.

World News

China sends its first civilian astronaut into space

Published

on

China sends its first civilian astronaut into space, Magnate Daily
Reading Time: < 1 minutes

Eva Deschamps / June 1, 2023

The three astronauts’ stay is scheduled to last six months, and marks a new stage in the progress of Beijing’s space program.
 
On Tuesday May 30, China sent three new astronauts to its Tiangong space station, including for the first time a civilian. This is a valuable experience for the Asian giant, which has reaffirmed its desire to send a Chinese astronaut to the Moon by 2030, a major objective of a space program that has been progressing steadily for several decades.
 
The trio on the Shenzhou-16 mission lifted off aboard a Long March 2F rocket at 9:31 a.m. local time from the Jiuquan launch center in the Gobi Desert, according to AFP reporters on site. The launch was a “total success” and the “astronauts are in good shape”, said Zou Lipeng, director of the launch center.
 
Mission commander, veteran engineer Jing Haipeng, on his fourth space flight, is accompanied by engineer Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao, a professor and the first Chinese civilian in space. A specialist in space science and engineering, Haichao will be in charge of experiments on the station. He does not come from the armed forces, as has always been the case until now. Their stay in Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace” in Chinese) is scheduled to last six months.
Continue Reading

World News

The big announcement tonight: North Korea confirms launch of military spy satellite in June

Published

on

The big announcement tonight: North Korea confirms launch of military spy satellite in June, Magnate Daily
Reading Time: < 1 minutes

Sylvie Claire /  June 1, 2023

North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it will launch a military spy satellite in June, in order to “confront dangerous US military actions”, according to the official KCNA agency.
The “military reconnaissance satellite number 1” will be “launched in June”, in order to “confront the dangerous military actions of the United States and its vassals”, according to Ri Pyong Chol, vice-chairman of the ruling party’s Central Military Commission, quoted by KCNA.
On Monday, Japan announced that it had been informed by North Korea of a forthcoming satellite launch, a project which the Japanese government believed to conceal a ballistic missile launch.
According to Tokyo, Pyongyang has told the Japanese coastguard that a rocket will be launched between May 31 and June 11, and is expected to land in an area near the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and east of Luzon Island in the Philippines.
North Korea has already tested ballistic missiles in 2012 and 2016, which it described as satellite launches and which flew over the island department of Okinawa in southern Japan.
The development of a reconnaissance satellite was one of Pyongyang’s key defense projects unveiled last year by Kim Jong Un.
Continue Reading

World News

China to send its first civilian into space on Tuesday

Published

on

China to send its first civilian into space on Tuesday, Magnate Daily
Reading Time: < 1 minutes

Steph Deschamps / June 1, 2023

On Tuesday, China will send a civilian astronaut into space for the first time in its history on a manned mission to the Tiangong space station, the China Human Spaceflight Agency announced.

 

This astronaut, Gui Haichao, a “payload specialist”, is “a professor at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics”, Lin Xiqiang, spokesman for the space agency, told a press conference on Monday.

Advertisement

 

Until now, all Chinese astronauts who have launched into space have been members of the People’s Liberation Army.

 

Mr. Gui will be “mainly responsible for in-orbit management of payloads” dedicated to space science experiments, the spokesman said.

Advertisement

 

The civilian astronaut will orbit alongside Shenzhou-16 mission commander Jing Haipeng and astronaut Zhu Yangzhu.

 

The crew is due to take off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwest China at 09:31 local time, according to the space agency.

Advertisement

 

Projects linked to China’s “space dream” are multiplying under the presidency of Xi Jinping.

 

The Asian giant has been investing billions of euros in its military-led space program for several decades, enabling it to make up most of the ground lost to the Americans and Russians.

Advertisement

 

China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, and its Tiangong (“Celestial Palace”) space station has been fully operational since late 2022. In 2019, a Chinese spacecraft landed on the far side of the Moon. Then, in 2021, China landed a small robot on the surface of Mars. China plans to send its first crew to the Moon by 2029.

Continue Reading

Trending