China condemns British warship's 'troublemaking' Taiwan Strait transit

BEIJING, June 20 (Reuters) - China's military on Friday condemned the sailing of a British warship through the Taiwan Strait as a deliberate attempt to "cause trouble", saying it undermined peace and stability in the region.
Britain's Royal Navy said the patrol vessel HMS Spey conducted a routine navigation through the narrow waterway that was part of a long-planned deployment and took place in full compliance with international law.
China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, considers the strait to be Chinese waters. Taiwan, the United States and many of its allies say it is an international waterway.
The Eastern Theatre Command of China's People's Liberation Army said the Wednesday sailing of the ship was "public hyping" and that its forces followed and monitored the Spey.
"The British side's remarks distort legal principles and mislead the public; its actions deliberately cause trouble and disrupt things, undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," it said in a statement.
"Troops in the theatre are on high alert at all times and will resolutely counter all threats and provocations."
Taiwan's government welcomed the sailing.
"The foreign ministry welcomes and affirms the British side once again taking concrete actions to defend the freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait, demonstrating its firm position that the Taiwan Strait is international waters," the ministry said in a statement.
The last time a British warship sailed through the strait was in 2021, when HMS Richmond was deployed in the East China Sea en route to Vietnam. Chinese military followed it at the time and warned it away.
The latest passage comes at a time when Britain and China are seeking to mend their relations, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer expected to visit Beijing later this year - the first trip to the country by a British leader since 2018.
U.S. Navy ships sail through the strait around once every two months, sometimes accompanied by allied nations.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Telegraph

an hour ago

• Telegraph

UK chipmaker considers breakup as it is rocked by Trump's tariff assault

One of Britain's leading microchip businesses is racing to complete a $1bn (£740m) sale as it grapples with the impact of Donald Trump's trade war. Imagination Technologies, which designs graphics processor technology for customers such as Apple, has held sale talks with two US rivals. Bosses of the Chinese-owned company are also considering a potential break-up to get a deal over the line, which could include selling its valuable patent portfolio. It is understood that executives have put a $1bn price tag on Imagination, with bankers from Lazard overseeing the process. In a memo to staff, Ray Bingham, Imagination's chairman, said 'the Galway Project', which refers to the sale talks, 'continues to progress well'. The memo added: 'The second-to-none creativity and expertise of our teams is an incredible asset to capture the unique opportunity created by the current AI revolution.' It comes after the president's trade war with China has rocked the tech industry, including at UK-based Imagination. Pressure has arisen after the US introduced increasingly stringent sanctions on China's chip industry, as Mr Trump seeks to limit China's access to Western technology. This stems from fears that it could be used by Beijing's military. Imagination, which is based in Hertfordshire, was taken private by US-based investor Canyon Bridge in a £550m deal in 2017. However, the business was later engulfed in a political storm after Canyon Bridge's Chinese backers attempted an unsuccessful boardroom coup. This led to the departure of the then-chief executive, Ron Black, who blew the whistle on the Chinese effort to take control of the business. Last year, an employment tribunal ruled Imagination had unfairly sacked Mr Black, who had sued the company for £200m. Damages are yet to be determined. Canyon Bridge has been considering its options for Imagination for several years, at one stage exploring a Chinese float and then a US listing. According to its latest accounts for the year ending December 2023, Imagination's revenues increased by 3.6pc to £124.6m, although its profits plunged by 78pc to £2.6m. At the time, the company warned that 'US and UK export controls' on its Chinese customers had 'stymied top-line revenue growth'. As for its management, staff were told earlier this month that Simon Beresford-Wylie, the current chief executive, is preparing to leave the business. Didier Lamouche, a board member, will lead the business in the interim while it appoints a successor.

Spectator

2 hours ago

• Spectator

Has Ursula von der Leyen seen the light on China?

Coming from an American politician, the accusations would have been unsurprising. Beijing is unwilling to 'live within the constraints of the rules-based international system' and its trade policy is one of 'distortion with intent'. It splashes subsidies with abandon, undercuts intellectual property protections, and as for China's membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), that was probably a mistake too. It is bold of von der Leyen to raise the WTO, and it will be intriguing to see how she is greeted at the EU-China leaders' summit Yet this tirade came not from an acolyte of Donald Trump, but from Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission during this week's summit of G7 countries in Kananaskis, Alberta. 'Donald is right,' she said during a roundtable. Could there have been something in that Rocky Mountain water? Or was this all a devilish ploy to curry favour with Trump and thereby secure a favourable trade deal with the US? After all, it will not have gone unnoticed in Brussels that the US-UK trade pact contained security and other provisions clearly aimed at excluding China from sensitive supply chains and cutting edge tech. But it wasn't only her words. The EU has also scrapped a key economic meeting with Beijing, which was to have been held ahead of an EU-China leaders' summit in the Chinese capital next month, citing a lack of progress on numerous trade disputes. It recently restricted Chinese medical device manufacturers from access to the EU's vast public procurement market, launched an anti-dumping investigation into Chinese tires and wind turbines and refused Beijing's demands to remove tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. The truth is that Brussels has lost patience with China, and the famous EU fudge is (at least for now) being jettisoned for a far more robust approach to what EU officials see as China's serial rule-breaking. Beijing's recent restrictions on the export of critical minerals, which threatened to bring the continent's motor industry to its knees, have been a painful reminder of the EU's dangerous dependencies and Beijing's willingness to weaponise its supply chains. The EU's trade investigations are being carried out under a new Foreign Subsidies Regulation, which unusually for the rather pedestrian EU bureaucracy is fast, focused and – so far – exceedingly effective. If a foreign-owned company bidding for a contract or involved in a takeover is suspected of unfair subsidies, the EU can demand detailed business information. Last year, the Dutch and Polish offices of Nuctech, a Chinese security equipment company, were raided by EU competition regulators, acting under the new powers. A Chinese railway equipment manufacturer pulled out of bidding for a large contract in Bulgaria, preferring not to hand over data that would almost certainly have revealed wads of subsidies. In spite of these growing tensions, Beijing believed it could use Trump's tariff war to prize away Brussels from Washington – a long-standing goal of Chinese policy. To this end, in late April it announced it was lifting sanctions it had imposed on members of the European Parliament in retaliation for EU sanctions on Chinese entities accused of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. President Xi Jinping also launched a charm offensive, calling for unity in the face of coercion and presenting himself as an upholder of free trade. This has backfired, being seen widely in Brussels as laughable hypocrisy. Looming large over EU relations with China is Beijing's support for Vladmir Putin, which is felt much more profoundly in European capitals than in Washington. But Brussels has also been willing to call out China on a range of security issues. These include the blacklisting of Huawei lobbyists earlier this year following allegations of bribery linked to the tech company's activities in Brussels. Germany has accused China of being behind a cyberattack on the federal cartography agency for espionage purposes, and the Belgian intelligence agencies have investigated Alibaba for 'possible spying and/or interference activities' at the cargo airport in Liège. It should not be forgotten that the term 'de-risking' in relation to China was first popularised by von der Leyen. She introduced it in a March 2023 speech to the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies. She said it meant being clear-eyed about China's growing economic and security ambitions. 'It also means taking a critical look at our own resilience and dependencies,' she said. 'De-risking' was soon adopted in other Western capitals, replacing the more clunky 'decoupling'. De-risking sounded more nuanced – a more orderly form of decoupling. It was vague, slightly murky, and open to interpretation. But therein lay its strength. It could be dialled up or down according to the circumstances, a flexible tool, with which few could disagree. It seemed like plain common-sense, which is probably why it so irked Beijing. 'It is just another word game. It will not change the 'ostrich mentality' of some countries to escape from the real world,' snarled the Global Times, a state-owned tabloid, at the time. When von der Leyen travelled to Beijing with French President Emmanuel Macron a week after her speech, Macron was given the red carpet treatment while the EC president was largely cold-shouldered in what was interpreted as a calculated snub. During this week's G7 meeting, von der Leyen said: 'We strongly feel that the biggest challenges are not the trade between G7 partners. Rather, the sources of the biggest collective problem we have has its origins in the accession of China to the WTO in 2001'. China's membership of the WTO is widely seen as a high point of western delusion about China. Beijing promised to improve the rule of law, to protect intellectual property rights, cut import tariffs, give greater access to its market, liberalise controls on its exchange rate, scrap trade barriers and much more. Few of these ever happened, or where one barrier was removed, another was erected. China has clung to the privileges of a 'developing' country. It has never provided a level playing field for foreign companies but was able to flood the world with its own cheap exports, while western companies flocked to outsource production and supply chains to Chinese factories, hollowing out manufacturing throughout the West. This led inextricably to the dependencies the West is decades later trying to unwind and has fuelled populist anger in developed economies. It is bold of von der Leyen to raise the WTO, and it will be intriguing to see how she is greeted at the EU-China leaders' summit, tentatively set for late next month to mark 50 years of bilateral relations. Few will be in celebratory mood, and Xi will probably concentrate on individual European leaders, believing he has greater influence with them than with the European Commission president. His main miscalculation has been to believe he can leverage the distrust of Trump to China's advantage, because while it is true that Trump is haemorrhaging trust, the grim truth for Xi is that Beijing never enjoyed much trust in the first place.

Reuters

2 hours ago

• Reuters

EU bars Chinese firms from most medical device tenders

BRUSSELS, June 20 (Reuters) - The European Union will bar Chinese companies from participating in EU public tenders for medical devices worth 60 billion euros or more ($68.9 billion) per year after concluding that EU companies are not given fair access in China. The measure announced by the European Commission on Friday is the first under the EU's International Procurement Instrument, which entered into force in 2022 and is designed to ensure reciprocal market access. The new restrictions are likely to increase tensions with Beijing inflamed by EU tariffs on China-built electric vehicles, Chinese measures against EU brandy and curbs on exports of rare earths that the EU wants resolved by an EU-China summit in July. The Commission said on Friday that it would exclude Chinese companies from EU government purchases above five million euros. An EU official said, guided by figures of Medtech Europe, the EU medical technology market was worth some 150 billion euros in 2023, with public procurement accounting for a 70% share. Contracts of over 5 million euros were only 4% of tenders, but made up some 60% by value, the official said. Successful bids will have to ensure they include no more than 50% of medical devices from China. If there are no alternative suppliers, the exclusion will not apply. EU members backed the plan earlier this month. The Commission has previously said it found "clear evidence" that China favoured Chinese devices for hospitals and its tender conditions led to abnormally low bids that profit-oriented companies could not offer. A Commission official said the ban would cover medical equipment including imaging equipment, artificial body parts and medical clothing. China's commerce ministry has previously described the proposed EU measures as "protectionist", urging the EU to be fair and transparent and for both sides to resolve differences through cooperation and dialogue. The Commission said China had not proposed any corrective action to remedy the situation, but an agreement was still possible. ($1 = 0.8708 euros)