China’s Defense Ministry on Monday (September 9, 2024) announced joint naval and air drills with Russia starting this month, underscoring the closeness between their militaries as Russia presses its grinding invasion of Ukraine.

The ministry said the “Northern United-2024” exercises would take place in the Sea of Japan and the Sea of ​​Okhotsk farther north, but gave no details.

It said the naval and air drills aimed to improve strategic cooperation between the two countries and “strengthen their ability to jointly deal with security threats.”

The notice also said the two navies would cruise together in the Pacific, the fifth time they have done so, and together take part in Russia’s “Great Ocean-24” exercise. No details were given.

China has refused to criticize Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year, and blamed the U.S. and NATO for provoking President Vladimir Putin.

While China has not directly provided Russia with arms, it has become a crucial economic lifeline as a top customer for Russian oil and gas as well as a supplier of electronics and other items with both civilian and military uses.

Russia and China, along with other U.S. critics such as Iran, have aligned their foreign policies to challenge and potentially overturn the Western-led liberal democratic order. With joint exercises, Russia has sought Chinese help in achieving its long-cherished aim of becoming a Pacific power, while Moscow has backed China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

That has increasingly included the 180-kilometer (110-mile) wide Taiwan Strait that divides mainland China from the self-governing island democracy that Beijing considers its own territory and threatens to invade.

Based on that claim, the Taiwan Strait is Chinese. Though it is not opposed to navigation by others through one of the world’s most heavily trafficked seaways, China is “firmly opposed to provocations by countries that jeopardize China’s sovereignty and security under the banner of freedom of navigation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing on Friday (September 6, 2024).

Mr. Mao was responding to a report that a pair of German navy ships were to pass through the strait this month for the first time in more than two decades. The U.S. and virtually every other country, along with Taiwan, considers the strait international waters.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. File
| Photo Credit: AP

“China firmly opposes any country allowing the Dalai Lama to make visits under any pretext,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday (August 22, 2024.)

Senior officials from the U.S. State Department and the White House met with the Dalai Lama in New York on Wednesday (August 21, 2024) and “reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to advancing the human rights of Tibetans,” the State Department said.

The meeting with the 89-year-old exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism was expected to roil China, which considers him a dangerous separatist and opposes contact with him by officials of any country.

“China has made solemn protests with the U.S.”, said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning at a regular press briefing. “We don’t allow the Dalai Lama to engage in political separatist activities in the U.S.”

Last month, China expressed strong opposition to a U.S. law signed by President Joe Biden that presses Beijing to resolve a dispute over Tibet’s demands for greater autonomy, and vowed to “firmly defend” its interests.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the “appointment of a so-called special coordinator of Tibetan issues constitutes interference in internal affairs.”

Wang Wenbin. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

Sri Lanka on October 11 welcomed China’s tentative agreement to a debt restructure, as the island nation works to restore its ruined finances after suffering its worst-ever economic crisis.

The government defaulted on its $46 billion debt last year at a time when months of food and fuel shortages were making life a misery for Sri Lanka’s 22 million people.

Beijing is the island’s largest bilateral lender and its consent is needed for any proposal by Colombo to reorganise its finances.

Deputy Finance Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya said approval had now been granted by the state-owned Export-Import Bank of China, its official creditor. “China has issued their primary consent to restructure our debt,” he said in a statement.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday that the bank had “tentatively agreed” with Sri Lanka on its debt treatment in late September.

“We are also glad to see that other creditors are having discussions with Sri Lanka as well over solutions to its debt issue,” he added. Neither party shared further details of the agreement.

China holds about 52% of the South Asian nation’s bilateral credit, with Japan and India the next-biggest lenders. Beijing had in March given in-principle agreement to a restructure of its loans to Sri Lanka, the final major creditor to do so.

That decision cleared the way for a staged $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout, conditional on austerity measures such as tax hikes and cuts to generous public subsidies.

But a second tranche of $330 million was delayed last month, with the IMF saying it was still reviewing “financing assurances” from creditors on the detailed debt restructure plan Colombo proposed in June.

Sri Lanka’s central bank governor Nandalal Weerasinghe is this week in Morocco for a meeting with creditor nations and the IMF that does not include China.

“The IMF’s Sri Lanka mission chief Peter Breuer said the lender had “not yet been informed about any specific agreements” with creditors,” Bloomberg reported.

At the peak of last year’s crisis, months of civil unrest forced the ouster of then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa when protesters stormed his residence.