Weeks after Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House, made a contentious visit to Taiwan, the US has stated that formal trade talks will soon begin with Taipei.
The Office of US trade representative said that the first round of bilateral talks would start in "early September."
On Indonesia's Sumatra island, annual combined military drills between the US and Indonesian forces picked up steam on Wednesday. For the first time, soldiers from other alliance countries took part, a demonstration of strengthened ties despite rising Chinese maritime activities in the Indo-Pacific.
Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has clarified that the Padma Bridge multipurpose road-rail bridge across the Padma River, the main distributary of the Ganges is not part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), putting rest to speculations on Beijing’s presence in the Indian neighbourhood.
Israel investigation officials have initiated a probe after it was claimed that gifts given by the Chinese embassy in Israel to an Israeli minister and government officials were planted with listening devices, local Israeli media reported.
The incident was first reported on Tuesday morning by Army Radio's diplomatic correspondent Moriah Asraf-Walberg, claiming that the mugs gifted by the Chinese embassy appeared to be planted.
According to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, quoting diplomatic officials, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) have started their investigation.
A week ago, Taiwan said it would not participate in the opening ceremony of the Winter Games in Beijing. Then the island democracy reversed its decision, citing pressure from the International Olympic Committee.
In at first declining, Taiwanese officials had pointed to inconvenient flight schedules and pandemic restrictions. But they are also engaged in a political rivalry with Beijing over the Olympics, embodied in one persistent issue: the name of Taiwan’s delegation.