DefenceTalkGrowing political and military cooperation between Russia and China poses “new dangers” for NATO and threatens multilateralism, the head of the military alliance said in an interview published Tuesday. “The rules-based order, the basis of multilateralism, is under threat,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper. “Russia and China have been cooperating […]

DefenceTalkThe US Air Force’s Pacific commander condemned Chinese military flights off Malaysia and Taiwan, describing them on Friday as “escalatory” and “destabilising.” This week, 16 Chinese military aircraft flew over hotly contested waters off of Borneo prompting Malaysia’s air force to scramble its jets. General Kenneth Wilsbach said these activities and an increased number of […]

DefenceTalkChina said Wednesday a flight by 16 military aircraft over hotly contested waters off Malaysia was routine training, after the Southeast Asian nation accused Beijing of breaching its sovereignty. Malaysia scrambled fighter jets Monday to intercept the Chinese air force transport planes that appeared off Borneo over the South China Sea, where it has overlapping […]

DefenceTalkChina on Thursday suspended an economic agreement with Australia, worsening an already-troubled relationship fractured by spats over the Covid-19 pandemic and human rights abuses. Tensions between the two sides have have soared after Canberra called for an independent probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and banned telecoms giant Huawei from building Australia’s 5G […]

DefenceTalkUS President Joe Biden is expected to announce his strategy toward China soon, and calls are growing for him to make a clear public commitment to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of Chinese aggression. China considers Taiwan, which has a population of 23 million, to be a rebel province that will one day return […]

DefenceTalkThe United States on Wednesday warned China against what the Philippines and Taiwan see as increasingly aggressive moves, reminding Beijing of Washington’s obligations to its partners. “An armed attack against the Philippines’ armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea, will trigger our obligations under the US-Philippines Mutual […]

DefenceTalkTaiwan blasted China’s fighter jet incursions as “self-defeating” on Wednesday as 15 more of Beijing’s planes crossed into the island’s air defence zone. Taipei’s defence ministry said it scrambled aircraft to broadcast warning messages to the latest incursion, which included 12 Chinese fighters. China has ramped up the use of such drills to record levels […]

DefenceTalkChinese authorities on Thursday said they had summoned 11 tech companies including Tencent, Alibaba and TikTok owner ByteDance for talks on “deep fakes” and internet security, as regulators try to reel in the country’s runaway digital sector. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said talks concerned “voice software that has yet to undergo safety assessment […]

DefenceTalkChina’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it would not make concessions to the US on key issues including Xinjiang and Hong Kong, ahead of high-level meetings between the two countries’ diplomats in Alaska. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan are set for talks with senior Chinese official Yang […]

DefenceTalkUS regulators on Friday listed Huawei among Chinese telecom gear firms deemed a threat to national security, signaling that a hoped for softening of relations is not in the cards. A roster of communications companies thought to pose “an unacceptable risk” to national security included Huawei Technologies; ZTE; Hytera Communications; Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, and […]