China

Has Xi Jinping fought off another coup?

According to unconfirmed reports, General Zhang Youxia, China’s vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), sent a company of troops (over a hundred or more) to the government’s Yingxi Hotel in western Beijing on 18 January. Their mission was to arrest Xi Jinping. A few hours before, the Chinese president – alerted by an informant – set in motion countermeasures. Troops under the command of Cao Qi, head of Xi’s Central Guards Bureau, ambushed Zhang’s soldiers. In the ensuing gunfight at Yangxi Hotel, nine guards were reportedly killed along with dozens of Zhang Youxia’s soldiers. Throughout China, military movements have been banned and troops and officers have been confined to

Ian Williams

Inside the Cambodian cybercrime compounds run by Chinese gangs

The scrappy Cambodian border town of Poipet, long associated with vice and criminality, was shaken shortly before Christmas by the sound of F-16 fighter jets screaming overhead. The Thai Royal Air Force was, astonishingly, bombing a series of casinos. At least five fortified compounds were damaged, which were part of a vast industry that has conned millions of people across the world out of billions of dollars. This was “a war against the scam army,” Thailand’s army said. Scamming is a mainstay of Cambodia’s economy. The country earns an estimated $12 billion annually from online scamming alone, around half the value of its formal economy. Poipet is just one small

Klaus Dodds

Trump is playing geopolitical Monopoly with Greenland

Donald Trump is playing hemispheric monopoly. Depending on what day of the week it is, the President’s focus alternates between Venezuela, Canada, the Panama canal – and for the last twelve months or so, Greenland. Given what Trump and his team have said over the past week, their acquisition plans for the island are well advanced. But why exactly does he want Greenland? The world’s largest island is an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark and is about three times larger than Texas. While the term du jour is geopolitics, perhaps the most plausible reason for why Trump is gunning for Greenland is ego-politics. We have a president eager

Juan P. Villasmil

China has quietly taken over America’s food supply

The CCP is eating our farmland for breakfast

Tuesday

November 14, 2023

Patrick Gibbons

Is South Korea bracing for a third Trump-Kim summit?

Donald Trump’s meeting with President Xi was the standout moment of this month’s Asia-Pacific leaders’ summit in South Korea. Yet almost as much attention focused on the rumors that Trump’s gaze had turned once again to North Korea. Addressing suggestions he would meet Kim, the President told reporters, “I’d be open 100 percent. I get along very well with Kim Jong-un.” A meeting never materialized, but speculation – and tension – has only grown since. Days after Trump’s departure, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrived as part of his own tour of Asia. In Seoul, he became the first defence secretary in nearly eight years to visit Panmunjeom, the border village