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Japan sanctions Chinese firms to pressure North Korea
Jul 28, 2017 | AFP (In Straits Times)
Japan on Friday (July 28) slapped sanctions on two Chinese firms, including a bank accused of laundering North Korean cash, amid concerns Pyongyang is prepping for another missile test, the government said. -
What if Trump Ordered a Nuclear Strike on China? I’d Comply, Says Admiral
Jul 27, 2017 | The New York Times
By Austin Ramzy
The commander of the United States Pacific Fleet was asked a hypothetical question during a talk on Thursday in Australia: If President Trump ordered a nuclear strike on China, would he comply? -
China holds live-fire aircraft carrier drill, builds massive border force as North Korean missile test looms
Jul 27, 2017 | Business Insider
By Alex Lockie
North Korea marked the "Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War" Thursday, a national holiday that celebrates the end of the Korean war in 1953, which may indicate a missile test is forthcoming as tensions between the US, Pyongyang, and China mount. -
Panama Canal wins back traffic lost to Suez Canal
Jul 28, 2017 | Journal of Commerce
By Bruce Barnard
The Panama Canal’s enlargement has enabled it to win back most of the all-water traffic between Asia and the US East Coast that it had lost to the rival Suez Canal route.
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Japan sanctions Chinese firms to pressure North Korea
Jul 28, 2017 | AFP (In Straits Times)
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan on Friday (July 28) slapped sanctions on two Chinese firms, including a bank accused of laundering North Korean cash, amid concerns Pyongyang is prepping for another missile test, the government said.
Japan has stepped up calls for further sanctions against North Korea since Pyongyang tested an intercontinental ballistic missile earlier this month in defiance of repeated UN resolutions.
The test has raised tensions in the region, pitting Washington, Tokyo and Seoul against China, Pyongyang’s last remaining major ally.
Japan’s move has added further acrimony to often fraught bilateral relations with China and drew a harsh response from Beijing.
Despite being major trading and investment partners they are frequently at odds over a maritime territorial dispute and lingering tensions over Japan’s history of aggression in the first half of the 20th century.
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said five entities, including two Chinese organisations, and nine individuals will be put on Japan’s blacklists in connection with ties to North Korea.
They will be “newly subject to asset freezing” and other unilateral punishment, Kishida said without elaborating or naming any of them.
“It is important to strengthen pressure so that North Korea should act toward denuclearisation,” Kishida told reporters.
“We will urge North Korea to take concrete action toward the resolution of issues,” he said.
The Nikkei daily said among the five organisations are China’s Bank of Dandong, a Chinese shipping firm and a North Korean trading house dealing with coal and other commodities The Bank of Dandong is accused of money laundering for North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.
China immediately denounced the Japanese sanctions.
“We firmly oppose any other country to impose unilateral sanctions outside the framework of the UN Security Council and we especially oppose the sanctions targeted at Chinese enterprises and individuals,” Lu Kang, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told a regular press briefing in Beijing.
“I would like to tell Japan that China will not accept the wrongdoing and will require Japan to withdraw this wrong decision,” he said, warning the sanctions will “create major political hurdles for China-Japan relations”.
The United States imposed similar sanctions on the same bank as President Donald Trump said Beijing’s efforts to put the brakes on Pyongyang’s nuclear drive had failed.
China, which borders North Korea and is considered its only major ally, argues that negotiations are the best way to persuade Pyongyang to halt its nuclear and missile activities.
The Pentagon has picked up signs that North Korea is preparing for another missile test, a US defence official said earlier this week.
The official said the test would be of an intermediate-range missile or North Korea’s ICBM – known as a KN-20 or a Hwasong-14.
It would be the second time Pyongyang has tested an ICBM, after the July 4 rocket launch that prompted global alarm.
http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-joins-us-in-imposing-new-sanctions-on-north-korea
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What if Trump Ordered a Nuclear Strike on China? I’d Comply, Says Admiral
Jul 27, 2017 | The New York Times
By Austin Ramzy
HONG KONG — The commander of the United States Pacific Fleet was asked a hypothetical question during a talk on Thursday in Australia: If President Trump ordered a nuclear strike on China, would he comply?
“The answer would be yes,” the commander, Adm. Scott H. Swift, replied.
Admiral Swift, who was speaking at Australian National University in Canberra, said his answer was a reflection of the principle of civilian control over the military.
“Every member of the U.S. military has sworn an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic and to obey the officers and the president of the United States as the commander in chief appointed over us,” he said.
Capt. Charlie Brown, a spokesman for the United States Pacific Fleet, said the premise of the question about using nuclear weapons against China was “ridiculous,” and not something Admiral Swift had raised himself.
“Perhaps he more forcefully could have refuted the hypothetical,” Captain Brown said. “He was trying to find an opportunity to use it to deliver a message on something positive, and that was the answer he gave on civilian control.”Continue reading the main storyRELATED COVERAGEWith Provocative Moves, U.S. Risks Unraveling Gains With China JUNE 30, 2017China’s Trump Honeymoon: Unexpected, and at Risk of Ending JUNE 21, 2017U.S., Hardening Line on China, Approves $1 Billion Arms Sale to Taiwan JUNE 29, 2017
There was no immediate official response from China to the admiral’s comments.
Rory Medcalf, the head of the National Security College and host of the talk, said the question had been posed to Admiral Swift without much context and had put him on the spot.
“Admiral Swift answered the question the only way a serving military officer could,” Mr. Medcalf said. “It would have been a lot more controversial if he had said no, he would not obey the commander in chief.”
Admiral Swift’s remarks in Canberra focused on the role of the armed forces in ensuring stability and a rules-based system of international relations. He spoke after war games conducted by more than 30,000 military personnelfrom Australia and the United States took place off the coast of Queensland and the Northern Territory of Australia. A Chinese Navy spy ship was operating nearby while the operations, known as the Talisman Saber exercises, were underway in the Coral Sea, the Australian military said.
China maintains a smaller nuclear arsenal than the United States or Russia, and has long said that it would not use nuclear weapons against a nation that did not have themor in a first strike against a nuclear-armed adversary. But there have been occasional calls to change that “no first use” policy. In 2005, a Chinese military official told a group of foreign reporters that Beijing should consider using nuclear weapons against the United States if it intervened in a conflict over Taiwan, the self-ruled island China considers part of its own territory.
In addition to Taiwan, there are plenty of potential flash points in the relationship between the United States and China. On Sunday, a United States Navy spy plane took evasive action to avoid hitting a Chinese fighter jet that pulled in front of it over the East China Sea.
In May, an American warship sailed near a Chinese-held artificial island in the South China Sea, a mission intended to show international vessels’ freedom to navigate in an area China claims as exclusively its own. At the time, Beijing called those maneuvers a ”serious political and military provocation.”
On Thursday, Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, committed his country’s newest and largest aircraft carriers to steam through the South China Sea.
“One of the first things we will do with the two new colossal aircraft carriers that we have just built is send them on a freedom of navigation operation to this area,” Mr. Johnson said during a visit to Sydney, Australia.
At 65,000 tons, Britain’s newest carrier, the Queen Elizabeth, is the largest ship ever built for the Royal Navy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/world/asia/us-admiral-nuclear-strike-china-trump-order.html?_r=0
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Jul 27, 2017 | Business Insider
By Alex Lockie
North Korea marked the "Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War" Thursday, a national holiday that celebrates the end of the Korean war in 1953, which may indicate a missile test is forthcoming as tensions between the US, Pyongyang, and China mount.
US intelligence agencies have said for some time that they expect another North Korean missile test soon, as North Korea's July 4th missile test only demonstrated a limited capability.
Since then, CIA director Mike Pompeo has spoken candidly about the possibility that the US may look to take out Kim Jong Un, and China has pressed on with an increasingly assertive military posture towards North Korea.
Meanwhile, North Korean propaganda has shot back, saying the country would hit the US with a "powerful nuclear hammer" if Kim were threatened.
In the Yellow Sea west of the Korean peninsula, China recently held live-fire drills with its only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, the South China Morning Post reported.
While experts told The Post the drills were linked to the 90th anniversary of the founding of China's People's Liberation Army, Ni Lexiong, a Shanghai-based military affairs commentator, acknowledged the drill would send “a very subtle message to North Korea.”
Additionally, China has built a massive military presence along its border with North Korea complete with helicopter gunships, aerial drone surveillance, and large ground and artillery forces.
US intelligence services recently told ABC News that North Korea could test its Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday, but bad weather may prevent such a launch.
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-missile-test-china-aricraft-carrier-drill-2017-7
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Panama Canal wins back traffic lost to Suez Canal
Jul 28, 2017 | Journal of Commerce
By Bruce Barnard
The Panama Canal’s enlargement has enabled it to win back most of the all-water traffic between Asia and the US East Coast that it had lost to the rival Suez Canal route.
The Central American waterway’s share of the total headhaul capacity on the route has risen to 74 percent, the level it had in 2010, after slumping to 48 percent at the beginning of 2016, according to Alphaliner.
The opening of the new locks in June 2016 shifted the advantage back to the Panama Canal as the larger neoPanamax and sub neo-Panamax ships, now able to transit, helped lift average vessel size to the same as on the Suez route, the industry analyst says.
The Egyptian waterway has, however, retained the headhaul and backhaul legs of five all-water services, while five services that use the Panama Canal on the headhaul direction, return to Asia via the Suez Canal.
The battle between the two waterways is continuing, with the Panama Canal Authority planning to cut tariffs for neo-Panamax vessels from October 1.
“These will however only apply to backhaul voyages to Asia – a move clearly aimed to drawing back the Suez Canal services,” Alphaliner notes.
However, the reductions are relatively modest, at only 6 to 12 percent, and may not be sufficient to entice carriers to reroute their backhaul services via the Panama Canal.
The Suez Canal Authority has also extended its 45 to 65 percent for a further six months to the end of the year, which should ensure it retains some of the traffic for the time being.
The Panama Canal tariff reductions will benefit the nine existing services transiting the waterway on both legs with weekly savings of up $400,000 for the carriers, based on estimated weekly discounts of $40,000 to $50,000 for each service.
Neo-Panamax ships, with 19 rows of containers, and sub neo-Panamax vessels, 16 to 18 rows, made 795 voyages, or 50.5 percent of all transits, through the expanded Panama Canal during its first year of operations.
The number of 16- to 19-row container ships sailing through the canal is likely to almost double in the coming year, with around 1,400 transits, Alphaliner said.
Fifteen weekly services currently transit the Panama Canal of which nine make a return voyage, for a total of 24 passages.
At least two carriers are planning to launch new Asia-US East Coast services next year, which could significantly increase transits through the waterway, while five current trans-Panama services deploying classic 13-row vessels of 4,000-5,100 TEU capacity could be up-sized in the coming year, further boosting traffic of larger vessels.
http://www.joc.com/port-news/panama-canal-news/panama-canal-wins-back-traffic-lost-suez-canal_20170727.html
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