Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu urged the international community Wednesday to help defend his country and region against "expansionist" Chinese moves, saying Taipei feared Beijing would resort to force.Taiwan was "on the front-line defending democracies from being taken over by the communist China" and needed help from other countries, he told the France 24 TV station.Wu said China "has been intensifying its military threat against Taiwan" in recent yea

An increase in cases in Israel, France and Indonesia, a decline in South Africa: here is a weekly roundup of developments in the coronavirus crisis:Most New CasesIndia, the United States (US) and Brazil remain the three countries recording the greatest number of new cases over the past seven days, with 77,596, 40,875 and 40,035 cases respectively per day on average, according to an AFP count on Friday. While the number of cases was on the increase in India (15 percent more cases comp

India and China traded blame for rising tensions over their disputed Himalayan border on Saturday following their highest-level meeting since a deadly clash in June.India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe released rival statements accusing each other of inflaming the showdown after talks late Friday on the side-lines of an international meeting in Moscow.Singh said they had "frank" discussions on the dispute and the strained relatio

In his most recent New Year’s speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that 2020 would be “a milestone.” Xi was right, but not in the way he expected. Far from having “friends in every corner of the world,” as he boasted in his speech, China has severely damaged its international reputation, alienated its partners, and left itself with only one real lever of power: brute force. Whether the prospect of isolation thwarts Xi’s imperialist ambitions, however, remains to be seen.

The global death toll from the new coronavirus has surpassed 800,000, according to an AFP count on Saturday, with numerous countries ramping up restrictions in an effort to battle an eruption of new cases.Western Europe, particularly Spain, Italy, Germany and France, has been enduring infection levels not seen in many months, sparking fears of a full-fledged second wave.And in Asia, South Korea, which had largely brought the virus under control, became the latest country to announce it would

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a new warning to China over deadly border tensions on Saturday, using his most important speech of the year to promise to build a stronger military.With talks on easing a military build-up in their Himalayan border region at a stalemate, Modi told an Independence Day ceremony that India's sovereignty was "supreme" and that relations with neighbours depended on security and trust.Attendance at the historic Red Fort in New Delhi fo

Southeast Asian countries reported record rises of new coronavirus cases on Saturday as the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the effects of the pandemic would be felt for decades. Six months after the WHO declared a global emergency, the novel coronavirus has killed more than 680,000 people and infected more than 17.5 million, according to an AFP tally.As countries across Western Europe announced new lockdowns and reported historic economic slumps, the WHO said the pandemi

As the world struggles to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, which first emerged in China, Chinese President Xi Jinping is pursuing his quest for regional dominance more aggressively than ever. From the Himalayas to Hong Kong and Tibet to the South and East China Seas, Xi seems to be picking up where Mao Zedong left off, with little fear of international retribution.The parallels between Xi and the despots of the past are obvious.

The United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to ban Huawei from its 5G networks has dealt a painful blow to China. Until recently, China was still counting on the UK to stick to its earlier decision to allow the Chinese telecom giant to supply non-core equipment for the country’s 5G networks.But two recent developments made such a decision untenable. The first was the United States’ (US) escalation of its war on Huawei.

The ongoing standoff between Chinese and Indian forces along the two countries’ disputed Himalayan border recently resulted in the first troop casualties there in decades, with some Indian soldiers killed in particularly brutal fashion.