Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. In a speech Monday to the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for international cooperation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in particular for greater support for the developing world. Xi’s remarks were a bold assertion of Chinese leadership at the WHO and in global efforts to contain the coronavirus, carefully designed to deflect international criticism of Beijing’s handling of the initial outbreak. At the annual meeting of [...]
When members of the World Health Organization convene via video conference next week for the 73rd annual World Health Assembly, they will largely focus on the unprecedented challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. But despite earning plaudits for its success in containing its COVID-19 outbreak, Taiwan will not be dialing in. China has long pressured other states to exclude Taiwan from the WHO, along with other United Nations bodies, because it considers Taiwan to be a rebellious province of China rather than a sovereign nation. Beijing did allow Taiwan to attend the World Health Assembly as an observer during a [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Reports that hundreds of Chinese and Indian soldiers recently clashed along the countries’ disputed border are a troubling development for Beijing and New Delhi, which have tried to project stability in their rocky relationship. Scores of troops were reportedly involved in a scuffle last weekend at the remote but strategic Naku La pass in the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim, an area that adjoins the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border that separates Chinese and Indian-controlled territories. [...]
