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China reinstates the country's commitment to safeguarding world peace and security in a white paper on arms control.
Trump signs executive order to launch Genesis Mission AI project.
China protests against the US move restricting visas for Central American officials that work with Beijing.
And Guinea-Bissau army officers say they have seized power after a contested presidential race.
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China has pledged that the country will always be a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of the international order.
The pledge is part of a new white paper released by Chinese authorities on the country's arms control.
The document says that China plays a constructive role in international arms control and actively offers its initiatives and solutions.
The white paper vows that China will continue to build its domestic non-proliferation capacity, promote international cooperation on peaceful use of science and technology and facilitate the improvement of global non-proliferation governance.
So for more, joining us now on the line is Zhou Bo, Senior Fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University.
So thank you very much for joining us today, Mr. Zhou Bo.
First of all, we understand.
The last time China issued a white paper on its arms control was in 2005.
So, compared to 2005, what do you make of the new situations on arms control that China has faced the West today?
Well, 20 years certainly is a long story.
But if we look back, at what has happened.
I think nowadays many experts agree that we have entered a second nuclear age.
This was even reflected in Donald Trump's recent remarks that how the United States is the largest nuclear power, which is not true because Russia is and how the United States should do nuclear tests, because other countries are doing doing all these.
No other countries are doing this.
The last two times that this kind of nuclear test was done was by DPRK in 2017.
So nobody's actually doing it.
But still, this kind of prospect of nuclear arms race is looming larger.
And the nuclear issues are also associated with space issues, for example.
Because, for example, if the United States has really succeeded in building this kind of golden door, that would actually mean the United States would have to place the weapons in outer space.
This would be unprecedented.
We definitely would invite them response from countries like Russia, like China, because it has actually affected international strategic stability.
So the irony is, when the United States wants to talk about strategic stability with China, with Russia, then it's building things like a golden dome, which is a violation of this kind of stability.
So this is the dilemma.
The white paper says that China is committed to upholding the international arms control regime, with the UN at its core.
So why is this with the UN at the core a key principle for China?
China, of course, would always support a united nation because, you see, a lot of international treaties were actually made with endorsement of UN, like UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, like NPT, and so on and so forth.
To support all these treaties, of course, is a kind of... support to UN and vice versa.
So that is a very easy question.
But the point is, could UN actually have control of all these kind of situations?
The answer is no, because UN sometimes is actually at log heads with itself.
For example, there is NPT treaty, right?
That is a non-proliferation treaty.
But at the same time, a few years ago, UN has also adopted, you know, ban on nuclear weapon treaty.
Yeah, this actually is not supported by any nuclear powers, including China.
So there are dilemmas.
So it's not so black and white.
So, in your observation, what has China done over the past 20 years to try to safeguard the effectiveness of our international arms control regime?
This is a complicated story because international arms control has to be classified in different areas.
One is about weapons of mass destruction, which would involve nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons.
It would also include the small arms, and it would also include the missiles.
So there are so many, so many rules in different areas.
So we just cannot say that one hat would fit all hats.
But generally speaking.
I think, for example, in nuclear area, the most impressive and widely accepted Chinese stance is no faster use of nuclear weapons.
And this is again reflected in the war in Ukraine.
President Xi talked about how in Europe, nuclear weapons should not be used.
And I think of all Chinese policies toward Ukraine, and this is most accepted by all countries.
And even Russia, which sometimes would make some threats about using this kind of nuclear weapons, actually agree with China that nuclear war should not be fought because it could not be won.
And this actually is not something new.
This actually is a Cold War slogan, which was agreed between the United States and the Soviet Union.
So that is why the first build a large nuclear stockpile and then they have to reduce them through a different treaty, like a start, like a sort, like a new start, like an open sky treaty, for example.
Now, apart from those conventional fields of arms control, such as nuclear, biological or chemical domains, new areas such as the outer space, cyberspace and artificial intelligence are emerging.
So, at a time when these emerging fields are creating a new focus for strategic security, How do you think China is positioning itself in terms of China's role in international arms control?
I'm happy you mentioned these new areas, because during the Cold War, strategic stability has a very specific meaning.
That is basically parity of nuclear warheads on both sides.
And now, if China is getting closer to the strength of the United States, Then what kind of a new strategic stability between China and the United States would look like?
This should include nuclear weapons, but it won't just include nuclear weapons, because China would never, in my opinion, increase its nuclear arsenal to that extent.
These three areas you have mentioned, like cyber, like AI, like outer space certainly would be new areas in which both China and the United States would have to talk.
For example, something very important was already mentioned.
For example, in President Xi's summit with Joe Biden, the two countries agreed to have a human oversight of nuclear command and control systems.
That, of course, is so easy to understand, right?
We don't know how AI would actually evolve itself, but we can never bear with possible manipulation by AI on the nuclear command and control systems.
So that is something obvious.
And about outer space, which I mentioned a little bit.
You know, there are actually two schools of thought.
One is by China and Russia. who would propose no placement of weapons whatsoever in outer space.
I think this position is very easy to understand, right?
Haven't we already enough trouble on this?
And why should we start another competition or even arms race in outer space?
And what is the purpose of such a competition?
Can there be another human folly which is more monumental then placing something in orbit to strike back on this, our own home?
But the United States and its Western allies would say that well, China and the Russians' proposals are not realistic.
And so you see the roads, of course, would be full of cars.
So the only thing we need to do is to make sure about the rule of behavior.
So that is the traffic rule.
So actually, China's proposal would not rule out this kind of responsible behaviors, right?
Because Elon Musk's space, Elon Musk's satellite has actually twice approached the Chinese space station and has actually created kind of danger to Chinese space station.
So we are not opposed to this kind of concept of responsible behavior, but the China's proposal of not having weaponry out of space and responsible behaviors are just like two sides of the same coin.
When we talk about non-proliferation, what shortcomings do you see in our existing global non-proliferation governance system, and what can China do to try to help improve the existing system?
No, this won't be easy.
You see, the example of DPRK tells you that Well, it's not so easy to do nuclear non-proliferation.
And some countries would prefer, as they say, to eat grass to develop nuclear weapons.
But are nuclear weapons really so powerful?
This is really debatable, because nuclear weapons have not helped the United States to win war in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, right.
And it hasn't helped Russia, for example, the Soviet Union to win the war in Afghanistan.
It has not helped Russia to win the war in Ukraine.
So there is a limit of the power of nuclear weapons.
But at the same time I think we have to make a title control about the potential of more countries becoming nuclear weapon states.
Right now, nuclear weapon states plus the de facto nuclear weapon states are just the nine.
But I wonder if the United States started a nuclear test, so what would happen?
I think Russia has already said that it will immediately start a nuclear test.
Maybe it will be followed by DPRK, then by Pakistan, India.
Then we will come to this question, would China do a test or not?
My answer is, I don't know.
Of course, it's up to the Chinese government to decide.
But if all these countries have done nuclear tests, it would be very difficult for China not to do in a similar way.
And also on nuclear weapon issues.
Do you think China's commitment towards playing a constructive role in terms of international arms control necessarily means that China will have to join a kind of bilateral nuclear arms control talks with nuclear superpowers such as the United States?
Why or why not?
Well, I think it is impossible for China to talk with the United States about nuclear warheads.
I mean the number of nuclear warheads, because the Chinese government would never say how many nuclear warheads that we have.
But according to Pentagon and according to SIPRI in Stockholm, we by the end of last year had 600 nuclear warheads.
But the United States, According to SIPRI, it has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads.
So the disparity is so obvious.
So for us to talk about reducing nuclear warheads, well, simply it's impossible.
Either China has to drastically increase the number of its own nuclear warheads or the United States has to drastically decrease its warheads.
Number of nuclear warheads.
Neither looks possible, but it doesn't mean that China doesn't want to talk about nuclear issues.
For example, I firmly believe that no first use is affordable for any nuclear powers.
So for example, the United States would say that okay, our allies would not agree, because they want America's nuclear umbrella.
That is true, but the point is, this kind of fear is more psychological than realistic.
For example, in korean peninsula, any nuclear attack would be suicidal, because the the peninsula itself is not such a big place and this kind of nuclear dust, coupled with radio activities, would make any such attack suicidal.
So so so who is going to launch such a suicidal attack?
And besides, a pledge of no first use would not reduce your capabilities in retaliation right.
Your capabilities are still there.
So I think that is why I have argued that this kind of no first use is actually affordable for all countries.
China made such an announcement immediately after its first nuclear test.
If China could stick to this kind of first use policy when the Chinese military was so, so weak.
So why can't other countries make the same pledge?
Exactly.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Zhou Bo, Senior Fellow with the Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University.
You are listening to World Today.
Stay tuned.
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China has once again emphasized that Taiwan's return to China is an important part of the victory in World War II and the post-war international order.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson made the comment in response to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takeuchi's new remarks regarding the Taiwan question.
The spokesperson said, Takahichi's remarks deliberately ignore internationally binding documents, while depending solely on the illegal San Francisco peace treaty, once again showing that she remains unrepentant.
Takeichi said on Wednesday that under the San Francisco peace treaty, Japan renounced all claims and titles to Taiwan, and Japan is not in a position to determine or recognize the legal status of Taiwan.
So for more.
Joining us now on the line is Dr Warwick Powell, adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology.
Thank you very much for joining us.
A pleasure.
So China says.
Taiwan's legal status was thoroughly resolved in the year 1945 with the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against the Japanese aggression.
What is your take?
Well, it was resolved.
In 1945, after an extensive multi-decade period of Japanese colonization, the island was returned to Chinese sovereignty at the conclusion of the Second World War.
There is no dispute about that.
And anybody trying to rewrite or revise history and to salami slice the reality of Chinese sovereignty in relation to the island of Taiwan is um is uh, in many ways rejecting the realities of history and the hopes of fabricating, um uh, you know, a basis for what is in, in reality, an incredibly irresponsible and disruptive um new settlement.
Hmm.
So Warwick, in your opinion, why is the so-called San Francisco peace treaty um illegal from China's perspective?
Well, it was signed in 1951, which means that the People's Republic of China had been established by then.
It's as simple as that.
The People's Republic of China was not a signatory to that particular agreement.
And as a result of that, it really has no standing.
I mean the question of Taiwan and Chinese sovereignty is in relation to Taiwan was settled before then in any regard, and trying to hide behind this particular instrument is really a pathetic attempt to ignore the realities of history and to rewrite history as we know it.
So in your observation Wawick, why has Prime Minister Sanae Takeuchi made this particular claim that oh somehow, under this San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan is not in a position to recognize or to determine the legal status of Taiwan, rather than retracting her earlier remarks regarding the Taiwan question?
Well, there's a question of domestic politics, first and foremost, and that is that she needs to consolidate her domestic support base, and her domestic support base comes from the far-right, neo-fascist parts of the Japanese body politic.
So that's the first thing that she's trying to do, and she has a long history of this.
These are long-held views of hers in relation to Japanese militarisation and historical revisionism.
The second reason why she's trying to do this is clearly as an effort to thread the needle, so to speak, to navigate her way out of a hole that she dug herself in with the remarks that she made, you know, some days ago.
And the third reason, I think, though, is that she's trying to, in a sense, play it both ways.
She's trying to, on the one hand, make the claim that Japan is no longer has colonial aspirations in relation to Taiwan Island, but at the same time, does not want to concede that the question of Taiwan is an entirely Chinese domestic matter.
Because If it is entirely a Chinese domestic matter, which it is under international law, then the foundations of her comments the other day are totally stripped away and it leaves her exposed not only for political irresponsibility within the region, but also irresponsible in terms of international law itself.
In the meantime, another voice that we're hearing from the Japanese government now is that its position regarding the Taiwan question remains consistent, remains unchanged since 1972, when the official diplomatic ties between Tokyo and Beijing were established.
So do you think such a statement along from Tokyo is adequate in terms of dispelling China's concern about the possibility of Japanese armed or military intervention on the Taiwan question?
No, but it represents a crab walk away from the inflammatory and destabilizing comments made by the Japanese Prime Minister.
But they aren't sufficient.
And it's because the comments that she made went to the heart of the question of sovereignty over Taiwan Island, which was a matter that was settled a long time ago.
What she in effect did was open a can of worms, open Pandora's box in an effort to curry favour for domestic political reasons and at the same time, in a sense, beat her chest in a geopolitical environment where she's seeking, you know, American support and American attention.
But um, but it is nothing more than uh than than a sad attempt to salami slice uh foundational historical settlements which have actually been uh critical to the uh the relative peace and stability that the region has experienced over the course of the last 80 years and which lays the groundwork for the ongoing resolution of unresolved questions as a consequence of the Second World War.
Now.
The top leaders of the United States and China just held a phone call earlier this week following their high-profile person-to-person meeting in Busan, South Korea.
So, in your observation of the situation Warwick, do you think, Honestly speaking, US President Donald Trump is happy about Japan and Japanese Prime Minister's recent rhetoric or actions regarding the Taiwan question?
Well, I think he can be both happy and unhappy.
He's happy because the United States continues to have a strategy of containment of China, And for countries like Japan, which are fundamentally, in essence, American proxies, to stir the pot regionally does serve that purpose.
It continues to create instabilities within a region which enables Donald Trump and the United States to prosecute.
It's long held strategic ambitions to contain China and, to some extent, even to retard China's economic development.
So in that sense, I don't think in truth President Trump is overly unhappy about all of this.
But at the same time, he doesn't want this issue to derail his efforts to establish a meaningful and functional relationship with China, particularly on economic questions.
The United States economy is not in a healthy state and the trade war launched by President Trump earlier this year has not delivered on the promises.
It hasn't rejuvenated American manufacturing.
It hasn't led to real jobs growth, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
It has had negligible impact on America's burgeoning trade deficit, which the administration claims to be the central feature of the economic problems in the United States that its policies will be solving.
So, looking forward to the April visit by President Trump to China, he is clearly wanting to, on the one hand, smooth the path to hopefully, from his point of view, secure important announcements so that he can make grand announcements globally.
Your point is well taken.
But thank you very much for joining us.
Dr Warwick Powell joining us from Queensland's University of Technology.
You are listening to World Today.
I'm Ding Han in Beijing.
We'll be back after a very short break.
You are back with World Today.
I'm Ding Han in Beijing.
U.S.
President, Donald Trump has signed an executive order launching a sweeping plan to supercharge America's artificial intelligence development.
The initiative is bringing together the Department of Energy, major tech companies and academic institutions to accelerate research in areas ranging from clean energy and healthcare to quantum computing.
It is planning to leverage the vast data resources from US national labs to enhance artificial intelligence capabilities.
It is also pledging to cut electricity costs, despite growing concerns about artificial intelligence surging energy demand.
The project is being described as the most ambitious US mobilization of federal scientific resources since the Apollo program.
For more.
My colleague Xu Yaowen spoke with Professor Liu Baocheng, Director of the Center for International Business Ethics at the University of International Business and Economics.
Professor Liu, the Genesis mission aims to reform sectors like healthcare, energy and materials science.
However, some scientists are skeptical about AI's ability to generate genuinely novel insights.
So, at the current level of technology, do you believe that AI is capable of truly groundbreaking discoveries?
Or is this primarily a tool to accelerate existing research?
I think these critical views are rather on the conservative side, because my understanding is that AI is already doing both.
So in most of the areas, AI helps those researchers to move faster.
It is really the enhancer.
It automates analysis.
They test more hypothesis and reduce the trial and error.
But we cannot really underestimate the power of AI in transforming many of those areas of knowledge and the creation of arts and other type of institutions, and the landscapes, et cetera.
We've seen some of the breakthroughs that won't really be able to happen without the AI.
A good example is AlphaFold, which can really solve key parts of the protein folding.
Also, they are able to help to enhance the human constitution, without which it is not really imaginable.
So the biggest breakthrough still comes from pairing the AI patent funding capability with the human intuition and scientific judgment.
So I think the AI revolution is different to the previous type of industrial revolutions in that it is not only there to provide a better accelerative tool, but rather to re-engineer the people's mindset and even influence the people's psychology and mentality.
Much needs to be unfolded in terms of the new breakthroughs.
Well, Professor.
This new federal initiative aims to bring together federal agencies, tech giants like Microsoft and Google, and academic institutions.
So what are some of the key challenges and risks associated with such multi-sector collaboration, especially in terms of data privacy, intellectual property and the potential for conflicts of interest between government priorities and corporate goals?
I think this is really a great approach for the US, the national interest and also to boost another round of technological dominance.
As a matter of fact, Back into 2022, they already built the national strategy on the critical emerging technologies by identifying eight areas for breakthroughs.
So now, by the PPP type of approach, they are able to build a collation between different stakeholders which have their outstanding advantages on each side.
But in the meanwhile there has been a lot of divisions, not only in terms of interest economically, but also because of the difficulty aligning standard and aligning expectation, et cetera.
So now this is really the right approach.
Of course, they will face a number of disputes that can still be unfolded.
As you mentioned about the data privacy.
Yes actually, they align it together, whereas the national security issue, together with data privacy and also the personal information related.
So the health, energy, and research data, of course, they need stronger safeguard.
That depends on the balance that the consensus can be really achieved in terms of how productivity can really be balanced with the privacy protection.
And the new challenge can also lie in the IP issues, which means that a conventional type of the intellectual property protection will not be able to suffice to those emerging issues.
And also in terms of the creation of a modeling and how to divide between open source versus the IP protection, particularly those know-hows which are not really registered and approved.
So that's going to be a controversy.
And there can also be conflict interest because the private firms they have very different interests to the government issues and universities, et cetera.
So they all have their own sticking points.
So that's something that requires some better alignment.
But worst of all, right now, given this big mission, which is comparable to the Apollo project or even Manhattan project, but they don't have the right budget yet.
So without the right budget, this can only be something of a talk.
So hopefully they are able to produce something that can be fiscally viable and also institutionally operable.
Well, speaking of training AI model, we cannot ignore the issue of heavy use of electricity, which will contribute to higher utility rates.
The U.S.
Department of Energy also predicts that AI data centers could consume up to 12 of US electricity by 2028.
Yet the Genesis mission also promises to lower electricity prices.
Given the growing energy consumption of supercomputers being built by companies like Nvidia and Dell in national labs, how do you think the government can balance this increased demand with the promise of reduced electricity costs?
The U.S. is not really short of energy.
At the moment, they are exporters of a lot more energies.
So therefore, that's not really the bigger concern.
A bigger concern lies how the US can really address the universal issue of climate change by removing further from the fossil-based energy supply.
So that's something they need to consider.
And right now there has been talks about building more of the nuclear power stations, which the US has been, you know, saying goodbye for new construction for years.
And also that new technology, and particularly AI-aided technologies, can also be generated and deployed to be able to have some of the energy-saving devices and also in dealing with the carbon capture, et cetera.
So currently they desperately need to upgrade their power grids in order to be able to provide a more stable supply of those AI-related utilities.
And also, in the meanwhile, whether they are able to shift some of the directions that Donald Trump has been pointing to into more of the energy, the transformation into more of the renewable ones and cleaner ones.
So they need better management tools like to upgrade the smart grades, and also to get more of the demand response program that is available to support such one.
But I do not think that the energy issue overall will really be dragging the feet of AI advancement.
So it's simply a matter of how they can really make it better productive and also better alignment in supporting such sort of technological advancement.
And lastly, professor liu, the genesis mission is framed as a way to solidify us leadership in ai research, but other countries, particularly like china, are investing heavily in ai technology as well.
How do you assess the global competitiveness of china and the us in this field, and are there any areas where they can cooperate in the future?
Well Objectively, I could see that the US has no doubt, you know, will be the continued leadership in that regard, because they have a long tradition in the fundamental research and they have so many leading institutions, from universities to research organizations.
And they also are the home, not only for those you know big technology giant, but also they have the stocks, the very powerful stock exchanges and also huge funds to support the innovation.
But in the meanwhile China is having its own outstanding advantages in the bigger application of those technologies.
Of course, China can also learn quite a lot from the fundamental researchers which actually the government and also companies are investing into it.
But the market type of driven response and also the capability to amplify the practical utility is something that China has a very unique advantage.
And also now China is pushing towards the Belt and Road program, and more of those technology can also be shared with the rest of the countries, particularly with the global south.
So therefore it is, after all, you know, the final test for the value of any type of technology advancement lies in its practical utility and benefits to the market, which can really form a feedback loop to support the continued innovation and then the market benefit.
So this is something that's really required.
And now the US is also having its own problem by blocking its access to the world in terms of the new advancement.
And this will really narrow their application and their market size, which can really deter the continued feedback, both in terms of finance and also in the market feedback, into the continual support of their innovation.
So in a way that both have the advantages, I hope that they can really build a more of a mutual learning process and also they will be able to synergize instead of treating other as the rivalries.
But collaboration will generate a better result for both of these people and even for the world, because after all, they are the transformative powers for a new generation of technology and also the new lifestyle of the world.
Professor Liu Baocheng, joining us from the University of International Business and Economics.
You are listening to World Today.
I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
China has accused the United States of violating the UN Charter by turning visas into political leverage.
The Chinese embassy in Washington has responded to recent US move to impose visa restrictions on individuals from Panama and other few Central American countries over their connections to China.
The embassy says Central America is no one's backyard and international relations must be built upon respect and partnership rather than pressure.
So for more.
My colleague Song Ruixin spoke with Ina Tengen, Senior Fellow of the Center for International Governance Innovation, a Canadian think tank.
Aino, from your perspective, what underlying strategic calculations might be driving the US to implement visa restrictions specifically targeting Central American individuals with Chinese affiliations?
Well, I mean, you have to go back to many years.
Donald Trump has been very negative towards Latin America and his moves against Mexico and things like that.
But the second part of his term has been very, very tough.
He's canceled visas for heads of state.
He put 50% tariffs on Brazil.
He's taking other actions in Argentina in terms of bailing out the president because he likes them.
And then in Costa Rica, both the president and also the leader of the Senate have been denied access to the United States.
And now you have the Panamanian president saying that he has also been notified that he might have his visa revoked.
So why are they doing this?
This is actually an attack on China, and it's not veiled.
Donald Trump and his minions, especially Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have said that South America is a battleground between China and the United States.
That's after the United States ignored it for many, many years.
And as they see it developing a future outside the US with China, they feel threatened.
So instead of attacking China directly, which didn't work with the tariffs, they're now switching over to this kind of indirect, oblique attack, going after countries around the world, not just South America, and trying to put pull them away from China using various means political, economic aversion.
So it's just a bully play.
Having looked at the US motivations, it's natural to question the fundamental framing of the issue, like the US is moving from general warnings about Chinese influence to a policy that personally targets individuals with visa bans.
Is it even accurate to describe the situation in Central America as a competition between the US and China?
No, it isn't.
As I said earlier, The United States has, in essence, ignored South America.
There was the revocation of the Monroe Doctrine under Obama.
Now you have Donald Trump, and also his administrations, actively pushing for this idea that they want to establish a Monroe Doctrine too, that somehow South America belongs to America.
To saying well, we're going to take Greenland and Canada.
Very expansive talk, certainly not in line with international governance or institutions.
But this is Donald Trump.
He's going to describe it in a way that makes sense for his agenda.
And his agenda is to weaken every other country in the world so that the United States can maintain its hegemony.
He's willing to do anything necessary to do it.
If he can't do it by bullying directly, he will do it by going after the weaker ones that he thinks he can bully.
Then what about the policy itself?
How effective can a targeted visa policy really be, deterring Central American officials and business leaders from cooperating with China?
I mean, what will be the consequences?
Well, you know, that's the strange thing.
It's not really going to work well.
I mean, people remember this type of thing.
And when you make it personal with these leaders and these business people, they have no other alternative.
They're going to look elsewhere.
But you know, as you can see in Panama, you know it's 74 percent of the people there disapprove of the government's handling of its affairs of the United States.
Given the realities in terms of you know,
U.S. just announced it's having a large jungle warfare training exercise in Panama.
The fact that there are troops there already makes it very difficult for the government to say no to the US.
U.S. is perfectly aware of that.
They threatened to take over the Panama Canal.
They continue all the time.
Rubio was just down there saying, you got to get rid of the Chinese.
They did, in fact, get rid of one board member who was on the advisory committee for the Panama Canal.
But as I said, over the long term, all it does is further isolate the United States.
People get a very bad taste in their mouth.
They do not want to deal with the U.S. because it's unreliable and unpredictable.
Now let's look at the Chinese response.
The Chinese embassy explicitly rejects the concept of Central America being any country's so-called backyard.
From your perspective, how should we interpret the full geopolitical and historical meaning behind the use of this word in this specific context?
Well, I mean, that goes back to what I was talking about earlier, the Monroe Doctrine, when the US explicitly said that no one can go into South America um, except the us.
The us, i think, was involved in um, was it almost 30?
Uh, regime change operations against, in many cases, democratically elected leaders.
They were involved in the assassination plotting assassinations, especially in castro, and some incredible number that they tried 400 times.
And it's just.
This is political coercion.
Now, this predated donald trump, But Donald Trump is bringing back this kind of real political vengeance.
He really does believe that anybody who challenges the US or could potentially challenge the US is you know it's within the US's right to do an asymmetrical response to them.
So I mean, there's this notion of know my backyard and all the things that he's doing is it goes against everything that the united states and the world created after world war ii, which was a system of institutions to get rid of this idea that you can have individual uh leaders going out there and just taking the lands of other groups, because it does lead to war.
And um, as you know, the chinese response is reasonable uh, but it doesn't matter what the chinese said.
Donald Trump is going to continue with these kind of madman tactics.
Then the Chinese embassy states that its cooperation has contributed to local economy and livelihood.
Could you specify what tangible forms these contributions take?
If you want to look at the economic data since 2001, especially after you get past about 2012, You start to see the Belt and Road Initiative really taking hold.
And you know, Chenkei Port is the latest part of that giving finally giving a warm water Pacific port access to South America, because you have this and these mountains run like a spine separating a large part of South America from the Pacific coastline.
So they're trying, the economic realities are that it has gone very, very well.
And you've seen that in terms of the amount of trade that has gone up, the amount of internal processing added value that is now going on,
And these countries do not want to give that up.
They don't want to take sides.
But if they had their brothers, they would rather side in terms of economics, without somebody trying to put ideology on top of it.
Whereas the US is insisting that the economics and ideology go together, that you basically have to do what we tell you to do, regardless of whether it's good for your country and your economy.
Then to what extent are Central American nations like Panama able to exercise independent agency in navigating this so-called competition, and what factors might determine their success in doing so?
Well, right now, they feel constrained.
I mean, they feel tremendous pressure from the U.S.
They're not getting pressure from China, but their interest is in China.
They want to do more trade.
You know, you start looking at Chile, at Brazil, all these countries.
Even you know Argentina, which supposedly is siding with the US, wants to sell its soybeans to China.
You know, the difficulty here is not that China is asking anyone to make a choice, but the U.S. is.
It's being extremely aggressive.
So, while they will bow down in the short term because they don't have a choice, it's asymmetrical small countries versus the United States.
Long term, as I said, they will not like it.
Now, there is an alternative.
And if they banded together and simply said we can't agree on many things, but we can do agree that we do not like this kind of cynical, colonial game.
They are going to, if they come together just on this one point.
Ina Tengen, Senior Fellow of the Center for International Governance Innovation, a Canadian think tank, talking with my colleague Song Rui-Hsing.
You're listening to World Today.
Stay tuned.
You are listening to World Today.
I'm Ding Han in Beijing.
Soldiers in the African country of Guinea-Bissau announced that they have seized the power after gunfire ran out near the presidential palace.
The military high command has ordered the president of the country to post suspended all state institutions and close the country's borders and airspace.
The takeover came just days after presidential and legislative elections in this country.
Outgoing President Eumalo Cecilio Ambalo and opposition challenger Fernando Diaz have both claimed victory in the presidential race.
So joining us now on the line is Professor Wang Jing from Northwest University in Xi'an, China.
Thank you very much for joining us.
It's my pleasure.
So first of all, in your observation, Dr. Wang, why has the army officers staged this military coup?
I think because of two reasons.
First, actually nobody really trusts or nobody can say that the votes, the presidential votes, uh actually stands.
So both sides, they have already uh voiced their claims and their victories after the uh, after the, the election uh uh, election.
So that's why they have this kind of conflicting uh ideas.
And also we cannot forget that the There are some other kind of reasons.
For example, the current president Barlow has already ruled the country since 2020 and he believed that he should continue to have the power to to rule the country, while some of the challengers from the opposition party tries to show that they have the capabilities to challenge the ruling system and to voice their victories of the election.
But I think the most important thing is that the military powers, the military forces they are very dominant in the political scenarios in this country and the military forces they hope to play a much more important role in not only trying to stabilize the situation but also trying to lead to a new political structure that dominated by themselves.
So that's why, when the country is ruled by the division, the political division, the amount of political edits and meanwhile the, the kind of the military forces they hope to play the kind of a role, using the forces to challenge the status quo.
I think it is very easy to witness this kind of the thing that the armed forces and armed officers staged in this military coup.
So that's why I think this is something that could explain what is happening right now.
Yeah.
So West Africa's ECOWAS and the African Union have expressed their concerns over the military takeover, calling for the release of the detained officials and restoration of constitutional order.
Do you think that is likely to happen anytime soon?
Well, I don't think that it will happen very soon, because when we're talking about this kind of two regional issues mechanism, we call it the ECOWAS as well as the African Union.
They have already indeed, moved very quickly and with a very joint statement from their election observer mission.
And they condemned the very military takeover and arrests over this kind of the military forces and also calling for the release of the president Mbalo and other officials and to let the vote count proceed uninterruptedly.
So the problem is that it's just external pressure.
And when we're talking about external pressure, that we should turn the external diplomatic pressure into the internal motivation for the political allies as well as the military forces to implement it.
But the problem is that now that we just see the sanctions, We're just seeing the kind of external diplomatic condemn rather than the real measures that could be mobilized by the regional countries and the neighboring countries to force the military forces inside the country to give up their intervention into the political scenarios.
So that's why I don't think these things are enough.
I don't think that this is just a kind of a statement or it is just a kind of diplomatic pressure would be easily be used to turn the unrest into a stability to end the ongoing turmoil inside the country.
Professor Wang Jing, we still have about one minute or so before we need to wrap up.
So, finally and briefly, I mean this country has really experienced several military coups or attempted coups since it gained independence from Portugal in the 1970s.
So what do you make of the key factors leading to the country's long history of political turmoil?
I think that many reasons could be used to explain that the turmoil inside the country, as you mentioned earlier.
Maybe one of them most importantly is that how to settle the relations between military forces and the government.
Because we were talking about a country who entered colonialism by the European countries, who tried to establish their own independent political and military structure.
We're talking about not only the kind of the political independence status.
We're also talking about how to manage the different conflicting ideas inside the new countries between the different political elites and the military elites and other social elites.
So that's why, when the political division emerged, it was very easy to be utilized by some other powerful factions in the country to realize their own goals.
To intervene the political structure.
So that's why I think this is a very key factor.
Your points well taken.
But thank you very much for joining us, Dr. Wang Jing, joining us from Northwest University in Xi'an, China.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today.
Bye for now.
