Japan's accelerated increase in defense spending raises concerns.
U.S. push for peace in Ukraine faces headwinds as talks continue.
And China's high-tech manufacturing sector reports robust profit growth from January to October.
Welcome to Road Today, a news program with a different perspective.
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Today, our top story.
Japan is fast tracking its military build-up.
The government has approved a supplementary budget for fiscal 2025, accelerating its defense spending to 2 of GDP, two years ahead of schedule.
Local reports say the defense ministry will receive about 54 billion US dollars in extra funding, partly for purchasing new destroyers, submarines and missile systems.
That brings Japan's total defense spending for fiscal year 2025 to more than 70 billion US dollars.
An editorial in the Asahi Shimbun warns that Prime Minister Sonai Takeuchi's security agenda risks eroding Japan's long-standing defense-oriented policy and says the fading image of Japan as a pacifist nation is a troubling development.
So for more on this, joining us on the line is Dr Rong Ying, chair professor at the School of International Studies at Sichuan University.
Professor, the Japanese government has pushed through a new budget for 2025, speeding up its plan to raise defense spending to 2 of GDP, two years earlier than promised.
And here's the key point, over one-third of that money goes to long-range strike weapons.
So the big question is, has Japan basically moved beyond its post-war defense-only policy?
And what's really driving this push for offensive strike capability?
Well, I think the raising of Japan's budget two years in advance to a percentage is definitely a very serious, major development in terms of Japan's so-called defense normalization or militarization.
It is more serious development.
As you rightly said, one-third of that budget would go to the development of offensive capabilities, which very much in a way, I think, contravenes Japan's defense policy, which is supposed to be exclusively defense in nature.
And this is largely because Japan defeated the nation, defeated the country, and its development of defense are very much constrained or restrained by its pacifist constitution and also relevant sort of policies related to that.
So by raising the defense budget, by contributing increased defense to development of offensive capability, definitely is a very serious development and serious departure from the idea of Japan's defense policy.
And definitely, I think it would raise concerns, apprehensions.
Not only, I think, the neighboring countries which 80 years ago I mean during the World War II were the victims of Japan's militarization.
But it would also raise the big question for Japan itself, the Japanese people, the future direction, the so-called strategic direction of Japan.
80 years later, where Japan will be going.
Speaking of that, while Takahichi's administration is pouring money into the military, Japan's economy is growing at barely 1 a year and its national debt is huge.
Now the government wants to raise taxes on individuals and companies to pay for this radical quote-unquote defense, and people are clearly unhappy about this.
So how do we view this shift toward guns over butter?
That's again a great question.
But always, I think.
Now the question the Japanese public, Japanese voters, will be asking themselves which the direction that Kaiichi and her government is pursuing taking with Japan, whether it is good for Japan in the now and in the future.
The butter and the bullet question. is always there.
And Japan, as we know, is economically facing a huge problem.
The demographic, the Asian population and also, I think, the debt issues, has very much strained the burden of Japan as a society.
And also, I think, if you look at the Japanese average people on the streets, in the past few years, we have seen the rising prices for inflation causing a lot of gut, And so, all in all, we have an aging population.
We have rising debts.
We have now more expenditure, defense budget going for defense.
So what kind of government and what kind of directions Japan is going to move?
That is the question.
I think Japan, certainly Japanese public, Japanese government, is it the government they are looking for?
Is it the government they would like to vote for?
I think the government, I think they can trust, not only in terms of their day-to-day affairs, their concerns, but most importantly, I think, the strategic directions, the pacification of Japan that has been taken over in the past 80 years, which arguably helps Japan to development and bring peace and stability and prosperity, I think, for Japan.
This is something, big issue, much bigger issue.
Professor, given Japanese economic capability, do you think Japan can keep this up without hurting everyday citizens?
How will the big military spending drag down Japan's already strained economy?
I think the answer is definitely no.
That is why, on the one hand Japan, Japanese public, Japanese voters, particularly the younger voters, would like to have new leadership.
They want to see something different, innovative, creative.
But I don't think they are looking for a kind of a leader like Takeuchi which, by riding that expectation or riding that kind of wave for anti-incurrency or disappointment about previous politicians, which was really regarded as old and sort of not exciting, not innovative,
But the reason we want to have change is we want to have a new leadership that will bring better lives, not bigger budgets, not pushing Japan on the wrong road for militarization.
This is something I think has already created problems.
A lot of Japanese voters, Japanese public, they are, I mean, peace-loving.
They don't want to see their politicians, their leaders to take Japan to a wrong direction.
So the only question is that, of course, the so-called high popular vote, the opinion polls that have been received by Takeuchi so far.
I don't think it's going to last long.
And if you look at the business community, they have already expressed concern.
They already hope that the Japanese government should look and find ways to work with China for a stable relationship.
So getting a sort of relationship wrong but, most importantly, with that as an excuse to pursue its own sort of personal political agenda for so-called the normalization of Japan and even possibly to break free those constraints Japan that has been subjected to and arguably violated.
I think, because Japan has pursued a pacifist road and Japan's prosperity and development is guaranteed.
And all that seems to be changed.
So it's more than a day-to-day issue.
It's more than a kind of issue that's related to bilateral with China.
More importantly, everyday life, the future of Japan.
Professor, speaking of that, as earlier you mentioned, Japan's pacifist identity is fading and some scholars are warning that the government is ignoring public concerns, and some even argue that Japanese right-wing force momentum and the push to rewrite the Constitution is becoming too strong to reverse.
Do you share the same stance?
And what's changing inside Japan's political system?
I share the concerns, but in the meantime, I've also been very hopeful in the sense that it is true.
I see the challenges, the difficulties, the problems facing Japan in terms of the economy, in terms of the demographic problems, Asian population, which means they are short on time.
And to do that, to address this problem, they have to bring immigrants in.
And again that causes a lot of social backlash, and also seek to reinforce that nationalist and right-wing sort of momentum and trend.
But having said that, the majority of Japanese are still very much, I think, uphold the Pacific.
And I think that they were sooner or later they were realized the danger and the risk of deviations.
The question is that if Japanese public, the majority of Japanese voters, do not come out, speak up their mind and the risk or the concern that Japan will be too far and it will be too late.
And that is very much a historical lesson.
Japan as a society, they should learn.
Look at them over when the cold the, the world war people they were doing the world war ii and the japan, how japan i mean the public, japan and the nation with the hijack misled by these nationalist military, and that japan has definitely done a lot of destructions to its neighbors and the region as a whole, but also for the japanese as a nation.
Remember over 300.
Three million Japanese died because of the war.
So at Japan that has been misled by these right-wingers conservatives religious, which of course damages destruction for itself and of course for the region as a whole and even for the world as a whole.
Indeed.
These recent moves echo the historical pattern of a pre-World War II Japan create a threat, build up arms, then invade other nations.
Then, given the past and China's historical suffering under Japanese militarism, does China today have enough diplomatic weight and military capability to deter Japan's rising right-wing forces and safeguard the hard-won regional stability in East Asia?
My answer is that, As far as China is concerned, I think because of the development of China, both in terms of economic and military and technology, I don't think Japan is in a position to challenge, to threat China per se.
Having said that, the resurgence of Japanese militarism, or the threat that is posed by the resurgence of Japan, will cause huge problems and a threat to the region, And that is why China, as a responsible country and as a victim of Japan's World War II militarism and Japanese aggression, it is our responsibility to come up to say no and make every possible effort to ensure that would not happen.
It is in the benefit of China, certainly.
It is definitely in the benefit of the regional peace and stability and in the benefit of the region as a whole.
I mean the world as a whole.
And in the end, it is also a benefit for the Japanese people.
I don't think the Japanese people, majority of the Japanese people, accept these small numbers of right-wing conservatives.
They would like to see Japan, because of that resurgence, of militarism destroy themselves.
I don't think Japan would like to see.
While they destroy themselves, they brought down the whole region and even the world together.
That is something I see China as, why waking up and running the alarm bells and, most importantly, would do every possible to ensure diplomatically and also other means to ensure that the Thanks, Dr Rong, for your insight of analysis.
That was Dr Rong Ying, chair professor at the School of International Studies at Sichuan University.
This is Road Today.
Stay with us.
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The US and Ukraine have launched new talks in Florida on Washington's proposed framework to end the Russian-Ukraine conflict, a plan already joined debate across the Atlantic.
Officials described the meeting as constructive, with U.S.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling it very productive while noting more works lays ahead.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy says Kiev will move quickly on steps toward ending the war.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeated Moscow's conditions for halting military operations.
The Kremlin says it's ready for serious discussions with the United States, while again rejecting any prospects of Ukraine joining NATO.
To delve into this, Let's have Kamal Makili-Aliyev, associate professor at the School of Global Studies at University of Gothenburg.
Thanks for joining us, professor.
Thank you for having me.
Professor, the U.S. and Ukraine just cut the peace plan from 28 points down to 19.
And Washington says talks were very productive.
But there's still more work to do.
What exactly do they mean?
And what do you think are the real sticking points left on the table?
Well, the core obstacles are very well known.
This is a territorial status, credible security guarantees for Ukraine and verification enforcement mechanisms for hopeful peace agreements or at least an agreement around the ceasefire.
Moscow still demands that the Ukraine makes some withdrawals from the current battle lines even and make territorial concessions as a part of a deal, while Kyiv still insists on sovereignty and that it doesn't have to yet agree to any kind of territorial concessions, and also, on its side, demands security guarantees of non repetition of aggression, while also being concerned of how the the peace between Ukraine Russia is going to be Enforced.
So never side really trust simple verbal promises, and any framework must include phasing sequenced, international guarantors backed and robust verification elements introduced into the areas of of core obstacles.
Otherwise there would be no consensus, and the consensus currently is very, very thin in these issues.
Professor about the negotiations itself.
We know Kiev's chief negotiator Yermak has stepped down during an anti-corruption probe.
How might this shake-up affect Ukraine's stance?
And since he was known for saying no compromises on territory, does his exit change that tough line?
Yermak's exit amid this kind of corruption probe injects some political uncertainty, but it doesn't really automatically signal a softer territorial line for Kyiv, for example, because Ukraine just appointed well, the president of Ukraine just appointed Rustam Umerov.
Defense Minister seen as capable in the to fill in the boots of your mark.
And Zelenskyy.
President Zelenskyy has publicly reaffirmed refusal to see territory, so that the first contentious issue is not going to be is not going to be resolved by weakness in political unity within the Ukrainian government.
However Well, this leadership churn is actually weakening Kyiv's bargaining credibility in the short term.
And I think it hands a lot of leverage to mediators that are pushing timelines, read United States.
So expect tactical adjustment, but not necessarily wholesale pivot for the Ukrainian position on the core issues, starting with the territorial issue.
But that, of course, is provided that the domestic politics remain stable after that, and nothing like a major crisis will erupt in the political governance of Ukraine.
Professor, as you earlier mentioned, territory is still the biggest disagreement and still not clearly resolved in the updated plan.
And Putin says Ukraine must pull back from certain regions or Russia will keep pushing militarily.
Zelensky insists Ukraine will never give up land.
So with those positions so far apart, is a real ceasefire even possible?
And can the U.S. actually move either side on this issue? issue.
Yes, that's why I'm skeptical.
That fundamental gap that makes a comprehensive ceasefire very difficult now.
Washington can press both sides towards, you know, phased and even verifiable freeze fire, freeze of hostilities, as a pragmatic compromise.
But it cannot impose a durable settlement for Ukraine and Russia in the absence of concessions from Kyiv that Kyiv itself sees as reversible or secure.
So kind of temporary concessions that may be irreversible in the future.
So realistically, the United States can broker pauses and even sequencing in fighting.
That's totally possible.
But forcing either side to accept an outcome it uses as existential.
I think it's going to be unlikely, at least for now.
Let's delve a bit further into Washington's calculation.
The US is pushing Ukraine with deadlines while also talking to Russia.
And some analysts say this is really about freeing up attention for the Asian Pacific.
How do you see the US playing its role here?
Well, I don't think Washington is kind of deprioritizing Europe, but it certainly is rebalancing its foreign policy in in the areas of security.
I think Washington seeks to end the very costly European war costly for United States, of course while at the same time refocusing on the long-term strategy, its long-term strategy in the Pacific.
So the US motivation here blends desire to reduce military and fiscal burden for itself, claim diplomatic achievement at the same time.
You know, ending the war with Ukraine and Russia would be that, and then reorienting its strategic resources towards Indo-Pacific, and all of this while trying to preserve credible security posture in Europe, which is very difficult.
But that's the goal.
I think that dual objectives creates political tension with some European allies, because we don't necessarily agree that the US should do that.
About European perspective, Europe can't seem to agree on the matter.
Belgium says using frozen Russian assets is a mistake and EU funding for Ukraine is also stuck.
And Hungary's Prime Minister Orban visited Moscow and suggesting a US-Russian summit, with Europe pulling in different directions.
Can the EU still meaningfully influence where this talks go?
Yes, the divisions within the EU in terms of foreign policy.
They complicate EU's leverage in any kind of talks around ending the war in Ukraine.
This kind of disagreements over using frozen Russian assets, varying member positions for example, you just noted the Hungary's outreach to Moscow they all weaken a single European negotiating voice.
This is very obvious.
And the EU as an actor.
It of course still matters because it matters for financial reconstruction of Ukraine and funding it.
It matters for sanctions.
It matters when it comes to political legitimacy.
And it's a really crucial actor in this kind of positions.
But the internal divisions.
They actually reduce its bargaining power and may force the United States to play a larger unilateral broker role unless EU unity is restored.
So EU is very much interested in restoring unity in this crucial moment, but I think it's a little bit failing in this situation and the US is taking more and more single-player role.
The original plan had things like neutrality and demilitarization, which Ukraine strongly opposed.
After revisions, do you think Ukraine's security needs and reconstruction concerns are better addressed?
And if a deal comes out of this, could it actually work both sides in the long-term run?
Know this kind of recent revisions they have trimmed pro-russian elements in the text.
That's true, and the increased emphasis on the sequencing, security guarantees and reconstruction also true.
But these key gaps remain that we talked about in the beginning of this interview, and enforceability and territorial outcomes are yet very big questions.
So a sustainable deal could be engineered if it pairs with kind of face security guarantees, like maybe multinational forces treaty guarantees or any other thing that they can invent and agree on.
Clear reconstruction funding for Ukraine, tied to the rule of law, safeguards impartial verification of the peace regime.
It's going to be very much on the table.
But politically that balance is very fragile and it all depends on Russia accepting the limits it currently resists as well, if we talk from just Western and Ukrainian side.
So I do not see this continuing forward in the way that is presented right now, but it's just maybe just my skepticism.
Thank you, Professor, for your valuable insights.
That was Kamal Mikhailiev, Associate Professor at the School of Global Studies at University of Gothenburg.
More to come.
Tensions between the United States and Venezuela are escalating as Maduro accuses Trump of colonialism and threatens military action.
And then we'll take a look at the Airbus A320 software issue how a solar attack for to 6000 plants to stay grounded.
You're listening to Road Today.
We'll be back after a short break.
Let's continue our discussion on China's high-tech manufacturing sector.
The country's major industrial firm have reported steady profit growth in the first 10 months of the year, driven by resilient factory activity.
Official data show that industrial enterprises recorded total profits of around US840 billion, marking a nearly 2 increase from the previous year.
The growth has been bolstered by strong performances in sectors such as railway shipbuilding and aerospace, where profits grew by 32.
Profit growth in the electronics sector came in at almost 13%.
High-tech manufacturing, including semiconductors production, continued its strong momentum, with profits up 8 year-on-year.
With more, Zhao Yang spoke with Yan Liang, a professor of economics at Willamette University.
So Yan, profits at China's major industrial firms rose steadily in the first 10 months of this year.
We see the resilient performance in high-tech and equipment manufacturing, with profits rising 8 and 78 respectively.
So what does this tell us about the direction of China's industrial upgrade?
Well, I think this is a very important question, as we know that oftentimes people talk about involution in China's industrial production sector, and a lot of the competition drive down prices and therefore profits.
But what we have seen in the recent months is that, As China continue to upgrade its industrial structure, as companies move up in the value chain, they're actually able to compete more on the productivity, on the features of their tech products, on technological advancements rather than simply on prices.
So that, coupled with the anti-involution campaign, we start to see that companies are making positive profits.
As a matter of fact, in October, you've seen the total value added firms went up by 4.9%.
But when you look at the high tech manufacturing, they grew at a much, much faster place at you know, point two percent when it comes to the value added of the high tech manufacturing sector.
And, as you mentioned, you know, with these industrial upgrade, more and more value added is being able to create it.
And then companies are able to reap more profits.
And so for the first nine months in China, the total profits of enterprises actually gone up by three point two percent.
So again, I would argue that this is part of, you know, the entire evolution, evolution campaign that basically guide companies not to compete on price wars but on really, you know, their technological, you know features.
And partly due to discontinuous upgrading, so companies can are able to profit on their value added rather than simply on cheaper prices.
And, as you mentioned, the high-tech manufacturing, which includes products like semiconductors, maintains strong momentum.
So how would you characterize China's semiconductor progress over the past few years?
Well, I think China is really making great strides in the semiconductor industry.
As you know, There has been the kinds of tech export restrictions from the United States, especially when it comes to the high-end GPU exports to China.
But that simply, I think, galvanizes China's enterprises to really indigenize the technological innovations and also utilize the domestic production and domestic technologies to provide the kind of self-reliance.
So we know now China is actually very competitive in the mature nodes of the semiconductor production.
And China is also making a lot of innovations in the higher end semiconductor chips.
So I think companies like Huawei and others have been really doubling down on their research and development.
And they're also making a lot of smart innovations to circumvent the kind of tech restrictions coming from the United States.
So I think that has created a very conducive ecosystem where the supply side there has been a lot of innovations and also mass production of the mature products, mature nodes of these semiconductor chips.
So I think that just clearly shows that China is making progress.
Now, of course, there's still some distance.
NVIDIA's Blackwell series are still the most high end GPUs now in the market.
But I think again, with China's efforts to indigenize the kinds of technological innovations, we're likely to see this kind of gap narrowing and narrowing.
And I think that really is showing the direction of China's semiconductor chips industry.
And at the same time, the railway, ship and aerospace sector profits grew by 32%.
So tell us about the shipbuilding sector, Yin.
So what is driving this surge and what's the general competitiveness of China's shipbuilding industry now?
Right.
So you know, shipbuilding is really a very salient, I think example of China's manufacturing competitiveness.
Last year, China captured over 53% of the global shipbuilding market share.
China's strength really lies in its enormous scale.
It's really the technology dominance and also the ability to deliver a wide range of vessels, including many of these high-end, high-tech ships propelled by green energies and having a lot of advanced tech features.
So the dominance really again is based on, you know, long-term strategic support from the government, but also with the industrial consolidation and really vertically integrated supply chain that really helped to, you know, foster technology innovations, especially in technological, especially in green technologies.
So I think you know this is really showcase China's strengths in the manufacturing capacity right.
I mean, this is over half of the global market share.
And China is, again, still making a lot of progress.
So I think you know, and this is a very important industry because it does provide a lot of, you know, spew over effects to various other industries, right like steel, like aluminum, and also green energies and so on and so forth
So right now I think China is building technological complex vessels like our energy carriers and also next generation container ships.
So I think this sector will continue to provide a lot of industrial momentum, will provide a lot of momentum for the industrial sector, both in terms of technological innovations, but also in terms of mass manufacturing capacity.
And for aerospace sector, China's National Space Administration established a dedicated commercial space department and released a national action plan through the year 2027 to support the commercial space sector.
And six commercial aerospace companies filing for IPO counseling within months.
So is this a turning point for China's private space sector?
Well, I think China's space sector has also made a lot of progress over time.
Right now, we know that there are many state-owned enterprises that are already in the market, like the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and also China Aeroscience Industry Corporation.
But there are also many emerging private enterprises like Landspace iSpace, Galactic Energy and so on and so forth.
So you are likely to see many of these companies with, I think, the state government support to provide a lot of funding for research and development.
And many of these innovative companies are also entering the market and trying to build aerospace and commercial airplane sort of products.
This market is vast and it's growing and it's projected that China's aerospace and commercial space industries is projected to be well worth over 900 billion by 2029.
So that's why I think, as you mentioned, the government is setting up specifically, you know, designated bureau to oversee but also to promote the development of the sector.
And of course the government is also really trying to involve more private enterprises in the sector to drive innovations.
And so I think that you know it's very likely to see that China is going to leapfrog in this sector.
As we know, again, China is making many headway when it comes to their technologies, right?
China is really trying to build their own commercial airplanes, like C-919.
And also China has successfully, back in 2029, launched the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft.
And many of the new developments have really happening scenes.
Now there's still a little bit distance, as we know that in 2024, the United States launched 185 orbital launches by SpaceX, and China completed 68 launches.
But again, I think China is really know, the second, the top countries when it comes to aerospace development and with the government support, when it comes to research and development fundings and also with, you know, many private enterprises entering the space and, with this, innovative capabilities and also, i think, with a really great market needs, because i think, you know, this sector could be the next sort of the quote-unquote battlefield right for technological competition between China and the United States.
So I think with all these you know both pressures, but also with really these market opportunities, I think we're likely to see.
You know, China is going to develop very rapidly in the aerospace and commercial airplane space.
That was Yan Liang, a professor of economics at Willamette University.
Now let's turn to the escalating tensions between the United States and Venezuela.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the US of colonialism after President Donald Trump announced plans to close airspace above and around Venezuela.
Venezuela is now on high alert following US attacks on vessels in nearby waters and a significant military and naval buildup in the region.
It's reported that during a phone call last week, President Trump warned President Maduro that the US could resort to force if he did not step down voluntarily.
Venezuelan officials have accused the US of using drug interdiction as a pretext for instigating regime change and expanding its influence in the region.
For more on this.
My colleague Xu Yaowen spoke with Jiang Shixue, distinguished professor at the College of International Relations at Sichuan International Studies University.
Professor Jiang, the US has deployed significant military assets to the Caribbean, framing this military buildup as the counter-narcotics operations.
Yet data shows Venezuela is not a major source of drugs entering the U.S.
What's the real reason behind the US military actions against Venezuela over the past two decades, or i would say more than two decades, since chavez came to power in the year 2000?
Venezuela is following the policy of anti-us, so the us has been trying all kinds of means to overthrow the government in venezuela.
The chavez died and then maduro became the president of Venezuela, but Maduro still follows the policy of Chavez.
So the US is very angry over what Venezuela has been doing.
And also I want to point out that Venezuela is an oil-rich country and it has supplied oil to Cuba and also some other countries.
So the US just wishes to do to do a kind of a regime change policy.
So fighting against drug cartel is a pretext.
It's not really, it's a real purpose.
Even US Senator Chris Van Hollen has said, risk the concerns that US strikes on vessels linked to Venezuela, which killed at least 83 people, may constitute war crimes, especially given the lack of public evidence that targeted boats carried drugs.
Then how would you assess the legality of these military actions under international law and potential violations of human rights?
You know, the U.S. is kind of a hegemonic power follows the foreign policy in an imperialist manner.
It just wants to do anything it wishes to do.
So I would point out that the US just wants to send a clear signal to President Maduro and his government, or even to the people in Venezuela.
That means Maduro must go because Venezuela has been following the policy of the US.
But who knows what will happen?
Because Venezuela is relatively weak in comparison to the civil power, the US military strength.
So Venezuela has to ask the international community who fight against the action undertaken by the US.
Well, you know actually, in response to US threats, President Maduro has asked OPEC members to take actions to protect Venezuela's vast oil reserves.
In your view, what specific measures is Venezuela hoping OPEC will take and how feasible is it for OPEC members to respond to his request, given the diverse interests and priorities of its member countries?
In the 1970s, the oil producing countries did a kind of embargo against the West.
And well, I guess maybe Venezuela wants other OPEC countries to do the same, say something like an embargo against the US, but it's not easy to do so nowadays.
But well, In a political gesture, I think Venezuela wants to have a kind of support from other OPEC countries.
As far as I know, Venezuela has been asking the United Nations to do something to stop the US from taking a peaceful country like Venezuela.
But you know, as I mentioned just now, the US is a hegemonic power.
It just wants to do anything it wishes to do.
So the whole situation in the Western Hemisphere is really a dangerous situation.
In your view, how are the international community responding to the US trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government?
Well, theoretically speaking, the UN or the whole international community should do something to stop the US from taking this kind of dangerous actions against its neighbor.
But you know, nowadays, the UN is really not so powerful.
We have seen many, many things, like the war in Ukraine, and also the terrible situation in Gaza.
Well, the UN can really I would point out that the UN is somewhat useless in some aspects.
So, in the face of the coming dangerous situation in the Caribbean, I don't believe the UN can really do something to stop the US from invading Venezuela.
What impact might this have on future diplomatic relations between the us and latin america?
Because, as you have just mentioned, we see the tensions escalate between us and venezuela also?
The us labeled the entire venezuelan government as a terrorist entity and then Trump issued this ultimatum to Maduro to leave Venezuela immediately, and Maduro purely refused to leave.
Given these developments, what will happen next?
And how will that have the ripple effect on the diplomatic relations between US and Latin America?
Well, you know, there are 33 countries in Latin America.
As far as I know, there are quite a few countries who do not like Venezuela because they believe that Maduro is doing some kind of wrong things domestically, taking care of its foreign policy as well as its domestic policies.
But regarding the possibility that the US is going to take military action against Venezuela, I'm sure that most of the interest in Latin America might be.
We might say Argentina might be the only exception.
So I will say just the majority of the countries in Latin America would oppose the US taking this kind of military actions.
You know, the region has declared itself as as a zone of peace or a continent of peace.
This kind of recognition has been accepted by every country in the region.
Suppose the US will take a military action against Venezuela to overthrow the government in Venezuela.
Well, the bilateral relationship between US and Latin America will turn worse and worse.
That was Jiang Shixue, Distinguished Professor at the College of International Relations at Sichuan International Studies University.
This is REL Today.
Stay tuned.
Welcome.
I'm Elav Elad, Economics Professor and member of the Data Science and AI Center at New York University, Shanghai.
On the World Today program, you can find in-depth and impartial insights, as well as critical commentary, on key trends in the Chinese economy, financial technology, business and blockchain.
To prepare for the world tomorrow, join me on World Today.
This is Road Today.
Airbus has issued its broadest safety alert, ordering urgent software updates for thousands of A320 jets worldwide due to a solar flare vulnerability.
The directive followed a recent in-flight incident.
The concern stems from how solar radiation can interfere with aircraft electronics, potentially affecting flight control systems.
The alert initially impacted around 6000 aircraft.
While many airlines acted swiftly, several faced disruptions.
So for more on this, my colleague Song Ruixin spoke with Andy Mock, a tech analyst and professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
First, Andy, could you tell us how Airbus originally discovered this situation?
Sure.
Well, here are the highlights, or perhaps we could call it the lowlights.
So on October 30th, a JetBlue A320 went down very, very quickly in an unanticipated way.
So, of course, this could be terrifying for everybody on the plane and the pilots as well.
But thankfully, they were able to recover.
So nothing disastrous happened.
But what this did was it triggered an investigation that led to to the discovery that this was actually a malfunction in flight control software and specifically, at least what has been publicly reported, is that data was corrupted by an intense burst of solar radiation, and what they had to do then was to roll back to a previous version of the software which was not affected by this, and then Again, in some sense, you know, we can think of this as a sort of a miracle, in that nothing disastrous happened to this particular plane.
And roughly 6000 aircraft Airbus A320s had to be fixed, in the sense that new software had to be updated or a patch had to be deployed.
And this was done.
You know again, as far as public reporting on this has been, was done very, very quickly, with minimal disruption.
So, which was important for the United States, because you know, this happened during the Thanksgiving holiday period, which is one of the busiest travel seasons for the United States, in some way like Spring Festival in China.
So that, you know, this all kind of happened in a way in a very smooth way.
Now to the response.
Airbus executed a global software retrofit for thousands of aircraft in a matter of days.
Then, from a technology and logistics standpoint, how significant is this feat and what does it reveal about the new realities of maintaining so-called software-defined aircraft in commercial fleets?
Well, Royce, I mean, that's an excellent point.
And I think what this does is that we step back from the details of this particular instance.
We see a deeper pattern.
So Mark Andreessen, who developed the first web browser, in a sense helped launch the internet era and now is a very successful venture capital investor, wrote many years ago that software is eating the world, meaning that everything we do is going to be handled by software not just airplanes, but cars hospitals, electric utilities, et cetera.
And this was seen as a very positive thing, in that software becomes the skeleton or the central nervous system of modern society.
But what that means though, is that, so that not only makes things more efficient, makes it very easy to update improve things because you can just change several lines of code, versus having to manufacture, ship new pieces of equipment, new physical components.
But at the same time as because we're talking about this today this also can bring problems, in that a problem in the software doesn't just affect one aircraft.
It could affect potentially thousands and could have systemic catastrophic consequences.
So I think this is again indicative of a systemic vulnerability, not just a problem with a particular airplane, and maybe not just a problem with aircraft software, but software perhaps more generally.
And then what systematic changes are needed to close the kind of gap while ensuring cybersecurity, especially as updates move from physical data loaders to potential over-the-air methods?
Well, that's really, I think, the difficulty, or maybe we can call it the dilemma of racing.
Because once we rely on software for critical systems like civil aviation, you know, like healthcare systems, that if there's a problem, either a defect or an intentional act, that it's hacked.
This then again creates a large attack surface and your measures do have to be taken.
And the positive side is obviously a lot of resources are devoted to software quality, making sure that bugs are caught before the software is deployed, or that software is secure, so that it cannot be accessed by malevolent actors, while at the same time any patches can be deployed very quickly, as you said, perhaps over the air.
And always there's a balance that has to be struck between speed, convenience, as well as safety.
Well, it looks like the scale of response also exposed a key data shortfall.
I mean a subset of older A320s requires a hardware computer replacement, not just a software rollback.
Then we know that Boeing suffered two crashes in rapid succession a few years ago.
And then it is because of a software system as well.
And then that this incident highlight a growing tension between extending the life of legacy aircraft and integrating new software-dependent systems.
Well, I think that's hard to say, but I want to go back to this point about how in some sense miraculous this was, because you mentioned the case with the Boeing MAX, right.
And again, that ended tragically, not once, but several times because of a software defect.
So we can see that again, the vulnerability here.
And you know, i think one way we do that because the trend is, whether we like it or not, we are not only becoming more reliant on software, but very quickly, ai enabled or controlled software, which again introduces a new set of vulnerabilities.
So i think that this is probably the main challenge versus, you know, transitioning from some legacy systems to uh, more modern ones.
But i think the world we're in, uh that this again is a systemic vulnerability, uh that you know it would.
We, we all, should care about governments, businesses and individuals.
And in my final question, analysts suggest that Airbus' rapid and transparent response, including the CEO's public apology, was directly influenced by lessons from the Boeing 737 MAX crisis.
Do you believe this represents a permanent shift in aviation's playbook for handling safety issues?
Or can we see this as a kind of overcommunication?
Well, we could.
And again, you know, I think that crisis communication is very important.
But perhaps the more important, even more important, I think, reaction is, you know, I think, the pilots that were able to regain control of the plane again, the plane did not crash.
No one was hurt.
I think that perhaps is more important.
And the minimal disruption to the civil aviation system globally as well is very, very noteworthy and important.
Because again, there's something like 6,000 A320s globally, and 10% of them are in China.
So from a Chinese perspective, this was also potentially a big issue because of the potential disruption to civil aviation in China.
So I think that improved crisis communication, I think is good.
And I think it's not a surprise that companies in this industry like Airbus learn from the way Boeing handled it.
And that, I think, is to be expected.
But the more important, I think, to pay attention to is that, again, this didn't turn out worse.
It could have turned out again to be a tragedy, as well as impose enormous disruption on the global civil aviation system.
That was Andy Mock, a tech analyst and professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today with Mika Anna.
Thank you so much for listening.
Bye for now.
