Commentary: Joe Biden is missing the opportunity to reset 50-year progress in US-China relations

The US is no longer the world hegemon, but behaves as if it is in dealing with China, say Hong Kong observers.

United States President Joe Biden listens as he meets virtually with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the 

Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Nov 15, 2021. (File photo: AP/Susan Walsh)

Andrew Sheng

Xiao Geng

30 Dec 2021


HONG KONG - Next year will mark 50 years since US President Richard Nixon travelled to China to meet with Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Zedong and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai - a major step toward restoring relations after decades of estrangement and hostility.

A half-century later, the progress they launched has been all but lost, and US President Joe Biden is partly to blame.

The ideological differences between the United States and China in 1972 could not have been starker. But both sides recognised the vast benefits of a détente.

Commentary: Myths about the South China Sea stoke tensions with Beijing

A major shipping route, yes, but vital? False claims about the value of these waters only make diplomacy harder, says an economist.

John Quiggin

29 Dec 2021

BRISBANE: US officials regularly present China as an aggressive and expansionist military power while Chinese state sources criticise the United States in similar terms.

The verbal sparring has only increased concern about the prospect of a future war between China and the United States

The most likely casus belli is seen as arising either from an attempt by China to take control of shipping routes and disputed territory in the South China Sea, or from an attempt to forcibly reincorporate Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China.

Tension has been stoked by a series of myths about the South China Sea. Five of these shibboleths in particular should be refuted.

Dark shades, beige berets, submachine guns: The police counterterrorism unit made up mostly of NSFs

Police officers from the Protective Security Command (ProCom) clearing a room. (Photo: Calvin Oh/CNA)

Aqil Haziq Mahmud

19 Dec 2021

SINGAPORE: On Dec 29, 2019, Inspector (INSP) Herman Mohamed Sidek was on a regular patrol with three other police officers – all full-time national servicemen (NSF) – near Paragon shopping centre when he heard a loud bang in the direction of Lucky Plaza nearby.

“We thought that something exploded,” the 43-year-old regular from the Protective Security Command (ProCom) told reporters on Thursday (Dec 16). “So, my first thought was to run (to the incident).”

Commentary: All I want this Christmas is an end to eco-friendly gifts

Metal straws or bamboo cutlery don’t move the needle on the waste problem, says CNA’s Erin Low.

Reusable straws at a bulk store. (Photo: Pichayada Promchertchoo)

Erin Low

17 Dec 2021 


SINGAPORE: Shopping for Christmas gifts? Please take my advice: Do not buy reusable straws. Or anything reusable, really.

My kitchen cabinets are spilling over with sustainable stuff: Glass tupperware, beeswax wraps, grocery bags and more.

Of metal straws, I have a silver one, a chrome blue one, a multicoloured one, and a golden one with a crook on top so it looks like a bendy straw – but because it can't actually bend, it always catches on my drawer whenever someone opens it.

To add to the clutter, each straw comes with a thin brush that can be slipped in to clean the inside. They resemble tiny toilet brushes but serve no other purpose.

Taiwan says it is confident Chinese invasion would be very hard

Pilot and navy officers pose in front of an F-16V fighter at the commission of the first squadron of the upgraded
F-16V fighters in Chiayi Air Force Base, Chiayi, Taiwan, Nov 18, 2021. (File photo: REUTERS/Ann Wang)

13 Dec 2021


TAIPEI: A full Chinese invasion of Taiwan with troops landed and ports and airports seized would be very difficult to achieve due to problems China would have in landing and supplying troops, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said in its latest threat assessment.

Commentary: China's economy is faltering. The world just doesn't know it yet

As China's run of constant exponential economic growth hints at coming to an end, Morgan Stanley's Ruchir Sharma explains why its effect on the global economy will be underwhelming.

Ruchir Sharma

08 Dec 2021

NEW YORK CITY: China’s surprisingly rapid slowdown is eliciting familiar warnings that, as China goes, so goes the global economy. Only China may not matter as much as it once did.

Where does the truth lie? Comparing the accounts of Raeesah Khan and WP chief Pritam Singh

By DARYL CHOO

DECEMBER 04, 2021

• A special report by Parliament’s privileges committee on Dec 3 revealed what transpired in the run-up to former Workers’ Party MP Raeesah Khan’s resignation 
• This was over a lie she made in Parliament on Aug 3
• In several areas, however, Ms Khan's account to the commitee differed from assertions made by WP chief Pritam Singh at a press conference on Dec 2

SINGAPORE — New revelations emerged late on Friday (Dec 3) in a special report by Parliament’s Committee of Privileges that shone a light on what transpired in the run-up to former Workers’ Party (WP) Member of Parliament Raeesah Khan’s resignation over a lie she made in the House.

The report, presented to Parliament on the same day, set out Ms Raeesah’s testimony that WP’s leaders had told her to stick to the lie she made during a sitting of Parliament on Aug 3.

Testifying under oath before the committee on Thursday and Friday, Ms Raeesah said that she was told by WP chief Pritam Singh, chairman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap that if she and the party could get away with it, there was no need to clarify the lie.

In several areas, her account differed from assertions made by Mr Singh at a press conference on Thursday — raising fresh questions over what led Ms Raeesah to persist with the lie before she made her confession to Parliament on Nov 1.



Here is a comparison of their accounts, based on what Mr Singh said at the press conference and what Ms Raeesah told the committee: