China is using artificial intelligence in the operation of its 45,000km (28,000-mile) high-speed rail network, with the technology achieving several milestones, according to engineers involved in the project.
An AI system in Beijing is processing vast amounts of real-time data from across the country and can alert maintenance teams of abnormal situations within 40 minutes, with an accuracy as high as 95 per cent, they said in a peer-reviewed paper. “This helps on-site teams conduct reinspections and repairs as quickly as possible,” wrote Niu Daoan, a senior engineer at the China State Railway Group’s infrastructure inspection centre, in the paper published by the academic journal China Railway. In the past year, none of China’s operational high-speed railway lines received a single warning that required speed reduction due to major track irregularity issues, while the number of minor track faults decreased by 80 per cent compared to the previous year. According to the paper, the amplitude of rail movement caused by strong winds also decreased – even on massive valley-spanning bridges – with the application of AI technology. Machine intelligence can predict and issue warnings before problems arise, enabling precise and timely maintenance that keeps the infrastructure of high-speed rail lines in better condition than when it was first built, according to the researchers. Niu and his team said the significant amount of data generated by the sensors embedded in high-speed rail infrastructure was “forcing China to adopt new technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence”. The adoption of these technologies allowed for “more precise and timely assessments and scientific evaluations of infrastructure service status”, they said. According to the paper, after years of effort Chinese railway scientists and engineers have “solved challenges” in comprehensive risk perception, equipment evaluation, and precise trend predictions in engineering, power supply and telecommunications. The result was “scientific support for achieving proactive safety prevention and precise infrastructure maintenance for high-speed railways”, the engineers said. Before construction began on China’s first high-speed rail line 15 years ago, critics argued that maintenance would become an unbearable burden as wires and rails inevitably aged. By the end of last year, the network surpassed the length of the equator, posing an engineering and technological challenge to maintain its safe operation. Across the Pacific, the ageing US railway network is facing the same issue, with lack of maintenance leading to frequent safety incidents. In the past 50 years, the average number of derailments has exceeded 2,800 per year, peaking at nearly 10,000 in 1978. China’s high-speed rail is the fastest in the world, operating at 350km/h (217mph), with plans for an increase next year to 400km/hr (249mph). The network is expected to continue its rapid expansion until it connects all cities with populations over 500,000. But Niu’s team identified a looming problem for the rail network, in the combination of rising incomes, a declining birth rate and the overall ageing of the population – the number of maintenance workers will gradually decrease compared to present levels.
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EV prices may be a concern to customers, particularly coupled with high interest rates. Though its Model Y was a bestseller this year, Tesla did report slower sales in its third quarter. It’s also been discounting its models this year, and recently announced even more price cuts—increasing competition with other automakers. (Its Model 3, though, is soon set to lose its incentives.) While there are tax credits available for many electric vehicles, those credits are expected to become easier to get in 2024, thanks to a Department of Treasury proposal that would let customers get those tax breaks—up to $7,500 for new EVs and $4,000 for used ones—at the point of sale.
China Road and Bridge Corporation has not yet repaired the damage done by highway construction to the UNESCO-protected Tara River, Montenegro's environmental agency confirms. Montenegro’s Agency for Environmental Protection reported recently that China Road and Bridge Corporation, CRBC, has not yet corrected the damage done to the Tara River, part of which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which occurred during construction of the Bar-Boljare highway. A BIRN investigation showed that the Chinese company was obliged to correct the damage by July 2022. “Projected remediation measures have not yet been completed … We expect that, in the coming period, CRBC will fully realize all the obligations, otherwise we will do it ]ourselves] at the expense of the Chinese company,” the agency told BIRN. “CRBC has so far corrected the left bank of the river, rehabilitated the local macadam road, and remedied the bed of the Tara River to a length of about 500 meters,” the Agency specified. The Bar-Boljare highway represents the Montenegrin leg of a larger highway running from the Adriatic coast to the Serbian capital, Belgrade. CRBC is building the Montenegrin leg and 85 per cent of the first section is being covered by a $944 million loan from China’s Exim Bank. On July 13, 2023, the first section of the highway was officially opened, seven years after the Chinese-financed project started, driving up Montenegro’s public debt to 90.85 per cent of GDP. In June 2019, the local watchdog NGO MANS warned that the highway’s construction was devastating the Tara River, including its UNESCO-protected area, stressing that the construction of bridges and the exploitation and disposal of gravel and sand had damaged the riverbed. After the Environmental Protection Agency determined the damage, a remediation plan with CRBC was determined on August 2, 2021. But civic organisations criticized the remediation measures approved by the Agency, stating that the rehabilitation of only 500 meters of river bed was not enough because more than six kilometres of the river course has been damaged. Lazar Grdinic, from MANS, said there have been no serious efforts to rehabilitate the devastated part of the Tara riverbed and even partially restore it. “So far, there are no serious scientific studies that would give a definitive answer to the question of the extent of the devastation,” Grdinic told BIRN. The head of the local Sports Fishing Club, Momir Zivkovic, also said highway construction had destroyed both the river and its fish stock. In April 2018, the club received a concession to manage fish stocks on part of the Tara, but, due to the devastation of the river, it had demanded compensation from the Chinese company.
“In the past, dozens of fish could be caught on Tara in one day. Today, the situation with the fish stock is a catastrophic, and you can hardly meet a fisherman here, ” Zivkovic told BIRN. BIRN was not able to contact CRBC. Nicknamed the “tear of Europe”, the Tara is considered one of the most beautiful rivers on the continent, and its deep canyons are popular among river rafters. In its 2019 progress report on the country, the European Commission urged Montenegro to prevent possible environmental damage being done to the Tara in the context of the highway. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have attempted to use a submersible drone for the first time, but it was destroyed in yet another wave of US-led coalition attacks over the weekend, the US Central Command has claimed.
The US Navy conducted a series of five strikes, hitting three Houthi cruise missiles, an unmanned surface vessel (USV), and one unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) on Saturday, CENTCOM announced on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday. “This is the first observed Houthi employment of a UUV since attacks began in Oct. 23,” the US military wrote, claiming it presented an “imminent threat” to US Navy ships and commercial vessels in the area. Since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in Gaza, the Houthi militants, who are in control of a large portion of Yemen, have harassed multiple vessels sailing the Red Sea. In solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, the Houthis vowed to attack any ships they find to be linked to Israel until the siege of Gaza stops. In response, the US launched an international maritime coalition to patrol the Red Sea called ‘Prosperity Guardian’, with the stated goal of protecting shipping lanes. Since mid-January, the US and UK have carried out air- and sea-launched attacks against “multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters” in Yemen in an attempt to “degrade Houthi capabilities” to attack military vessels and merchant ships. The Houthis vowed to “meet escalation with escalation” and expanded their list of potential targets to include US- and UK-owned merchant vessels. While no Houthi missiles have hit a US Navy vessel thus far, the group has launched scores of missiles and drones against the US-led coalition ships in the Red Sea. The attacks on Suez Canal freight – a route which normally accounts for around 15% of the world’s commercial shipping – have forced major companies to avoid the Red Sea altogether and sail around the coast of Africa, facing increased costs and spiking insurance premiums. On Sunday, another vessel sailing off the coast of Yemen was hit, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. The master of the ship reported an “explosion in close proximity of the vessel resulting in damage,” adding that all crew members were safe. A senior official of the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist group says Chinese and Russian vessels will have safe passage through the Red Sea.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi political leadership, said in an interview with the Russian outlet Izvestia that the shipping lanes around Yemen are safe to ships from China and Russia as long as vessels are not connected with Israel, Agence France-Presse reported Friday, citing Izvestia. The Houthis have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza and have carried out more than 30 attacks in the Red Sea. However, the Houthis have launched attacks on ships with no apparent connection with Israel, resulting in some shipping firms avoiding the shipping lanes where the Houthis have launched attacks. Major shipping companies have responded by rerouting vessels on the longer and more expensive route around Africa. The Red Sea route is a vital shipping link between Europe and Asia, carrying about 15% of the world’s maritime traffic. The Houthi rebels launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a U.S.-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement late Thursday. The statement said the crew saw the missiles land in the water near the ship. There were no reported injuries or damage to the ship, the M/V Chem Ranger, a Marshall Island-flagged, U.S.-owned, Greek-operated tanker ship, U.S. Central Command said. Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they had carried out the attack, claiming “direct hits,” a statement on the group’s social media said. On Thursday, U.S. forces carried out more strikes against targets inside Iranian-backed, Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen, as concerns grow that the Israel-Hamas conflict could expand into a full-blown war across the Middle East. The disruption of cargo ships in the Red Sea due to attacks by Houthi militants from Yemen is causing global shippers to redirect vessels, potentially leading to increased prices for goods.
Swedish furniture giant IKEA announced this week that it was exploring options to secure the availability of its products that are mainly delivered through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal from Asian factories to Western markets. “The situation in the Suez Canal will result in delays and may cause availability constraints for certain Ikea products,” Oscar Ljunggren, a spokesperson for Inter IKEA Group, told Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Abercrombie & Fitch is planning to shift from sea freight to air transport whenever possible to mitigate disruptions, as reported in an email to suppliers. Earlier this week, Danish shipping group Maersk said it had rerouted vessels around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope due to the heightened risk of attacks, reducing the effective capacity of an Asia-Europe trip by 25%. German transport company Hapag-Lloyd followed suit. However, sending vessels around Africa increases a round-trip journey by nearly two and a half weeks, inevitably lowering shipping capacity and raising costs. The Suez Canal is a vital transport artery that handles about 15% of the world’s shipping activity, including nearly 30% of global container trade. The recent attacks, occurring amid the Israel-Hamas war, have triggered a new trade and shipping emergency, reminiscent of the 2021 incident where one of the largest container ships blocked the canal for six days, resulting in a daily cost of $9.6 billion to global trade. Hundreds of Hongkongers gathered at Victoria Harbour to see one of the new passenger jets made in mainland China fly over the city on Saturday morning, with enthusiasts hailing the aircraft as a fresh start for the country’s aviation industry.
The narrowbody C919 plane took off just before 10.30am from Hong Kong International Airport and made two passes over the harbour for excited onlookers, despite the cloudy weather. Crowds gathered at the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade, with teenagers and retirees alike eagerly snapping pictures, cameras and long lenses in hand, as the aircraft soared in the sky above. Among the plane spotters was 13-year-old secondary school student Carson Chan, who left his home in Tin Shui Wai at 7am with his camera and tripod. “It’s a very rare chance to see the C919 fly here in Hong Kong, so I came here to take advantage of the opportunity,” he said. “I get to see it with my own eyes and use my own camera to take photos. I feel very honoured and happy.”
A lack of water has created expensive challenges for companies as vessels have faced wait times of up to three weeks to pass through the canal. Container ships, which transport consumer goods, typically reserve passage well in advance, and have not faced long delays. But vessels carrying bulk commodities generally don’t book passage. The shipping snarl comes at the peak season for American crop exports, and the higher costs are threatening to dent demand for US corn and soy suppliers, who have already ceded market share to Brazil in recent years, the outlet said. A number of US grain exporters were forced to reroute their crop shipments to Asia from Gulf Coast ports to Pacific Northwest ports. But that came at a higher cost as those facilities source grain mostly via rail as opposed to the cheaper barge-delivered loads supplying Gulf Coast exporters.
“Commercial companies have been finding ways to navigate around the problem. But undoubtedly it costs the end-user more money,” said Dan Basse, president of Chicago-based consultancy AgResource Co. Only five US grain ships bound for Asia transited the Panama Canal in October compared to 34 ships last year, according to a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. “It’s causing quite a disruption both in expense and delay,” said Jay O’Neil, proprietor of HJ O’Neil Commodity Consulting. The current disruption of one of the world’s main maritime trade routes is the most severe in half a century of monitoring global shipping, he added. The Panama Canal Authority restricted vessel transits this autumn as a lack of water hampered canal operations. It cut daily transits to 22 vessels from the usual 35 and is planning to reduce transits to 18 by February. Further reductions could come if water levels remain low. Protracted disruptions at the canal could continue to impede grain shipments well into 2024, when the region’s wet season may begin to refill reservoirs and normalize shipping in April or May, analysts said. Major sea ports around Australia have been shut down by operator DP World following what has been called a “cybersecurity incident.”
The container terminal operator made the decision late on Friday night, with access to ports heavily restricted on Saturday at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Fremantle. “Our teams are working diligently to contain the situation and determine the impact on our systems and data,” DP World Australia said in a statement to the Australian Financial Review. “To safeguard our employees, customers and our networks, we have restricted landside access to our Australian port operations while we continue our investigation. “This is part of a comprehensive response which includes engaging with cybersecurity experts, actively investigating the incident and notifying the relevant authorities.” The hack follows another cybersecurity incident at Melbourne cryptocurrency exchange Coinspot on Thursday, in which more than $2m was taken from accounts. Another data breach in September caused the information of nearly 200,000 Pizza Hut customers to be leaked. Bookstore chain Dymocks also disclosed a data breach, in which customer data “may have been compromised,” also took place in September. DP World is a Dubai-based logistics company which operates cargo and port terminal services both in Australia and internationally. The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) recently voted on industrial action, extending their 24-hour rolling strike notice until November 20. There’s no suggestion the cybersecurity incident and the union actions are linked. Chinese financial institutions lent $1.34 trillion to developing countries from 2000 to 2021, U.S. researchers at AidData said in a report that showed the world's biggest bilateral lender switching from infrastructure to rescue lending.
While lending commitments peaked at almost $136 billion in 2016, China still committed to almost $80 billion of loans and grants in 2021 according to the data, which captures almost 21,000 projects in 165 low and middle income countries as probably the most comprehensive dataset of its type. Chinese financial institutions lent $1.34 trillion to developing countries from 2000 to 2021, U.S. researchers at AidData said in a report that showed the world's biggest bilateral lender switching from infrastructure to rescue lending. While lending commitments peaked at almost $136 billion in 2016, China still committed to almost $80 billion of loans and grants in 2021 according to the data, which captures almost 21,000 projects in 165 low and middle income countries as probably the most comprehensive dataset of its type. The People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), which manages China's foreign currency reserves, accounted for more than half of lending in 2021, almost all bailout lending. "Beijing is navigating an unfamiliar and uncomfortable role — as the world's largest official debt collector," said the report by AidData, a research lab at William and Mary university. Much of China's growing rescue lending is denominated in renminbi, the report found, with loans in the Chinese currency overtaking U.S. dollars in 2020. Overdue payments to Chinese lenders have also risen. One way China is managing repayment risk is through foreign currency cash escrow accounts it controls, AidData said. The arrangement is controversial because it gives China debt seniority, meaning other lenders, including multilateral development banks, could get paid second during any coordinated debt relief. AidData identified 15 countries, primarily in Africa, with escrow accounts totaling a combined $2.5 billion at their peak in June 2023. Brad Parks, the study's lead author, said they were not able to identify all such accounts, as they are normally kept private. He noted, though, that they had found collateralized loans worth $614 billion and that cash was the main source of collateral required by Chinese lenders, indicating that the amount in escrow accounts could be far higher than $2.5 billion. China is also working more with multilateral lenders and Western commercial banks. Half of its non-emergency lending in 2021 was syndicated loans, 80% of that alongside Western banks and international financial institutions. The destinations of Chinese overseas lending have also changed. Loan commitments to African countries fell from 31% of the total in 2018 to 12% in 2021, while lending to European countries almost quadrupled to 23%. A different dataset showed loan commitments to African countries falling to a 20-year low in 2022. The five current members of the BRICS group increased trade by 56% from 2017 to 2022, reaching some $422 billion worth of turnover last year, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
BRICS currently comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, but will be joined by Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE this coming January. The decision to accept the new members was made during the group’s August summit in Johannesburg. According to analyst estimates, the expanded group will represent nearly half of global output by 2040, doubling the share of the Group of Seven (G7), which consists of the US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Japan. Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that BRICS already outpaced the G7 states in terms of the purchasing power parity (PPP) of their populations. Experts project the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of the expanded BRICS in terms of PPP to amount to roughly $65 trillion. This would push the group’s share of global GDP up from the current 31.5% to 37%. In comparison, the share of the G7 is currently around 29.9%. BRICS was originally ‘BRIC’, a term coined by economists using the first letter of four nations – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – that were seen as having the potential to dominate the world economy in the 21st century. These countries first came together in 2006 and later welcomed South Africa as a new member, adding the letter ‘S’ to the acronym. Originally formed largely for the purpose of highlighting investment opportunities among members, the group has become instrumental in building a new “multipolar” world order that will help give a stronger voice to the Global South. In 2014, the BRICS group launched its own international lender, the New Development Bank (NDB), which was seen as an alternative to US-dominated financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. It provides funding for infrastructure and sustainable development projects. The bank formally opened for business in 2015, and was later joined by Bangladesh, the UAE, Egypt, and Uruguay.
With only 24 world leaders in attendance, compared to the 37 who had attended the last BRI Forum, Xi was keen to showcase that China is open for business at a time when concerns are rising about the health of Chinese economy. Promising to "comprehensively remove restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector," the Chinese leader talked of his intent to focus on "cross-border trade and investment in services and market access for digital products."
This was China's first major international event since coming out of around three years of pandemic lockdown in January 2023 and was a celebration of one of Xi's signature projects. Not surprisingly, he was gung-ho about the achievements of BRI as he underlined how his initiative has helped the developing world by making infrastructure and connectivity the centerpiece of emerging global economic discourse. He outlined how China has "endeavored to build a global network of connectivity consisting of economic corridors, international transportation routes and information highway as well as railways, roads, airports, ports, pipelines and power grids," thereby boosting "the flow of goods, capital, technologies and human resources among countries involved and injected fresh vitality into the millennia-old Silk Road in the new era." There is no doubt that BRI has been an innovative idea to energize the next stage of economic globalisation and, for a large part of the world left outside the global economic order, this was a timely initiative which, by mobilising as much as $1 trillion in finance, allowed for new economic possibilities to emerge. But it was the operationalization of the idea that left much to be desired as several nations got saddled with huge debt even as the financial and environmental sustainability of many projects brought to the fore the vulnerabilities of a centralised, top down project. With several infrastructure projects stuck and the Chinese economy slowing down in recent years, this forum was also Xi Jinping's attempt to demonstrate his nation's continued commitment to a project in which he is personally invested and which is as much about geopolitical positioning of China in the emerging global order as it is about geoeconomics. Facing a lot of flak for the performance of BRI, Xi tried to send out a message that he is willing to make some changes with a move to "high-quality" development, focused primarily on the digital economy and sustainable "green development" and underpinned by "the philosophy of open, green and clean cooperation, and the goal of pursuing high-standard, people-centered and sustainable cooperation." Integrity is the new buzzword as Xi talked of establishing "the Integrity and Compliance Evaluation System for companies involved in Belt and Road cooperation" and working "with international organizations to carry out research and training on promoting integrity in Belt and Road cooperation." This was part of his eight-point action plan that also includes supporting an open world economy, promoting green development, advancing scientific and technological innovation, supporting people-to-people exchanges, and strengthening institutional building for international Belt and Road cooperation. In light of the challenges facing the BRI projects worldwide and others launching connectivity alternatives to BRI, it was imperative for Xi Jinping to be seen as making amends. How these changes get reflected on the ground will shape the future of BRI and China's credibility as a provider of global public goods. But for Xi Jinping, this is also about offering an alternative to the US-led global order, and the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a Taliban delegation led by its acting minister of industry and commerce, Nooruddin Aziz, brought this into sharp relief. Putin, of course, was the star at the forum, getting a red carpet welcome from the hosts and applauding the "successes" of "our Chinese friends" in return. Russia has not officially signed on to the BRI but Putin made it a point to attend the forum in person despite not having travelled abroad since launching the Ukraine war. The Moscow-Beijing global alignment is unmistakable as they seek to challenge the West, also reflected in their explicit criticism of Israeli actions while refraining from condemning Hamas. Since the Ukraine crisis, where the West has tried to isolate Russia, China's embrace has become all-encompassing as it has emerged as Russia's most important trade partner, providing critical civilian and military goods that have sustained Russian economy and war operations. The other interesting presence was that of the Taliban, also meant to convey a message to the US that China will continue to move forward with its outreach to a pariah state, if only to scuttle Washington in achieving its objectives. Last month, China became the first country to send an ambassador to Afghanistan though Beijing is yet to give diplomatic recognition to the Taliban. China and Pakistan had also announced earlier this year that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would be extended to Afghanistan. Nothing much has come of it yet but China's support gives credibility to the Taliban's claims of being the only credible alternative in Afghanistan. China's celebration of a decade of BRI was more an attempt to showcase its own rising profile as the provider of an alternative to the US-led global order than to provide for the development needs of the Global South. But challenges for the BRI are mounting and Xi's words at the forum were an explicit acknowledgment that changes in Chinese approach would be necessary if the second decade of BRI is to see more accomplishments than the first. EDITORIAL: China’s Belt and Road Initiative Sets Off Great Power Competition in the Pacific16/10/2023 As China marks the 10th anniversary of its Belt and Road Initiative, also known as the BRI, many are assessing the impact of its global push to promote connectivity and billions of dollars in deals for infrastructure projects. In the Pacific, Beijing’s BRI has set off a race of great power competition with the United States and other countries. Analysts say so far, of the more than 30 projects in the region that China has launched, the results have been mixed, with some serving as "showpieces" instead of contributing to Pacific countries’ development or economic needs. "The BRI in the Pacific is more of a political instrument than a genuine development mechanism," Mihai Sora, a research fellow in the Pacific Islands program at Lowy Institute in Australia, said in an interview. "In Australia, a lot of commentators view BRI projects as a vanguard for the Chinese government to build influence in the Pacific." In the run up to the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that’ll take place in China this month, with more than 130 countries reportedly expected to attend, Chinese state media have published a series of reports highlighting the BRI’s success stories in the Pacific. Last month, in two separate articles, China’s state-run tabloid, the Global Times, highlighted how "the BRI vision is becoming a reality" in the Pacific Islands noting how China is providing medical services and professional training to local healthcare personnel in the Solomon Islands and how Beijing has helped the country to build a sports stadium for the upcoming Pacific Games. In another report, the Global Times stated that China’s cooperation with Pacific Island countries over the last 10 years focused on areas "such as humanitarian assistance, disaster response, and training. Most of the cooperation is reflected in infrastructure construction, tourism promotion and economic as well as trade issues under the BRI framework." But where Beijing sees progress and success, western think tanks and Pacific experts say the facts on the ground paint a different picture. In the 2023 Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment released earlier this year, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based security think tank, found that BRI has had minimal impact on Pacific Island countries that receive Chinese loans or grants. According to the report, as of the end of 2021, 26 out of 33 projects were completed, but there has been little shift on investment or trade. Last month, China officially handed over the main stadium that it helped the Solomon Islands build for the upcoming Pacific Games to authorities in Honiara, making it the latest addition to the list of completed BRI projects in the Pacific region. "Exports from China to the South Pacific have increased twelvefold in value between 2000 and 2018, though the numbers for exports from Pacific Island countries to China have grown at a much less impressive rate," the study said. "Further major Chinese investment in the form of large-scale physical-infrastructure projects is unlikely given the existing debt burdens and the lack of demand for Chinese loans." Some experts in the Pacific tell that realities in some Pacific countries also contradict China’s success stories. Sandra Tarte, an associate professor in international relations at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, said some Chinese investments in Fiji have resulted in big towers that were half-built and unfinished for a long period of time. Some tourism projects that were supposed to be supported by China received initial fanfare but never got off the ground. "There was an influx of investment from China at some point in Fiji, but the investors ran out of money," she said. "A lot of things like that have happened here." Power plays in the Pacific To counter China’s growing influence in the Pacific, major Pacific powers such as the U.S., Australia, and Japan have dedicated more resources and efforts to re-engage with Pacific Island countries. Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden hosted a two-day summit with Pacific leaders in Washington, pledging to help countries in the region combat climate change and improve infrastructure with a $200 million package. Since May, the U.S. has signed defense cooperation and maritime agreements with Papua New Guinea and opened an expanded mission in the Pacific region as part of the efforts to compete for influence with Beijing. Apart from the U.S., Australia and Japan have both announced development packages to Pacific Island countries in recent months, with some of the support dedicated to deepening defense and security ties. Sora from the Lowy Institute says China’s push into the security space in the Pacific over the last few years, including the security pact that Beijing signed with the Solomon Islands in 2022, has raised concerns among democratic countries in the region. "Traditional partners like the U.S., Australia, Japan, and New Zealand have activated as quickly as they can to improve the quality of their relationship with the Pacific and to improve their offerings,". "Countries like the U.S. and Australia are trying to reassert the regional security order and make that contribution to international security but also look for ways to improve the economic prosperity of Pacific Island countries," Sora explained. Pacific countries’ collective voice However, western countries’ attempts to sign bilateral security agreements with Pacific countries have faced pushback in recent months. A proposed security treaty between Australia and Papua New Guinea has been delayed for several months due to ongoing domestic debate in Papua New Guinea. In addition, Vanuatu’s new Prime Minister Sato Kilman said in early September that the country needs to rethink its security agreement with Australia. To prevent their interests from being overshadowed by competition between China and the U.S., some analysts say Pacific Island nations have sought to project their collective priorities through multilateral institutions such as the Pacific Islands Forum and the United Nations. "Pacific Island countries will continue to demand that partners strike a balance between development and security assistance, as well as embrace their definition of security, which includes climate change," Parker Novak, a nonresident fellow at Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told VOA in a written response. Other analysts say one way for countries in the region to assert their vision is to promote the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, a development initiative created by Pacific Island countries.
Tarte from Fiji’s University of the South Pacific says that approach could be a way to "reframe the debate" and avoid being dragged into the competing initiatives of the Indo-Pacific strategy and the BRI. SpaceX has signed its first contract with the Pentagon to provide satellite services as part of its new ‘Starshield’ program. CEO Elon Musk described the effort as a military alternative to the “civilian” Starlink system, although it will apparently rely on the existing constellation of satellites.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, Musk weighed in on reports that SpaceX had reached a deal with the US Space Force, confirming that the Starshield project would be “owned by the US government and controlled by [the Department of Defense].” “Starlink needs to be a civilian network, not a participant to combat,” he said, referring to the use of the satellites in Ukraine throughout the conflict with Russia, adding “This is the right order of things.” However, despite Musk’s stated reluctance to be involved in the fighting, the new Space Force contract will see SpaceX effectively lease out part of its Starlink network to the Pentagon, providing service over the same satellites, according to Bloomberg. With a $70 million price ceiling, the deal “provides for Starshield end-to-end service via the Starlink constellation, user terminals, ancillary equipment, network management and other related services,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told Bloomberg News. The outlet noted that Musk’s aerospace firm is now competing for nearly $1 billion in Pentagon contracts extending into 2028, as the Space Force seeks to repurpose existing communications satellites for military use as part of its “Proliferated Low Earth Orbit” program. Musk has come under fire from US officials for SpaceX’s decisions in Ukraine, after allegedly refusing Kiev’s demands to use the Starlink network to aid strikes on Russia’s Black Sea fleet last year. The billionaire’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, revealed earlier this month that Musk had developed a “military version of the Starlink” as a way to wash his hands of the project. “I've talked to him during this whole thing, and late one night, he said, ‘Why am I in this war?’ He said, ‘I, you know, created Starlink so people could chill and watch Netflix movies and play video games. I did not mean to create something that might cause a nuclear war,’” the author recalled in comments to the Washington Post. Isaacson went on to say that Musk “decided to sell and give total control over a certain amount of Starlink equipment… to the US military so that he no longer controls the geofencing,” referring to geographic limitations that can be imposed on the satellite network. Musk previously claimed that American sanctions on Russia had prevented SpaceX from extending Starlink coverage into Crimea, insisting the company is “not actually allowed to turn on connectivity to… the country without explicit [US] government approval.” However, he has also said that he did not wish to be “complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” suggesting the decision was not solely due to US restrictions. Germany’s flagship airline Lufthansa has warned that it would need to consume half of the country’s entire electricity output if it were to shift to green fuels such as e-kerosene, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr reportedly stated that synthetic fuels manufactured using renewable energy represented the best approach to decarbonize aviation. However, it is unlikely that there is sufficient green electricity in Germany to generate them, the executive warned. “We would need around half of Germany’s electricity to create enough of the fuels,” Spohr was quoted as saying at an aviation conference in Hamburg. “I don’t think Mr. Habeck is going to give me that,” he added, referring to Economy and Energy Minister Robert Habeck. According to the report, synthetic fuels such as green kerosene, which is derived from water, are seen by aviation industry executives as the only technically viable way to decarbonize air travel. The industry has been working to set up a market for a carbon-neutral version of the kerosene that powers most modern aircraft. However, the process requires huge amounts of electricity generated from renewable resources in order to ensure carbon neutrality. The attempts to decarbonize air travel come at a time when Germany has to rely on imported electricity because it can no longer meet its demand with domestically generated power. The EU’s largest economy has had to ramp up electricity imports this year after the government decided to shut down the country’s last remaining nuclear power plants in favor of renewable energy sources. Germany has also been struggling due to the reduction in Russian energy deliveries, which were almost entirely halted after the EU imposed sanctions on Moscow last year in response to the Ukraine conflict. Prior to 2022, Germany relied on Russia for roughly 40% of its natural gas. German industry executives have sounded the alarm over looming electricity shortages that could endanger the competitiveness of Germany as an industrial hub. |
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