China has unleashed its anger on the man President Xi Jinping has been trying his best to cultivate in recent months, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after the Indian leader on Feb. 20 visited the Indian state called Arunachal Pradesh — the place Beijing calls “South Tibet” and insists is its “sacred and indivisible territory.”
“What the Indian side has done runs counter to the efforts by the two sides to properly resolve disputes and the overall interests of bilateral relations,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.
That was the polite version of China’s outrage. The day after Mr. Modi’s visit, Liu Zhenmin, China’s deputy foreign minister, summoned India’s ambassador to China for a dressing-down. “The Chinese government has never recognized the legitimacy of India’s so-called Arunachal Pradesh.
The Indian leader’s stubborn insistence on visiting the disputed region has harmed Chinese territorial integrity and rights, serving to exacerbate the disputes between the two countries over territorial issues, violating bilateral principles and understanding related to solving border issues.
The Chinese side expresses our fervent anger and resolute objection,” Mr. Liu told the Indian envoy.
Mr. Modi has pledged unwavering defense of Indian territories against Chinese claims.
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He is scheduled to visit China in May, an event China’s official media have touted as a sign of growing Sino-Indian friendship, and which experts believe is a concerted effort by Beijing to win over New Delhi in light of the increasingly close strategic partnerships between India and Japan, and — more important — between India and the United States.
Report: Chinese leak led to Korean execution
Jang Sung Taek, the once-powerful figure in North Korea who was instrumental to his nephew Kim Jong Un’s rise as the new dictator, was summarily executed in December 2013. Now word comes from China that the execution was the result of an intelligence leak by purged security czar Zhou Yongkang, according to various Chinese-language reports widely circulated on the Internet.
Mr. Zhou, one of China’s most powerful leaders, was purged in July 2014 for a long list of “crimes” against the ruling Communist Party and the state, including “leaking top secrets.”
Jang was China’s most prominent ally within the inner sanctum of the secretive North Korean communist regime. He led a large North Korean official delegation to China in mid-August 2012 and held an hourlong secret meeting with then-Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Reports from the Raleigh, N.C.-based Chinese website Boxun, among others, reported that one of the topics during the Jang-Hu meeting was to explore the possibility of replacing the mercurial Mr. Kim with his half-brother Kim Jong Nam, who was regarded as much closer politically to China and was the initial heir apparent to his late father Kim Jong Il.
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According to the reports, the content of the closed-door talk was leaked by Mr. Zhou to North Korean intelligence, which led to the demise of Jang, who was unceremoniously arrested and taken away while attending a large Communist Party conference with his nephew Kim Jong Un presiding. Within days, Jang was executed by Mr. Kim for treason, among other charges.
As a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, Zhou Yongkang is the highest ranking party official purged by President Xi Jinping in his nearly two years of relentless crackdown on allegedly corrupt officials and internal enemies.
With Jang’s demise, the pro-China faction inside North Korea has been wiped out by Mr. Kim, which explains why China has been giving Pyongyang the cold shoulder since Jang’s death, according to these reports.
Afghanistan turns over Uighurs to China
In a friendly gesture toward China, which hopes to exploit the power vacuum after NATO’s withdrawal, the Afghan government has turned over at least 15 Chinese Uighurs to Chinese authorities, who have been relentless in persecuting what the Beijing regime calls the Uighur extremists — real and imagined.
Last month, Afghan forces captured 15 Uighurs who were said to be advocates for Uighur independence inside China’s Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang, where ethnic tensions between the Uighurs and the government have been extraordinarily high.
The Afghan government believes that by turning over these Uighurs to China, Beijing could help Kabul rein in Pakistan, which is believed to be still secretly supporting the Taliban insurgents who have been fighting the U.S.-backed Afghan government. China is Pakistan’s closest ally and has considerable influence over Islamabad.
• Miles Yu’s column appears Fridays. He can be reached at mmilesyu@gmail.com and @Yu_miles.
• Miles Yu can be reached at yu123@washingtontimes.com.
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