A Little Friend
NEED TO KNOW
A Little Friend
PALAU
President Surangel Whipps Jr. of Palau was talking tough talk recently about China’s alleged incursions of its ships into his tiny Pacific island country’s exclusive economic maritime zone (EEZ), an area that international law stipulates as extending 230 miles from the nation’s coast.
“We keep on raising flags and complaining about it, but they keep on sending them,” he said in a recent interview, according to Newsweek. “They continually don’t respect our sovereignty and our boundaries and just continue to do these activities.”
Chinese leaders recently also gave Chinese names to underwater mountains within Palau’s EEZ. “Why?” Whipps asked. “Why would you do that?”
The reason is obvious. Palau is one of Taiwan’s 12 remaining diplomatic allies. In recent years, Chinese officials have convinced Palau’s regional neighbors – the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Nauru – to abandon Taiwan, an island that China says is a breakaway territory.
Whipps might have felt emboldened to stand up to China because he recently won reelection, beating his brother-in-law, Tommy Remengesau, by a vote of 5,626 to 4,103, reported Reuters. Palau’s population is 18,000.
His success might have stemmed from his stalwart association with the US – a vital friend for a country like Palau if local leaders want to stand up to China. Earlier this year, Whipps concluded a deal with American leaders where his country would receive $890 million over the next 20 years in exchange for giving the US military access to its EEZ, airspace and territory.
The deal reflected American anxiety over the Solomon Islands signing a security pact with China in 2022, signaling that China was interested in gaining a naval foothold in the South Pacific, the Associated Press added.
Whipps has also expressed interest in the American Patriot missile defense system to counter China’s missile strike capability, wrote the South China Morning Post.
At the same, he alleged that China was “weaponizing tourism” by issuing travel warnings to Chinese tourists who might have been interested in traveling to Palau’s beautiful beaches. China in the past has offered to enrich Palau by encouraging Chinese tourism there. In response, Whipps has pledged to diversify his country’s economy to reduce dependence on Chinese visitors and doubled down on his support for Taiwan, saying that Taiwan deserves a seat in the United Nations, and welcomed Taiwanese investment in his country, the Taipei Times reported.
The spat with China, meanwhile, highlights how China uses financial “carrots and sticks” in its pursuit of Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted, Pacific Island nations typically sever ties with Taiwan because of Chinese money.
For example, China allegedly offered parliament members in the Solomon Islands more than $165,000 each to switch to China, doubled the discretionary funds given to lawmakers to use in their respective districts, and bankrolled a flashy $71 million sports stadium built for the Pacific Games.
Taiwan can’t compete with that type of funding.
As a result, the think tank added, Taiwan’s allies are those in the region that can afford to be.
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Poking the Bear
UKRAINE
Russia reacted with fury over the United States’ decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range American-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) against Russian territory, calling it a dangerous escalation in the nearly three-year conflict, Politico reported.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the move had brought a “new round of tension,” and accused the US of deepening its involvement in the war. Russian lawmakers echoed these warnings, claiming the decision brings the world closer to a third world war. Further ominous talk came Tuesday when the Kremlin said changes in Russia’s nuclear doctrine had been made and would be “formalised as necessary,” Sky News reported.
Meanwhile, the Russian state newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, wrote Monday that “Departing US president Joe Biden … has taken one of the most provocative, uncalculated decisions of his administration, which risks catastrophic consequences,” the BBC noted.
Putin, meanwhile, has not commented, the news site added.
The US policy shift announced over the weekend marked a departure for the Biden administration, which had previously refused Kyiv’s requests to use US-supplied weapons for strikes within Russia over fears of a superpower clash.
The ATACMS are capable of striking targets 200 miles away and are far more destructive than weapons Ukraine has used for cross-border attacks so far, such as drones.
Observers said the US decision is a response to Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine, including the deployment of 11,000 North Korean troops to its western Kursk region and intensified missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Moscow’s condemnation follows a series of devastating Russian strikes over the weekend, including a ballistic missile attack on Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy that killed 11 people and injured more than 80 others.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the US decision, noting its importance for bolstering Ukraine’s defense capabilities, though he stressed that “missiles will speak for themselves.”
While many security analysts believe that the policy shift is unlikely to decisively alter the battlefield dynamics, the Kremlin views the move as a direct challenge, CBS News added.
Peskov and other officials reiterated warnings that further NATO involvement could push the conflict toward global escalation, a sentiment amplified in Russian state media.
Little Explosions
CHINA
A knife attack in eastern China left eight people dead and injured 17 others over the weekend, less than a week after the country was shaken by its deadliest mass killing in a decade, NBC News reported.
Authorities said Saturday’s attack took place at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in Jiangsu province. The suspect was a 21-year-old man with the last name Xu, who was arrested at the scene.
Police said Xu confessed to the crime and that he acted “out of anger.” They added that the suspect was a former student at the school and hadn’t received his diploma after failing an exam, and was angry over how much his internship paid.
The weekend attack came days after a 62-year-old man rammed his car into a crowd in China’s southeastern city of Zhuhai, killing 35 people and injuring more than 43 others in what observers called the country’s deadliest mass killing in nearly 10 years.
In recent months, there has been a spate of similar violent attacks across China. Last month, ahead of the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, a knife attack at a Shanghai supermarket left three dead and 15 injured.
In September, a 10-year-old Japanese boy was fatally stabbed on his way to school in Shenzhen.
Analysts told the Financial Times that the recent incidents come as China, which has a low rate of violent crime, is grappling with rising social tensions amid slow economic growth, job losses and rising youth unemployment.
It also has prompted soul-searching among its citizens over mental health and censorship over such incidents. Chinese censors quickly suppressed information about the attacks and removed footage from internet platforms.
Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a rare personal statement regarding the Zhuhai attack, urging officials nationwide to enhance risk prevention efforts “at the source.”
Observers interpreted the comments as highlighting the government’s sensitivity to social stability and its intent to tighten public controls.
Sowing Rage
FRANCE
Angry farmers staged dozens of demonstrations across France Monday, protesting against a trade pact between the European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc of South American countries, which they say will threaten their livelihoods, the Associated Press reported.
Around 300 farmers protested in the southeastern town of Le Cannet-des-Maures, where one sign unfurled along a road read, “Stop the promises, start with actions.” Local farmers also placed a cross next to a mock gallows with a message reading, “France’s agriculture in danger,” Radio France Internationale wrote.
In the eastern city of Lyon, farmers tore down municipal signs and dumped them in front of a museum. Protest organizers said more than 80 protests were being staged across the country.
The protests echo similar ones last winter across Europe over Ukrainian imports, with farmers blocking roads and highways for weeks.
The EU-Mercosur trade agreement, an agriculture trade partnership between the EU and Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Uruguay, would create the world’s largest free trade zone. The deal was initially agreed to in 2019, but negotiations slowed after opposition from European farmers and some European countries.
This new wave of protests and anger from French farmers stems from fears that the agreement could be finalized at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro this week. The farmers say they deal with excessive bureaucracy, have had poor harvests, and have already seen their income drop substantially over the past few years. Now, farmers worry that the Mercosur deal will impact their incomes further by being forced to compete with cheaper products that face fewer regulations and environmental standards.
Meanwhile, farmers say Monday’s protests are just the beginning. A spokesman for France’s top farming union, Yohann Barbe, said that the scale of the protests was going “to be unprecedented,” adding that, “Farmers are still just as irritated as ever by a government that is dragging its feet.”
On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that France would “continue to oppose” the trade deal while visiting Argentina’s President Javier Milei ahead of the G20 summit. Other European nations such as Germany and Spain, support the deal, hoping to expand the EU’s network of trade and maintain economic influence geopolitically.
DISCOVERIES
The Miracles in the Mundane
The Yixian Formation in northeast China has long been hailed as one of the richest fossil beds in the world, preserving stunningly detailed remains of dinosaurs, mammals and birds from 120 to 130 million years ago.
Known for its “frozen-in-time” specimens – some of the remains even have their feathers and internal organs intact – the site has often been compared to the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The volcanic blast encased residents in ash, preserving them in lifelike poses for nearly two millennia.
Many researchers believed a similar volcanic catastrophe was responsible for Yixian’s remarkable fossils. But a new study suggests a far less dramatic story.
Paleontologist Paul Olsen and his team believed that the fossils were preserved through more mundane processes, such as burrow collapses and sediment buildup during rainy periods.
“But what was said about their method of preservation highlights an important human bias – that is, to ascribe extraordinary causes, i.e. miracles, to ordinary events when we don’t understand their origins,” said Olsen, a co-author of the paper.
Unlike Pompeii, where victims’ bodies were contorted from heat and asphyxiation, many Yixian fossils appear to be peacefully “sleeping.”
This discrepancy led Olsen’s team to analyze sediment surrounding two Psittacosaurus fossils. They discovered fine-grained sediment inside the fossils, suggesting they were buried intact with their flesh still shielding the bones – a process not possible with violent volcanic flows.
Using advanced dating techniques, the researchers pinpointed the fossils to a compact 93,000-year period, a time marked by wet climate cycles that caused rapid sedimentation in lakes and on land.
“These (fossils) are just a snapshot of everyday deaths in normal conditions over a relatively brief time,” Olsen explained.
Meanwhile, some paleontologists remain skeptical of the findings.
“Sometimes you find fossils in normal sediment like they found,” Baoyu Jiang from Nanjing University, who was not involved with the study, told NPR. “But most of the time, the feathered dinosaurs, they were preserved (by) volcanic ashes.”
