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US not seeking ‘winner-take-all’ competition with China

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen assured Chinese Premier Li Qiang that the United States seeks healthy economic competition, not a winner-take-all approach, during her visit to Beijing aimed at stabilizing ties.

Yellen emphasized the importance of maintaining a fair set of rules and avoiding misunderstandings that could worsen the bilateral economic relationship. Despite tensions, both countries expressed optimism about the visit, with hopes of warming up to each other and reshaping China-US relations.

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BEIJING, CHINA — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Friday that the United States is not seeking “winner-take-all” competition, in a visit to Beijing packed with talks aimed at stabilising fraught ties.

Yellen’s four-day trip is her first to China as Treasury chief, and she is the second high-ranking US official to visit recently after Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month.

And on Friday Yellen underscored to Chinese Premier Li that the United States was not seeking an economic showdown.

“We seek healthy economic competition that is not winner-take-all but that, with a fair set of rules, can benefit both countries over time,” she told Li at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

The United States has said it is seeking to “de-risk” from China by limiting the world’s second-largest economy’s access to advanced technology deemed crucial to Washington’s national security.

The US has blacklisted a number of Chinese companies to prevent them from accessing the most advanced chips while pushing its allies to follow suit.

But Yellen underlined to Premier Li that while Washington would “in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security”, that should not derail ties.

“We may disagree in these instances,” she said. “However, we should not allow any disagreement to lead to misunderstandings that needlessly worsen our bilateral economic and financial relationship.”

Li said that Beijing could see the relationship recovering after a difficult period.

“Yesterday, the moment you arrived at our airport and left the plane, we saw a rainbow,” Li said.

“I think it can apply to the US-China relationship too: after experiencing a round of winds and rains, we surely can see a rainbow.”

Yellen has stressed during her visit that Washington was not seeking a “wholesale separation of our economies”.

“A decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would be destabilising for the global economy,” Yellen told a meeting with representatives of US businesses at a session hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing.

“And it would be virtually impossible to undertake.”

Ahead of Yellen’s trip, Beijing unveiled new export controls on metals key to semiconductor manufacturing on national security grounds, in the latest salvo in the chips war.

The Treasury secretary Friday told American businesspeople Washington was “concerned” about the curbs.

‘Win-win’

Beijing has struck an optimistic tone about the visit despite the tensions, with China’s finance ministry saying on Friday that it would serve to “strengthen communication and exchange between the two countries”.

“The nature of China-US economic and trade relations is mutually beneficial and win-win, and there is no winner in a trade war or ‘decoupling and breaking chains’,” a ministry official said in a statement.

On Friday morning, Yellen had a “substantive conversation” with her previous counterpart, former Vice Premier Liu He, as well as the outgoing governor of China’s central bank, Yi Gang, a US Treasury official said.

“They discussed the global economic outlook as well as the respective economic outlooks for the United States and China,” the official added.

Analysts said Yellen’s visit could allow for a warming of ties.

“Yellen actually appears to be a more down-to-earth member of the Biden administration,” Tao Wenzhao, a fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told AFP.

“I think we welcome Yellen’s visit, and this on a functional level should allow both sides to warm up to each other,” he said.

“We are now reshaping, rebuilding China-US relations.”

‘Avoid misunderstanding’

In a tweet after arriving on Thursday, Yellen said that although the United States would protect its national security when needed, “this trip presents an opportunity to communicate and avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding”.

The United States does not expect specific policy breakthroughs this time, but hopes for frank and productive conversations that can pave the way for future talks, a US Treasury official told reporters on Thursday.

But, they said, “Especially if they’re things that we may disagree about, it’s even more important that we’re talking”.

Tensions soared earlier this year when the United States detected and then shot down what it said was a Chinese spy balloon after the craft traversed its territory.

Blinken cancelled a visit to China over the incident but eventually travelled to the country in June.

During that trip, both sides agreed on the need to stabilise their relationship.

But Yellen faces an uphill struggle in persuading officials in Beijing that US actions — such as tightened export curbs on high-end semiconductors — are aimed at safeguarding national security and not an attempt to stifle China’s economic rise.

Underscoring the challenges she could face, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US administration is mulling restricting Chinese firms’ access to US cloud computing services provided by companies such as Amazon and Microsoft.

— AFP

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AFP

Singapore hangs 14th drug convict since last year

Singapore executed Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, convicted of drug trafficking, amid a resumption of executions in 2022. Another woman prisoner, Saridewi Djamani, faces execution.

Amnesty International urged Singapore to halt the executions, questioning the deterrent effect of the death penalty.

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SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE — Singapore on Wednesday hanged a local man convicted of drug trafficking, officials said, two days before the scheduled execution of the first woman prisoner in the city-state in nearly 20 years.

Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, convicted and sentenced to death in 2017 for trafficking “not less than 49.98 grams” (1.76 ounces) of heroin, was executed at Changi Prison, the Central Narcotics Bureau said in a statement.

The 57-year-old was the 14th convict sent to the gallows since the government resumed executions in March 2022 after a two-year pause during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hussain’s previous appeals against his conviction and sentence had been dismissed, and a petition for presidential clemency was also denied.

A woman drug convict, 45-year-old Saridewi Djamani, is scheduled to be hanged on Friday, according to the local rights group Transformative Justice Collective (TJC).

She was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking around 30 grams of heroin.

If carried out, Djamani would be the first woman executed in Singapore since 2004, when 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen was hanged for drug trafficking, according to TJC activist Kokila Annamalai.

Singapore has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws — trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis or over 15 grams of heroin can result in the death penalty.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Singapore to halt the executions, saying there was no evidence the death penalty acted as a deterrent to crime.

“It is unconscionable that authorities in Singapore continue to cruelly pursue more executions in the name of drug control,” Amnesty death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said in a statement.

Singapore, however, insists that the death penalty has helped make it one of Asia’s safest countries.

Among those hanged since last year was Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, whose execution sparked a global outcry, including from the United Nations and British tycoon Richard Branson, because he was deemed to have a mental disability.

— AFP

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AFP

Singapore to execute first woman in nearly 20 years: rights groups

Singapore set to execute two drug convicts, including first woman in 20 years, despite rights groups’ calls to stop.

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SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE — Singapore is set to hang two drug convicts this week, including the first woman to be sent to the gallows in nearly 20 years, rights groups said Tuesday, while urging the executions be halted.

Local rights organisation Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) said a 56-year-old man convicted of trafficking 50 grams (1.76 ounces) of heroin is scheduled to be hanged on Wednesday at the Southeast Asian city-state’s Changi Prison.

A 45-year-old woman convict who TJC identified as Saridewi Djamani is also set to be sent to the gallows on Friday. She was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking around 30 grams of heroin.

If carried out, she would be the first woman to be executed in Singapore since 2004 when 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen was hanged for drug trafficking, said TJC activist Kokila Annamalai.

TJC said the two prisoners are Singaporeans and their families have received notices setting the dates of their executions.

Prison officials have not answered emailed questions from AFP seeking confirmation.

Singapore imposes the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder and some forms of kidnapping.

It also has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws: trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis and 15 grams of heroin can result in the death penalty.

At least 13 people have been hanged so far since the government resumed executions following a two-year hiatus in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Singapore to halt the impending executions.

“It is unconscionable that authorities in Singapore continue to cruelly pursue more executions in the name of drug control,” Amnesty’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said in a statement.

“There is no evidence that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect or that it has any impact on the use and availability of drugs.

“As countries around the world do away with the death penalty and embrace drug policy reform, Singapore’s authorities are doing neither,” Sangiorgio added.

Singapore insists that the death penalty is an effective crime deterrent.

— AFP

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