Special to WorldTribune.com EastAsiaIntel.com President Nicholas Maduro arrived in Beijing this week with an urgent task. He is appealing to the Chinese government to deposit several more billion dollars into Venezuelan government’s bank account to save the economy. With the global price of oil in free fall, Venezuela, one of the world’s leading oil producing […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com The impending default — and possible collapse — of the Russian economy has not only caught the Xi Jinping administration by surprise but also cast doubt on Beijing’s two-year-old “Russia first” foreign policy. Despite the fact that one of the first diplomatic acts of President Xi was to […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, EastAsiaIntel.com SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has strengthened his power base at home since the dramatic purge of his uncle Jang Song-Thaek a year ago, officials here say. But Kim has yet to have his first meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping who has instead met several […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com [Willy Lam is traveling.] A Chinese professor enraged three Chinese senior officers at an official newspaper’s end-of-year panel by suggesting Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protest was genuine. On Dec. 16, the communist newspaper the Global Times hosted a panel on the color revolutions dedicated to the official party propaganda […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, EastAsiaIntel.com SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s younger sister Kim Yo-Jong has surged to the top of the country’s hierarchy and is expected to serve as the No. 2 leader, the position held play by her late uncle, sources and analysts here say. The secretive country has recently […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, EastAsiaIntel.com SEOUL — North Korea has unleashed a new salvo of threats to conduct nuclear tests and other provocations as part of a furious response to a landmark U.N. resolution on the regime’s human rights violations. The nonbinding resolution by the U.N.’s third committee urged the Security Council to […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com The year 2014 will go down in Chinese history for the way in which the Chinese Communist Party leadership throws it weight around the world in an effort to reshape the global order. Yet China’s alarming weakness in soft power will detract from the Xi Jinping leadership’s unprecedented […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com The Beijing leadership has signaled tighter control over the Internet on the occasion of the First World Internet Conference, whose ostensible goal is to promote inter-connectivity between China and the world via the Net. For three days – Nov. 19 to 21 – censorship on Google, Facebook and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, EastAsiaIntel.com SEOUL — High-end U.S. and South Korean smartphones are penetrating North Korea, contributing to new and rapid information flows in the tightly-controlled society that could threaten the decades-long dictatorships, according to sources and reports here. U.S. Apple Inc.’s iconic iPhone and South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com President Xi Jinping has taken advantage of the global attention that has been focused on Beijing during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference to vow that the Occupy Central Movement in Hong Kong will soon be crushed with force. At a joint press conference with President Obama after […]