Asia (except ME & Indian SC)

SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia (AP) — Chinese survivors from a boat that sank near a Cambodian island, killing three people and leaving eight missing, said they embarked on what they believed would be a short-term fishing job and ended up without food and water aboard the vessel and their belongings taken away.

Cambodian authorities said Friday they rescued 21 people a day after the boat small wooden fishing vessel sank near Koh Tang, a Cambodian island close to the maritime border with Vietnam.

JAKARTA, Sept 23 (NNN-Bernama) — ASEAN foreign ministers will convene here next month for the preparatory meeting in the run-up to the November group summit in Cambodia, Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said.

In a statement, it said the ministers agreed on the upcoming gathering during their informal meeting in New York to discuss the summit preparation on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

TAIPEI, Sept 23 (Reuters) - A Chinese blockade of Taiwan or the seizure of an offshore island would be considered an act of war and Taiwan would not surrender, a senior Taiwanese security official told Reuters using unusually strong and direct language.

While Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and others in her administration have repeatedly said that while they want peace they would defend themselves if attacked, the details of what Taiwan would consider an attack warranting a response have generally been left unsaid, given the many scenarios.

BUSAN, South Korea, Sept 23 (Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea on Friday for the first time in about four years, set to join other military vessels in a show of force intended to send a message to North Korea.

USS Ronald Reagan and ships from its accompanying strike group docked at a naval base in the southern port city of Busan ahead of joint drills with South Korean forces.

Its arrival marks the most significant deployment yet under a new push to have more U.S. "strategic assets" operate in the area to deter North Korea.

BEIJING, Sept. 22, (APP): Dr. Liu Minhua, Vice President of Beijing Technology and Business University (BTBU), China presented Prof. Manzoor Hussain Soomro, a Pakistani expert who received the Friendship Award from the Chinese government in 2020 and 2021, with a Letter of Appointment.

The BTBU Honorary Professor Appointment Ceremony and SIEM Lecture, Dr. Liu Minhua extended a warm welcome to Prof. Emeritus Manzoor Hussain Soomro. The vice president said,Prof. Manzoor has been working with BTBU for many years, China Economic Net (CEN) reported.

JAKARTA, Sept 22 (NNN-ANTARA) – Indonesia is stepping up efforts to end the country’s reliance on soybean imports, as President Joko Widodo instructed the National Food Agency (BPN) to set a reference selling price, for soybeans grown by local farmers.

The planned reference price is to encourage farmers to grow soybeans to boost the production in the archipelago.

Soybeans are the primary material for making tofu and tempeh, a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans.

BEIJING, Sept 22 (Reuters) - An expanded and protracted Ukraine crisis is not in the interests of all parties, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Polish counterpart Zbigniew Rau on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York on Wednesday.

China hopes that the "flame of war" will go out as soon as possible, a Chinese foreign ministry statement on Thursday cited Wang as saying.

HONG KONG, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Beijing has sent a team of regulatory officials to Hong Kong to assist the U.S. audit watchdog with onsite audit inspections involving Chinese companies, four people familiar with the matter said, as part of a landmark deal between the two countries.

A China-U.S. agreement last month allows U.S. regulators, for the first time, to inspect China-based accounting firms that audit New York-listed companies, a major step towards resolving an audit dispute that threatened to boot more than 200 Chinese companies from U.S. exchanges. 

BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The electric vehicle (EV) subsidy provisions in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act are discriminatory and suspected of violating the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday.

The relevant provisions, granting tax credits for EVs on the condition of final assembly in North America, discriminate against other similar imported products and are suspected of violating the WTO principles of the most-favored-nation treatment and national treatment, MOC spokesperson Shu Jueting told a press conference.

BEIJING, September 21. /TASS/: Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged China's military to focus attention on gearing up for military action.

"It is imperative to conscientiously summarize and apply successful experience in reforms, to master new situations and [understand] the requirements of the tasks, to focus on preparing for wars, and to have the courage to explore and innovate," Xinhua News Agency quoted the Chinese leader as saying at a conference on national defense and military reform in Beijing.