作者： admin

As U.S. President Donald Trump prepares for his highly anticipated summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, the White House has launched an urgent push for China to leverage its considerable economic and political sway over Iran to reopen the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, a key global energy chokepoint whose closure has shaken global energy markets over two months of ongoing conflict.

Speaking at a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a direct public appeal, noting that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was scheduled to travel to Beijing for talks the following day. Rubio called on Chinese leaders to deliver a clear, uncompromising message to Tehran: its actions to restrict traffic through the strait have left Iran globally isolated, casting the country as the primary aggressor in the unfolding crisis. “I hope the Chinese tell him what he needs to be told,” Rubio stated.

Rubio emphasized that opening the strait aligns directly with Beijing’s own core economic interests. Official data from China’s General Administration of Customs shows that roughly half of China’s total crude oil imports and one-third of its liquefied natural gas supplies originate from the Middle East, nearly all of which pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Unlike the United States, which has reduced its dependence on Middle East energy supplies in recent years, China’s export-driven economy is far more exposed to the disruptions caused by the closure, Rubio argued.

Beyond direct appeals to Beijing over the strait, a senior anonymous diplomat confirmed to the Associated Press that U.S. diplomatic teams have also been engaged in intensive negotiations to convince China not to veto a new U.S.-backed United Nations Security Council resolution that would condemn Iran’s actions and demand the immediate reopening of the waterway. Last month, China and Russia — Iran’s closest allies on the 15-member council — blocked an earlier draft resolution, arguing that it failed to address the U.S. and Israeli strikes that triggered the current two-month conflict and unfairly targeted only Tehran.

Rubio’s public push follows remarks from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who confirmed on Monday that the Strait of Hormuz dispute and Iran policy would feature prominently on the summit agenda, marking the first meeting between the two leaders during this U.S. administration and the first official presidential visit to China from the U.S. since 2017.

The closure of the strait has sent shockwaves across Asian energy and trade markets, prompting Beijing to already pursue behind-the-scenes diplomatic outreach: Chinese officials have worked with Pakistan to help broker a fragile two-week ceasefire between warring parties, and multiple anonymous diplomatic sources have confirmed that Beijing — the world’s largest purchaser of Iranian crude oil — used its economic leverage to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table last month when talks faltered. President Trump himself has previously acknowledged China’s role in encouraging Iran to agree to that temporary ceasefire.

Despite these existing diplomatic efforts, the Republican U.S. administration argues Beijing can and should do more to secure the permanent reopening of the strait. “The threat of attacks from Iran has closed the strait — we are reopening it,” Bessent said during an interview on Fox News. “So I would urge the Chinese to join us in supporting this international operation.”

Trump struck a more measured tone when discussing China’s role during remarks to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, noting that Beijing has not directly challenged U.S. policy even as Washington continues to press Tehran to abandon its nuclear program and reopen the waterway. Still, China has repeatedly criticized U.S. military action against Iran, one of its longest-standing economic partners in the Middle East. Trump also noted that China relies heavily on the Strait of Hormuz for energy supplies, slightly exaggerating the share of China’s oil that transits the waterway at 60%.

Tensions over Iran-China ties have already strained bilateral relations in recent weeks. The U.S. government has long accused Beijing of supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program by supplying dual-use industrial components that can be diverted to weapons production. Last month, Trump said Xi had given assurances that China would not send weapons to Iran, amid circulating reports that Beijing was considering arms transfers. Just days after Trump confirmed receiving the assurance, he claimed U.S. forces had intercepted a vessel carrying a “gift” of military supplies from China to Iran, though he offered no additional evidence or details to back up the claim.

The U.S. has also moved to ramp up economic pressure on Beijing over its trade ties with Tehran. On April 24, the Treasury Department announced sweeping new sanctions targeting a major Chinese oil refinery, as well as roughly 40 shipping companies and tankers involved in transporting Iranian crude. The sanctions cut all of the targeted entities off from the U.S. financial system and impose secondary penalties on any third-party business that engages with the sanctioned firms.

Beyond the Iran dispute, the summit will also address longstanding tensions over Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as an inalienable part of its territory. Rubio confirmed Tuesday that the issue will be on the agenda, noting that Beijing has already signaled it will push the U.S. to roll back recent arms sales to Taipei. “I think both countries understand that it is neither one of our interests to see anything destabilizing happen in that part of the world,” Rubio said. “We don’t need any destabilizing events to occur with regards to Taiwan or anywhere in the Indo-Pacific. And I think that’s to the mutual benefit of both the United States and the Chinese.”

In December, the Trump administration announced a record $11.1 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, a move that drew fierce condemnation from Beijing. Trump later suggested he would open discussion of the arms sales with Xi during the summit, a shift that has sparked alarm among Taiwanese government officials. Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized in a call with Rubio that the U.S. must “make the right choices” on Taiwan to preserve bilateral stability, according to an official statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

When a 9-year-old girl stepped out beside her father, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in front of a massive intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2022, the world’s attention quickly turned beyond the display of military power to the young figure at his side: his daughter, Kim Ju Ae. Now 13, Ju Ae’s increasingly frequent public appearances alongside her father have sparked widespread speculation that she is being groomed as Kim Jong Un’s eventual successor. What many analysts have zeroed in on, however, is not just her growing public profile, but the subtle political messaging woven into every outfit and hairstyle she wears.

Ju Ae’s public wardrobe has evolved steadily from her debut, when she wore simple black trousers and a white padded jacket with tied-back hair, to increasingly elaborate hairstyles and sophisticated, tailored ensembles. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has already concluded that Kim Jong Un has designated her as his heir apparent, given her prominent placement at major state events ranging from missile tests and military parades to official overseas visits. Analysts argue that her carefully curated fashion choices are no accident, but a deliberate strategy crafted by North Korea’s ruling Propaganda and Agitation Department to shape public perception of her as a future leader.

Cheong Seong-chang, deputy director of the South Korea-based Sejong Institute, explains that the regime’s styling choices are designed to address Ju Ae’s biggest perceived vulnerability: her youth. By dressing her in formal, tailored suits and skirts that closely mirror the style of her mother, First Lady Ri Sol Ju, the regime works to project an air of maturity and authority that defies her young age. For visits to rugged locations such as military bases, Ju Ae is often styled in sharp leather jackets – a choice that balances a strong, authoritative impression with approachable casualness, while also creating a visual parallel with her father, who is famously fond of black leather jackets and trench coats.

This pattern of “image replication” is a well-documented tactic North Korean leaders have used for generations to consolidate power and legitimize dynastic succession. When Kim Jong Un first took power, he deliberately adopted the clothing and styling of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, the founding leader of North Korea who is revered as a near-deity within the country. Cheong notes that this deliberate resemblance helped offset concerns about Kim Jong Un’s youth and lack of experience, even spurring widespread rumors among North Korean citizens that Kim Il Sung had been reincarnated in his grandson. Today, the same strategy is being deployed to build legitimacy for a new young successor.

Beyond shoring up legitimacy, Ju Ae’s fashion also serves a second purpose: reinforcing the unique social status of the Kim family at the top of North Korean society. High-quality leather garments, fur coats, and Western-designed luxury pieces are largely inaccessible to ordinary North Korean citizens, so Ju Ae’s frequent wear of these items sends a clear signal that she belongs to a privileged ruling class. “Wearing clothing made of high-quality leather is a way of showing off one’s special status,” Cheong explains. “Luxury brands, leather jackets and fur coats are precious clothes that can’t be worn by ordinary North Koreans.”

This contrast between the ruling family’s wardrobe and the restrictions placed on ordinary citizens could not be starker. In 2020, North Korea passed the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act, which bans the spread of “external culture” including Western fashion trends. Yet in 2023, state media released footage of Ju Ae wearing a black padded jacket worth an estimated $1,900 from luxury French fashion house Christian Dior. The following year, she wore a semi-sheer blouse that exposed her arms to a Pyongyang residential development completion ceremony. Shortly after that appearance, state authorities released a public directive warning ordinary citizens that such hairstyles and clothing qualify as “anti-socialist” threats to the socialist system that must be eliminated, according to a local source cited by Radio Free Asia.

This double standard is nothing new in North Korea, where the ruling Kim family exists above the laws that apply to the general population. As Lee Woo-young, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, points out, “Although jeans are banned in North Korea as a Western fashion item, Kim Jong Un has appeared wearing them. No matter how much they ban foreign culture and even enact laws, North Korea is a place where there is nothing the supreme leader is unable to do.”

Even with these restrictions on ordinary citizens, Ju Ae’s high-profile fashion has already created subtle ripple effects across North Korean society. Multiple reports indicate that demand for luxury goods including Chanel cosmetics and perfumes has risen among affluent North Koreans, while fur coats have grown popular in border cities near China. Photos have emerged of children at elite Pyongyang kindergartens wearing semi-sheer blouses matching Ju Ae’s 2024 look, and leather trench coats and sunglasses modeled after the styles worn by Ju Ae and Kim Jong Un have become trendy among wealthy young North Koreans.

This pattern of copying the ruling family’s style is also not new: for years, young North Korean men have adopted the signature hairstyle of Kim Jong Un. With most ordinary North Koreans cut off from global fashion trends and outside information, the Kim family has become an unlikely source of style inspiration for the country’s population. Now, as Ju Ae steps further into the public eye, she has taken on a new, unintended role: North Korea’s newest fashion icon.

In a move that has ignited fierce political and public controversy, the Israeli government has installed Yehuda Eliyahu, a West Bank settler and long-time close associate of far-right Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, as the new director of the Israel Land Authority (ILA), the powerful state body that controls all national land allocation and management, including territory in the occupied West Bank.

The appointment received formal approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, after advancing through a public appointments committee the previous week. The approval was not unanimous: the committee’s own legal adviser formally opposed the nomination, citing that Eliyahu’s decades-long personal and political ties to Smotrich create an unavoidable conflict of interest.

Eliyahu brings a well-documented hardline record to the new role. Prior to taking this post, he led the Settlement Administration within Israel’s Ministry of Defense, a position where he oversaw what watchdog groups describe as the largest seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank in modern Israeli history. Alongside Smotrich, he co-founded Regavim, an influential hardline nationalist group that frames its mission as protecting Israeli national land and resources. Originally focused on the West Bank, where the organization has repeatedly pushed to remove Palestinian communities from their land to expand Jewish settlements, Regavim has shifted its scope in recent years to target areas in the Negev and Galilee, regions where a large share of Israel’s Palestinian citizen population resides.

The ILA is one of the most powerful administrative bodies in Israel, controlling roughly 92% of all state land—equaling approximately 20 million dunams of territory— and managing a multi-billion shekel annual budget. It dictates land allocation for residential housing, public infrastructure, and national development projects across the country, and holds direct authority over land management for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Supporters of the appointment have framed it as a critical strategic shift aligned with the current Netanyahu government’s core nationalist policy goals. Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, who has himself proposed a controversial large-scale land redistribution plan in the Negev that local Palestinian village leaders have decried as a “violent dispossession plan”, called the appointment as impactful as installing a new chief for the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. Chikli criticized what he called the ILA’s previous restrained stance on expanding Jewish settlement in the Galilee and Negev, saying he expects Eliyahu to pivot the agency’s policy to advance Jewish population growth in both regions—an explicit government goal designed to shift the demographic balance in favor of Jewish Israelis. Likud Knesset member Ariel Kallner, who chairs the parliamentary Galilee caucus, echoed that praise, highlighting Eliyahu’s work in the West Bank and claiming he “led a revolution” in cutting through bureaucratic barriers to expand settlement, and has long pushed for Jewish growth in northern Israel’s Galilee region.

Critics, however, have denounced the appointment as a dangerous escalation of the government’s anti-Palestinian, ethno-nationalist agenda. Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, which monitors land policy and settlement expansion in the West Bank, documented that Eliyahu himself resides in an unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost, where Israeli forces and settlers block local Palestinian farmers from accessing and working their agricultural land. The group added that during Eliyahu’s tenure leading the Settlement Administration, he oversaw “the largest project of land dispossession and illegal construction since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank”, and charged that his entire public service career has been dedicated to violating Israeli law. In a harsh statement, Kerem Navot called the appointment further proof that the current Israeli government is “corrupt, racist, and lawbreaking”, with extreme destructive goals.

Israel’s leading environmental umbrella group Life and Environment also condemned the nomination as inappropriate, warning it will deepen systemic discrimination against Palestinian citizens in southern Israel’s Negev, who already face widespread neglect and exclusion from planning and development processes.

Eliyahu’s own public statements leave little doubt about his long-term policy aims. He has openly supported the full formal annexation of the occupied West Bank, and has previously stated the defense ministry was laying the groundwork for that move. He has also called for a full reoccupation of the Gaza Strip and the rebuilding of Israeli settlements there, advocating for an all-out war to “eliminate this evil” and claiming the entire Palestinian population of Gaza should be expelled “down to the very last one” to make way for Jewish settlements on what he calls Israel’s “ancestral land”.

According to a report from Israeli financial daily Calcalist, legal challenges to the appointment are already in the works, with multiple petitions expected to be filed with Israel’s High Court of Justice in the coming days. The report notes that Eliyahu’s close ties to Smotrich and questions about his professional qualifications may limit his chances of keeping the senior post.