分类： politics

DALIAN, China — Addressing global business and policy leaders at the opening of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, widely known as the “Summer Davos,” Chinese Premier Li Qiang pushed back against rising Western criticism of China’s rapid high-tech expansion on Wednesday, reframing the nation’s technological progress as a shared global benefit rather than a disruptive threat.

In recent months, policymakers across the United States and Europe have grown increasingly vocal about what they frame as unfair competitive advantages held by Chinese high-tech sectors, from artificial intelligence and semiconductors to electric vehicles and renewable energy equipment. Many Western officials have pinned this advantage on large-scale Chinese state subsidies, arguing that the government financial support distorts global markets and undercuts foreign competitors. Even the 38-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development echoed this concern in a June report, noting that expansive state subsidies, including those provided by China, risk skewing global industry dynamics.

Li directly refuted these claims during his plenary address. “There are some people who say that Chinese products are competitive mainly because the Chinese government’s subsidies. That’s not true. The Chinese government is not that wealthy,” he stated. Instead, the premier attributed China’s tech success to two core domestic strengths: the nation’s vast 1.4 billion-person consumer market, which allows companies to rapidly roll out and scale new technologies at mass volume, and the heavy, sustained private investment poured into research and development by Chinese enterprises.

To illustrate his point, Li highlighted two major Chinese tech firms that have faced increasing Western restrictions: telecom giant Huawei and robotics manufacturer Unitree Robotics. Both companies have seen rapid growth in global market share despite facing punitive barriers from Western governments, including their placement on the U.S. Pentagon’s list of alleged military-linked Chinese companies that are barred from securing American defense contracts. Beijing has already issued formal opposition to the latest expansion of this blacklist, which added Unitree and other tech firms earlier this month.

Beyond the subsidy debate, Li addressed growing global anxiety over what some analysts have dubbed “China Shock 2.0” — a narrative that frames China’s booming high-tech exports as a major threat to established advanced economies in North America and Europe. In a direct rebranding, Li argued the current era should instead be recognized as “China Opportunity 2.0.”

“From the global development perspective, ‘China Opportunity 2.0’ means there’ll be broader access to advanced technologies and more widely shared benefits,” Li told the audience. He emphasized that China’s emerging technologies and competitively priced products, from EVs and solar panels to AI systems and industrial robots, do not deliver disruptive shocks to the global economy, but rather expand access and drive growth for partners worldwide. “China’s emerging technologies and products are bringing to the world not shocks, but opportunities,” he added. “Not threats, but empowerment.”

The debate over China’s high-tech expansion comes as multiple Western governments have moved to implement protectionist trade measures targeting Chinese tech and clean energy exports, citing concerns over oversupply and unfair competition. The Summer Davos gathering in Dalian, which draws global business leaders and policymakers each year, provided a high-profile platform for China’s top economic official to lay out the country’s position amid rising geopolitical and trade tensions.

Associated Press video producer Wayne Zhang in Beijing contributed reporting to this article.

On June 19, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng gathered a diverse group of long-time and new American friends at the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. for a gathering centered on reconnecting and rebuilding grassroots bonds between the two nations. Attendees included figures from across different sectors of U.S.-China exchange: Ronald Sakolsky, a veteran supporter of China’s desertification control initiatives; Gail Chou, an educator who spent 12 years teaching in Luoyang, Henan Province; and Ryan Corkery and Angelie Melara, young participants in the “50,000 in five years” China-U.S. youth exchange program.

Opening the gathering, Ambassador Xie highlighted the historic significance of the recent China-U.S. summit held in Beijing, noting that the meeting laid out a new shared vision for bilateral relations and opened a fresh chapter for people-centered friendly engagement between the two countries.

“To deliver on the important consensus reached by our two presidents, and to renew the long-standing friendship between Chinese and American people, we must work together and step up with new collective contributions,” Xie told attendees. He offered three key guiding principles for advancing grassroots China-U.S. relations: prioritize small, concrete actions to turn high-level vision into tangible outcomes; encourage American friends who have experience in China to share their personal stories, helping more Americans understand the deep historical roots of people-to-people friendship between the two nations; and invest in nurturing a new generation of cross-cultural friendship envoys.

“Let us act on the important consensus between the two presidents, and renew friendship between the people of China and the U.S.,” Xie concluded his call to action.

Following the ambassador’s remarks, participating American guests shared their own deeply personal stories of connection to China, reflecting on the bonds that have shaped their perspectives and lives. Sakolsky spoke with evident affection as he recalled his decades of experiences traveling and working in China. “When I first visited China, all I wanted was to see the Terracotta Warriors, walk alongside the Yellow River and stand on the Great Wall — and truly live like a local Chinese person,” he said. “When I turned down a special treatment offer and chose to share a room with my Chinese colleagues on one trip, I knew I had truly become part of their community. I’m no celebrity; I’m just an ordinary teacher who wants to say thank you to China, and do whatever I can to give back out of gratitude.”

Calling the gathering a meaningful reunion of friends connected by shared memories of China, Sakolsky added that he is committed to advancing a new era of people-to-people and youth exchanges between the two countries.

Chou shared touching, intimate details of her 12 years living and working in China, saying “I feel homesick for China — it is my home away from home. The warmth and gratitude my Chinese students showed me will always stay with me, and never fail to touch my heart.”

Corkery, the young exchange participant, echoed the theme of small connections overcoming deep divides. “It’s the little, everyday moments that make it clear: even with language and cultural differences, there are universal things that bring us together, and those are the things we should keep our focus on,” he said.

Melara, another young participant who only spent 10 days in China as part of the exchange, noted that even her short stay reshaped her entire worldview. “It completely changed how I think about the world, and how I approach new ideas and different cultures,” she said.

In a significant milestone for Pyongyang’s expanding maritime military ambitions, North Korea has officially brought a 5,000-ton guided-missile destroyer into active naval service, with leader Kim Jong Un framing the new vessel as a public symbol of the country’s advancing naval and nuclear development programs, state media confirmed this week. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim Jong Un attended the formal commissioning ceremony held Tuesday in the western port city of Nampo, where he emphasized that the launch of the destroyer, named the *Choe Hyon*, proves North Korea’s plan to equip its entire navy with nuclear-capable systems is progressing on schedule.

Following the ceremony, the *Choe Hyon* was formally assigned to the defense of North Korea’s western coastal waters, the report added. Kim first unveiled the vessel to the public in April 2025, and has since positioned it as a transformative leap forward for the country’s military, expanding its operational reach at sea and boosting its capacity to launch preemptive strikes against adversary targets. According to KCNA, the warship comes outfitted with a full suite of advanced weaponry, including anti-aircraft defense systems, anti-ship missiles, and both nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles. In the months leading up to its deployment, North Korea conducted a series of sea trials for the *Choe Hyon*, multiple of which included test launches of cruise missiles Pyongyang claims are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

In his keynote address at the commissioning, Kim marked a clear break from North Korea’s past naval posture. “It has clearly become a thing of the past when our navy existed as a force for defending the sea off our land,” he said. “It is rising into a full-fledged service equipped with strategic means as the program of equipping the Navy with nuclear weapons is following its planned course unerringly.”

For years, Kim Jong Un prioritized the development of land-based ballistic missile programs, but in recent years he has shifted his focus to expanding naval capabilities as a core pillar of North Korea’s military modernization. Work is already ongoing on a nuclear-powered submarine, and expanding naval power was a central priority when Kim outlined his five-year military development plan at the Workers’ Party Congress last February. That plan included explicit calls for developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of being launched from underwater platforms.

After a March missile test conducted from the deck of the *Choe Hyon*, Kim stated that his push to nuclear-arm the navy would “constitute a radical change in defending our maritime sovereignty, something that we have not achieved for half a century.” While state media did not elaborate on the context of this remark, many outside analysts believe the comment signals North Korea may be preparing to formally announce a new maritime boundary that would overlap with waters currently controlled by South Korea. Tensions between the two Koreas have risen sharply in recent months, and Kim has repeatedly rejected the legitimacy of the Northern Limit Line, the disputed sea boundary drawn by the U.S.-led United Nations Command at the close of the 1950-1953 Korean War. This poorly demarcated line has been the site of multiple deadly inter-Korean skirmishes over the past decades.

The *Choe Hyon* is the first of two planned 5,000-ton destroyers in its class. North Korea unveiled a second hull, the *Kang Kon*, at its northern Chongjin shipyard in May 2025, but the vessel suffered significant damage during a botched launch ceremony that prompted a public rebuke from Kim. After emergency repairs, Pyongyang announced the *Kang Kon* was relaunched in June, though outside defense experts have cast doubt on whether the vessel is fully seaworthy and operational. Kim confirmed Tuesday that the *Kang Kon* will be commissioned for active service in the near future, and added that North Korea has separate plans to construct an even larger 10,000-ton destroyer in coming years.

South Korean government officials and independent defense analysts largely believe the *Choe Hyon* was constructed with significant technical assistance from Russia, amid rapidly deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang over the past several years. Even so, some experts have raised questions about whether the new destroyer is actually ready for full, frontline active service, casting doubt on the reliability of its onboard systems.

Since Kim Jong Un’s high-profile nuclear diplomacy with then-U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019, Pyongyang has dramatically accelerated the expansion of its nuclear weapons arsenal, while deepening its political and military alliances with both Russia and China. Though Kim has maintained a hard-line confrontational stance toward Seoul’s current conservative government, he has left open the possibility of resuming diplomatic talks with Washington, repeatedly reiterating Pyongyang’s core demand that the U.S. abandon its precondition of denuclearization to restart negotiations.

In a landmark confirmation made Tuesday during Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s official visit to Islamabad, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has publicly clarified that Iran’s ballistic missile program was never part of the agenda for ongoing US-Iran negotiations, contradicting long-standing claims from Washington and Tel Aviv that the program was a core casus belli for their conflict with the Islamic Republic.

Speaking on the record about the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that paused hostilities between the US and Iran to open diplomatic space, Sharif emphasized, “This MOU does not mention ballistic missiles. It was never on the table, it was never on the agenda and the Iranian side never even wanted to discuss it. This is not an impression, but a fact of the matter.”

Sharif also pushed back against what he called global double standards on missile proliferation, saying, “There cannot be double standards; that some countries can have ballistic missiles and Iran shouldn’t have them. You cannot digest this kind of duplicity.”

Iran’s president echoed and amplified Sharif’s remarks, stressing that his country’s defensive missile program will never be up for negotiation under any circumstances. “Iran will never compromise on our missile programme and capabilities and this shall never be part of any agreement between Iran and any other party,” Pezeshkian stated. He added that the country’s defensive arsenal acts as a critical deterrent: “If the missiles we have for our defence did not exist, Israel and the United States would have ploughed Iran just like Gaza, showing no mercy to either the old or the young.”

The confirmation aligns with a recent shift in US policy: during last week’s G7 summit hosted in Paris, US President Donald Trump acknowledged that demanding the missile program be placed on the negotiating table was never a realistic goal. “I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump told reporters in Paris.

This public shift marks a stark reversal from the US’s opening war aims, which explicitly identified the elimination of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capacity as a non-negotiable core objective. A declassified 1 April US presidential memo made clear: “From day one, the objectives have been clear and unwavering: obliterate Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capability… That is the clear objective of this mission.”

Since the end of formal US military operations against Iran, none of Washington’s original primary war objectives—including regime change, the total destruction of Iran’s missile program, the elimination of Iran’s naval capabilities, and the seizure of Iran’s uranium stockpiles—have been achieved. Today, Washington has reframed its negotiation priorities around two core goals: keeping the Strait of Hormuz open (a status that held before the US launched its invasion) and preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Diplomatic progress has moved forward rapidly in recent days. On Monday, the US suspended economic sanctions against Iran as part of the first round of high-level talks held under the Islamabad MOU framework. US Vice President JD Vance, who leads the US negotiation team, described the day of talks as having yielded “good progress.”

The lifting of US sanctions is expected to deliver major economic relief to Iran: before the US blockade was imposed in response to Iran’s temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran produced roughly 4.6 million barrels of crude oil per day and exported 1.5 million barrels daily. The Islamabad MOU, which was mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, halted all US-Iran hostilities for a 60-day period to allow for in-depth technical negotiations. Following Monday’s successful High-Level Committee Meeting, Sharif announced that negotiators had finalized a roadmap to reach a comprehensive final agreement within the 60-day window. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf leads Iran’s negotiation delegation. On Tuesday, Trump reaffirmed that Washington is seeking a fair agreement with Tehran, adding that relations between the two countries are currently positive.

Beyond bilateral US-Iran negotiations, the MOU also includes a commitment to end all ongoing hostilities in Lebanon. However, achieving a ceasefire there has proven far more complicated, as Israel has openly defied US efforts to end the conflict. Parallel direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are already underway independently of US-Iran talks.

On Tuesday, the two countries launched their fifth round of direct negotiations in Washington. Lebanon’s delegation is pushing to revive earlier proposals that would require a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. The three days of talks come after four prior negotiating rounds failed to deliver a permanent ceasefire or close the substantial gaps between the two sides’ positions.

Beirut is expected to push for four core demands during this round: a binding timetable for Israeli withdrawal, the safe return of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Lebanese people, the release of Lebanese detainees held by Israel, and the launch of post-conflict reconstruction efforts. For its part, Israel has linked any full withdrawal to the complete disarmament of Hezbollah, and insists that Israeli forces will maintain control over a large security buffer zone inside southern Lebanon until it is convinced that the Lebanese army can prevent Hezbollah from re-establishing a military presence in the area.

The US-Iran MOU frames the Lebanon conflict as part of a broader regional ceasefire framework, and earlier talks near Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, produced a draft framework for a de-escalation mechanism between Israel and Hezbollah. This latest diplomatic development means the Washington talks are no longer the only diplomatic channel working to end the Lebanon war.

This report was sourced from independent coverage by Middle East Eye, a outlet specializing in on-the-ground reporting and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and global affairs.