标签： Asia

CANBERRA, Australia — In a landmark move that deepens bilateral defense ties and cements Australia’s growing footprint in the global defense export market, Australian and Canadian defense officials signed a AUD 1.75 billion agreement on Monday to deliver an Australian-engineered over-the-horizon long-range radar system to Canada. This marks the largest defense export deal in Australia’s history.

The first phase of the pact was signed by Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and Canadian Secretary of State for Defense Procurement Stephen Fuhr. The radar network will provide critical early warning coverage stretching from the Canada-U.S. border all the way into the Arctic, a region that has grown in strategic importance amid shifting global geopolitics.

Speaking to reporters at Australian Parliament House, Marles emphasized that the agreement transforms the two nations into core development partners for the cutting-edge over-the-horizon radar technology. “This brings a truly strategic dimension to the defense and industrial partnership between Australia and Canada,” Marles said.

Fuhr echoed the sentiment, pointing to the long-standing aligned interests of the two middle powers, both members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance alongside the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. “For generations, our two nations have stood shoulder-to-shoulder on global security matters,” Fuhr noted during the joint press appearance. “As the world adapts to new strategic and economic realities, there is no stronger partner for Canada to collaborate with on critical defense capabilities than Australia.”

The deal had been in the works since Mark Carney took office as Canadian Prime Minister last year, when he announced Canada would select the Australian radar design over competing American technology. Earlier this year, Carney made the first visit to Australia by a sitting Canadian prime minister in 12 years. During that trip, Carney and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese formalized a commitment to expand cross-border collaboration across three key strategic sectors: defense technology, artificial intelligence and critical minerals supply chains.

BAE Systems Australia, which will support the joint development and deployment of the Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar, confirmed its role in a public statement. The Australian over-the-horizon system is the product of more than 40 years of iterative research and development. Unlike conventional radar systems, which cannot detect objects beyond the curve of the Earth, the Australian technology refracts high-frequency electromagnetic waves off the ionosphere, allowing it to identify distant threats and objects that are invisible to standard radar setups.

Prior to this agreement, Australia’s largest defense export was a $700 million deal reached in 2024 to supply 100 locally manufactured Boxer heavy weapon carrier vehicles to Germany. The new radar deal more than doubles that record, signaling Australia’s emergence as a competitive global exporter of advanced defense technology.

A uniquely textured, heart-shaped tropical fruit has emerged as the newest point of friction between Beijing and Taipei, after Taiwan’s top agricultural regulator warned local producers against Beijing’s newly announced plan to ramp up purchases of the specialty crop. The fruit in question, the atemoya, is a sweet hybrid cross between two distinct custard apple varieties, prized for its creamy, soft white flesh and grown almost exclusively in Taiwan’s eastern Taitung County, where it has become a signature agricultural product.

China has long served as the largest export market for Taiwanese atemoya, and earlier this month, Chinese authorities and trade groups announced a new commitment to increase purchases of the fruit. But in an official press release issued Saturday, Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture framed the expanded import pledge as part of what it calls Beijing’s long-running ‘raise, trap, kill’ economic strategy, a tactic that the ministry argues first builds dependency among Taiwanese farmers on the Chinese market before sudden policy shifts leave producers grappling with collapsed demand and massive financial losses.

Cross-Strait relations have grown increasingly strained in recent years. Beijing claims the self-ruled island of Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory, has refused to rule out military force to assert control, and has ramped up large-scale military exercises near Taiwan’s coasts, including simulated full blockades of the island. Beyond military pressure, global observers have noted that Beijing has increasingly turned to non-military, economic tactics to pressure Taiwan’s government – and fresh fruit has repeatedly become a key tool in this strategy.

The 2021 Chinese import ban on Taiwanese pineapples serves as a prominent example. The ban, which came without advanced warning, devastated the livelihoods of thousands of Taiwanese pineapple farmers and triggered a massive domestic ‘buy pineapple’ movement in Taiwan, widely seen as a grassroots response to what residents framed as economic coercion from Beijing. Now, Taiwanese agricultural authorities warn the same pattern is repeating with atemoya.

According to the Taiwanese Ministry of Agriculture’s statement, Beijing has already cycled through disruptive shifts in atemoya trade policy over the past four years: it first fully suspended imports of Taiwanese atemoya in 2021 over unsubstantiated pest concerns, only partially resumed trade in 2023, then imposed steep new tariffs on the fruit in 2024. These inconsistent policy changes have created massive volatility for Taiwan’s atemoya industry, exposing smallholder farmers to extreme financial risk, the ministry added. It also noted that China has rapidly expanded its own domestic atemoya cultivation in recent years, creating a long-term structural threat to Taiwan’s export-dependent sector.

The current controversy over atemoya trade traces back to an industry forum held earlier this month in Xiamen, a Chinese coastal city on the edge of the Taiwan Strait. At the gathering, Chinese firms announced expanded purchase commitments for multiple Taiwanese agricultural exports, including atemoya, fish and tea. The event drew attendance from Taiwanese business leaders and opposition politicians, despite an official ban on participation from Taiwan’s ruling central government. Following the forum, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the agency that oversees cross-Strait policy, announced that any Taiwanese officials who violated the participation ban could face formal investigation.

In response to the controversy, Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture said it would prioritize supporting sustainable agricultural development and stable farm incomes, and is guiding the atemoya industry to diversify its market outlets and product lines, including developing value-added products such as frozen atemoya chunks, fruit puree and fruit wine.

But opposition politicians from Taiwan’s Kuomintang party, which traditionally favors closer cross-Strait trade ties, have pushed back against the government’s warnings, arguing that Taipei is unnecessarily politicizing the atemoya industry in a move that will ultimately harm the farmers it claims to protect. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, a prominent Kuomintang leader, went so far as to accuse the Mainland Affairs Council of using the trade dispute to ‘bully and oppress’ Taiwanese farmers. Chiang even compared the fruit to Taiwan’s most iconic industrial success story, calling atemoya the ‘TSMC of the fruit world’, arguing that ‘There is not a country in the world that can produce a fruit as delicious and special as Taiwan’s atemoya.’

In a tit-for-tat response to a recent Washington policy that blocks leading Chinese technology firms from accessing U.S. defense contracts, China unveiled new sanctions against 10 American defense and aerospace companies on Monday, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.

The sanctions impose a blanket ban on Chinese enterprises exporting dual-use items — products engineered for both civilian and military applications — to the targeted American firms. The list of sanctioned entities includes major military drone manufacturers and two leading U.S. rare earth mining producers: AVEOX, Red Cat Holdings, Teal Drones, IMSAR, Jaia Robotics, Ball Aerospace & Technologies, Oshkosh Defense, L3Harris Maritime Services, MP Materials, and USA Rare Earth.

Beyond the direct export ban, the policy also prohibits third-party businesses and individuals from retransferring Chinese-origin dual-use goods to the sanctioned American companies. The Ministry of Commerce noted that exceptions will be considered for exports deemed genuinely necessary, where qualified Chinese firms can apply for special approval to ship restricted items.

Chinese authorities framed the move as a necessary measure to protect core national security interests, adding that the action directly counters what Beijing calls the U.S. government’s improper expansion of its so-called Chinese Military Companies list. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Defense added prominent Chinese technology giants including Alibaba and Baidu to the restricted list, claiming the firms maintain unacknowledged ties to China’s military. Baidu has publicly rejected the allegation, calling the characterization of the company as a military-linked entity “totally baseless.”

The designation of Chinese firms by the U.S. bars the listed companies from securing any federal defense contracts. Beijing has additionally pointed out that the latest American restrictions contradict the bilateral consensus reached by Chinese President Xi Jinping and former U.S. President Donald Trump during Trump’s official visit to China in May, according to earlier statements from Chinese officials.

Japan is set to roll out a landmark fivefold increase to visa fees for foreign visitors starting 1 July, marking the first adjustment to these charges since 1978. Under the new fee structure, the cost of a single-entry visa will jump from the current 3,000 Japanese yen to 15,000 yen, while multi-entry visas will see an equivalent increase, rising from 6,000 yen to 30,000 yen.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi announced the revisions during a press briefing on Friday, noting that the price adjustments are designed to reflect ongoing global inflation and significant exchange rate volatility that has impacted Japan’s economy in recent years. When addressing concerns about the effect on Japan’s booming post-pandemic travel sector, Motegi emphasized that authorities do not expect the fee hikes to trigger an immediate decline in inbound tourism.

The Japanese yen has faced persistent weakening since 2021, currently trading near 40-year historic lows against major global currencies. This currency depreciation, paired with the broad rebound in international travel following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, has driven an unprecedented surge in tourist arrivals to Japan. In 2024 alone, the country recorded a new all-time high of 42.7 million international visitors, underscoring the rapid recovery of its travel industry.

The visa fee revision is not an isolated policy change. Earlier this year, Japan’s Upper House approved a separate bill that raises administrative fees for a range of other immigration-related services for foreign nationals. Under that legislation, the statutory cap for permanent residency application fees will increase 30-fold, jumping from the current 10,000 yen to 300,000 yen. Fees for changing residency status or extending an authorized stay will also see a tenfold increase, rising from 10,000 yen to a maximum of 100,000 yen.

Proponents of the fee adjustments argue that bringing Japan’s visa and residency-related charges into line with the fee structures of other G7 major economies is a long-overdue correction. As a point of comparison, non-immigrant visa application fees in the United States currently range from $185 to $315, while a standard six-month short-term visitor visa for the United Kingdom costs £135.