International politics surrounding Taiwan is quietly changing thanks to a rejuvenation in Japan–Taiwanese relations. But revitalised bilateral ties are likely to spell trouble for already rocky Sino–Japan relations. [...] The Tsai Ing-wen administration has been especially eager to expand such ties with Japan because of its anxiety over Taiwan’s economic dependence on mainland China.

Most of these aid projects were carried out through a competitive bidding system open to eligible enterprises and there was little space for Chinese NGOs to participate. "Most of these foreign aid projects are large engineering projects, and the design of the bidding system leaves no space for NGOs to take part," Ji Lin, managing secretary at Global Environmental Institute, told the Global Times.  

Philibert Browne, editor of Liberia’s Hot Pepper newspaper, says China is winning admiration. In Liberia, it has built roads — ones of not obviously inferior quality — and a spanking new campus at the University of Liberia, replete with friendship tower and Chinese-style gate. “You can see what they are spending their money on but you can’t see what the Americans are spending on,” Mr Browne says. “You don’t put capacity building on your meal table. Slowly but surely, the Chinese are winning in Africa.”

Addressing a session titled ‘Diplomacy and the Power of Communication’ on the second and final day of the Arab Media Forum 2017, Buangan said diplomacy and conversation are powerful tools for creating concrete and tangible results in developing mutual understanding among people and governments. Talking about new developments in the media, Buangan said media has evolved and became more global in engagement with the society. 

China has employed tens of thousands of scholars to write an internet version of its national encyclopaedia, which will go online next year to compete against Wikipedia. [...] Designed to be the nation’s first digital book of “everything”, it will feature more than 300,000 entries, each about 1,000 words long, making it twice as large as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and about the same size as the Chinese-language version of Wikipedia.

“Triangular diplomacy”, a term coined by former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger in reference to the confrontation and cooperation between the US, the Soviet Union and China during the cold war, seems to be back again, but in a new form and with new strategic significance. The strategy explained the informal alliance between Washington and Beijing; US president Richard Nixon and Kissinger managed, 45 years ago, to pit Beijing and Moscow against each other by forging a closer partnership with China

Is an alien mollusk species choking your shoreline? Don’t despair. China’s ravenous, inventive internet users have an answer to unwelcome shellfish.They’re ready to devour them. The Danish Embassy in Beijing has been absorbing that lesson since it shared a report online this week about a plague of Pacific oysters, a stubborn, gray intruder that has spread explosively along parts of the Scandinavian coast.