USA
Supreme Court weighs Biden student loan plan worth billions
The Supreme Court is taking up a partisan legal fight over President Joe Biden's plan to wipe away or reduce student loans held by millions of Americans.
The high court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, is hearing arguments on Tuesday in two challenges to the plan, which has so far been blocked by Republican-appointed judges on lower courts.
Arguments are scheduled to last two hours but likely will go much longer. The public can listen in on the court’s website.
Twenty-six million people have applied, and 16 million have been approved to have up to $20,000 in federal student loans forgiven, the Biden administration says. The program is estimated to cost $400 billion over 30 years.
“I’m confident the legal authority to carry that plan is there,” Biden said on Monday, at an event to mark Black History Month.
The president, who once doubted his own authority to broadly cancel student debt, first announced the program in August. Legal challenges quickly followed.
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Republican-led states and lawmakers in Congress, as well as conservative legal interests, are lined up against the plan as a clear violation of Biden's executive authority. Democratic-led states and liberal interest groups are backing the Democratic administration in urging the court to allow the plan to take effect.
Without it, loan defaults would dramatically increase when the pause on loan payments ends no later than this summer, the administration says. Payments were halted in 2020 as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The administration says a 2003 law, commonly known as the HEROES Act, allows the secretary of education to waive or modify the terms of federal student loans in connection with a national emergency. The law was primarily intended to keep service members from being worse off financially while they fought in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Nebraska and other states that sued say the plan is not necessary to keep the rate of defaults roughly where it was before the pandemic. The 20 million borrowers who have their entire loans erased would get a “windfall” that will leave them better off than they were before the pandemic, the states say.
Dozens of borrowers came from across the country to camp out near the court on a soggy Monday evening in hopes of getting a seat for the arguments. Among them was Sinyetta Hill, who said that Biden's plan would erase all but about $500 of the $20,000 or so she has in student loans.
“I was 18 when I signed up for college. I didn’t know it was going to be this big of a burden. No student should have to deal with this. No person should have to deal with this,” said Hill, 22, who plans to study law after she graduates from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in May.
Biden's plan could meet a frosty reception in the courtroom. The court's conservatives have been skeptical of other Biden initiatives related to the pandemic, including vaccine requirements and pauses on evictions. Those were billed largely as public health measures intended to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The loan forgiveness plan, by contrast, is aimed at countering the economic effects of the pandemic.
The national emergency is expected to end May 11, but the administration says the economic consequences will persist, despite historically low unemployment and other signs of economic strength.
In addition to the debate over the authority to forgive student debt, the court also will confront whether the states and two individuals whose challenge also is before the justices have the legal right, or standing, to sue.
Parties generally have to show that they would suffer financial harm and benefit from a court ruling in their favor. A federal judge initially found that the states would not be harmed and dismissed their lawsuit before an appellate panel said the case could proceed.
Of the two individuals who sued in Texas, one has student loans that are commercially held and the other is eligible for $10,000 in debt relief, not the $20,000 maximum. They would get nothing if they win their case.
A decision is expected by late June.
5 dead, including patient, in medical flight crash in USA
All five people aboard a medical transport flight, including a patient, were killed in a plane crash Friday night in a mountainous area in northern Nevada.
The Lyon County Sheriff’s office said authorities began receiving calls about the crash near Stagecoach, Nevada, around 9:15 p.m. and found the wreckage two hours later. Stagecoach, a rural community home to around 2,500 residents, is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) southeast of Reno.
Care Flight, which provides ambulance service by plane and helicopter, said the dead included the pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient and a patient’s family member.
Barry Duplantis, president and CEO of the company, said Saturday afternoon that relatives of all five victims had been notified, the Reno Gazette Journal reported. “We send our deepest condolences to their families,” Duplantis said.
The crash occurred amid a winter storm warning issued by the National Weather Service in Reno for large swaths of Nevada, including parts of Lyon County.
The weather service said it was expecting heavy snow, wind gusts of up to 65 mph (105 kph) and periods of whiteout conditions between 4 a.m. Friday and 4 a.m. Sunday.
“It’s a pretty mountainous region,” Lyon County Sgt. Nathan Cooper said. “Especially with the weather being the way it is right now, it’s not very good.”
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The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday morning on Twitter that it is sending a seven-member team of investigators to the crash site. The NTSB is expected release more information Sunday at a news conference.
Care Flight identified the downed aircraft as a Pilatus PC-12 airplane. Federal Aviation Administration records show the aircraft was manufactured in 2002.
The company said in a statement that it is halting flights to focus on helping responding agencies, team members and the families.
Beijing official in Hong Kong warns US envoy after speech
A Chinese diplomat accused the U.S. consul general in Hong Kong of interfering in its affairs after he said the city's freedoms were eroding and warned the American not to cross political “red lines.”
Consul General Gregory May gave a video address last month in which he expressed concern over diminished freedoms in Hong Kong and said its reputation as a business center depended on adherence to international standards and the rule of law.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Office in Hong Kong said its commissioner Liu Guangyuan met with May recently to express objections to his “inappropriate” words and deeds.
“Liu also drew three red lines for US consul general and US consulate general in Hong Kong, which is not to endanger China’s national security, not to engage in political infiltration in Hong Kong, and not to slander or damage Hong Kong’s development prospect,” his office said in reply to inquiries from The Associated Press.
Liu also urged May to abide by diplomatic ethics, the office added.
Also Read: China issues peace plan; Zelenskyy says he'll await details
An unidentified U.S. consulate spokesperson said that while they do not generally comment on private diplomatic meetings, they will not hesitate to express publicly or privately the United States' deep concern over the erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy.
May, in his address to the U.S. Center for Strategic & International Studies, also cited a decision by China’s legislature that lets Hong Kong's executive branch decide whether foreign lawyers can be involved in national security cases in the city.
The decision was made after the city's top court allowed pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai to hire a British lawyer to represent him as he fights collusion charges that could bring a life prison sentence if he is convicted.
Liu's office accused May of slandering the rule of law and freedom in Hong Kong when he questioned the legal decision made in Beijing and other changes in Hong Kong's governance.
Read More: What is China’s peace proposal for Ukraine War?
The U.S. and other democracies have been critical of China’s crackdown on political freedoms in the former British colony, which was handed back to China in 1997 with a promise by Beijing to keep Western-style liberties under a “one country, two systems” framework.
Hong Kong is among a raft of issues that have sent ties between Beijing and Washington to their lowest level in years, including technology and trade, human rights, threats against Taiwan, and China’s claims in the South China Sea.
Biden ready to run, US first lady says: AP Interview
U.S. first lady Jill Biden gave one of the clearest indications yet that President Joe Biden will run for a second term, telling The Associated Press in an exclusive interview on Friday that there’s “pretty much” nothing left to do but figure out the time and place for the announcement.
Although Biden has long said that it’s his intention to seek reelection, he has yet to make it official, and he’s struggled to dispel questions about whether he’s too old to continue serving as president. Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term.
“How many times does he have to say it for you to believe it?” the first lady said in Nairobi, the second and final stop of her five-day trip to Africa.
She added, “He says he’s not done. He’s not finished what he’s started. And that’s what’s important.”
Granddaughter Naomi Biden, who is on the trip, cheered the first lady’s comments after the interview.
“Preach nana,” she said on Twitter.
The president himself was asked about his wife’s comments just hours later in an interview with ABC News, and laughed when told of her remarks, adding, “God love her. Look, I meant what I said, I’ve got other things to finish before I get into a full-blown campaign.”
Also Read: Biden unveils new Ukraine weapons package, Russia sanctions
Biden aides have said an announcement is likely to come in April, after the first fundraising quarter ends, which is around the time that President Barack Obama officially launched his reelection campaign.
The first lady has long been described as a key figure in Biden’s orbit as he plans his future.
“Because I’m his wife,” she laughed.
She brushed off the question about whether she has the deciding vote on whether the president runs for reelection.
“Of course he’ll listen to me, because we’re a married couple,” she said. But, she added later, “he makes up his own mind, believe me.”
Also Read: Biden's State of the Union draws audience of 27.3 million
The wide-ranging interview took place on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Jill Biden recalled her trip into the country last May to meet the besieged country’s first lady, Olena Zelenska.
They visited a school that was being used to help migrants who fled the fighting. Some of the families, Jill Biden said, had hid underground for weeks before making their escape.
“We thought then, how long can this go on? And here we are, a year later,” she said. “And look at what the Ukrainian people have done. I mean, they are so strong and resilient, and they are fighting for their country.”
“We’re all hoping that this war is over soon, because we see, every day, the damage, the violence, the horror on our televisions,” the first lady added. “And we just can’t believe it.”
Jill Biden also spoke extensively for the first time about her skin cancer diagnosis, which led doctors to remove multiple basal cell lesions in January.
“I thought, oh, it’s just something on my eye, you know,” she said. “But then they said, no, we think it’s basal cell.”
Then doctors checked her chest, she said, and they said “that’s definitely basal cell.”
“So I’m lucky,” the first lady said. “Believe me, I am so lucky that they caught it, they removed it, and I’m healthy.”
Raising awareness about cancer screening has been a cornerstone of her advocacy efforts for years, even before her son, Beau, died from a brain tumor almost a decade ago. She often says the worst three words anyone can hear are “you have cancer.”
When it was her turn to hear a doctor say that, Jill Biden said, “it was a little harder than I thought.”
Now, she said, she’s “extra careful” about sunscreen, especially when she’s at the beach, which she described as “one of my favorite places in the world.”
Jill Biden is the only first lady to continue her career in addition to her ceremonial duties, teaching writing and English to community college students. At 71 years old, she said she’s not ready to think about retirement.
“I know that I will know when it’s enough,” she said. “But it’s not yet.”
She said she left detailed lesson plans for a substitute teacher while she was on her trip, and she’s been texting with students as she was traveling. She plans to be back in the classroom at 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, after arriving home from Africa around 3 a.m. Monday.
Education has been a flashpoint in American politics, especially with conservative activists and politicians trying to limit discussion of race and sexuality in classrooms.
“I don’t believe in banning books,” she said.
She added: “I think the teachers and the parents can work together and decide what the kids should be taught.”
During the interview, Jill Biden reflected on the legacy of former President Jimmy Carter, who recently began home hospice care. The Carter Center, which the former president founded after leaving the White House, was key in helping to eliminate the Guinea worm parasite in African countries.
“That’s the perfect example,” she said. “He’s such a humble man. He didn’t go out and shout, ‘Look what I’ve done.’ He just did the work.”
Jill Biden recalled Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, reaching out on the eve of Joe Biden’s inauguration two years ago.
“They called and said congratulations,” she said. “And it meant so much to me and to Joe.”
She also talked about visiting the Carters at their home in Plains, Georgia, early in Biden’s presidency.
“It’s not just that here are two presidents. It’s here are two friends,” she said. “Actually four friends, who have really supported one another over the years.”
Philippines eyes South China Sea patrols with US, Australia
The Philippines is in talks with the United States as well as Australia on future joint patrols in the South China Sea, where China's increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed waters are causing concern, top defense officials in the three nations said Wednesday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called his Philippine counterpart, Carlito Galvez Jr., to reiterate Washington’s support and commitment to help defend its oldest treaty ally in Asia after a Chinese coast guard aimed a military-grade laser at a Philippine patrol vessel near a disputed shoal.
The Feb. 6 incident off Second Thomas Shoal briefly blinded some of the Filipino crew and prompted Manila to file a strongly worded diplomatic protest. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also summoned China’s ambassador to express his concern.
Also Read: US renews warning it’ll defend Philippines after China spat
“The two leaders discussed proposals to deepen operational cooperation and enhance the United States and the Philippines’ shared security, including the recent decision to resume combined maritime activities in the South China Sea,” according to details of the phone conversation provided by Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.
During Austin's visit to Manila this month, Galvez and U.S. officials had said the allies agreed to carry out joint patrols.
Separately, Galvez and visiting Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said in a news conference on Wednesday that they were looking at Australian and Philippine forces possibly carrying out their joint patrols in the busy waterway.
Also Read: US, Philippines agree on larger American military presence
As countries asserting the rule of law, including the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, in the South China Sea, where a bulk of Australia’s trade traverses, “we did talk today about the possibility of exploring joint patrols,” Marles said, without elaborating.
Australian and Philippine forces have undertaken joint patrols off the southern Philippines in the past to counter terrorist threats, Galvez said, and added, “We can do it again."
Aside from the United States, Australia is the only other country that struck a defense agreement with the Philippines for joint combat exercises in the country. The Philippine Constitution prohibits the permanent basing of foreign troops and their involvement in local combat.
Austin announced after meeting Marcos on Feb. 2 that the Philippines had approved an expanded U.S. military presence by allowing rotating batches of U.S. forces to stay in four more Philippine military camps, in addition to five others.
It was the latest move by the Biden administration to strengthen an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan.
Austin reaffirmed in his talk with Galvez on Wednesday the U.S. Defense Department’s “commitment to bolstering the Philippines’ defense capabilities and capacity to resist coercion as the allies develop a security-sector assistance roadmap.” No details of the mutual security plan were immediately provided.
China opposes military activities involving the U.S. and its allies, especially in the South China Sea, and has warned Washington not to meddle in what it says is a purely Asian dispute.
Chinese forces have protested the presence of U.S. Navy ships and fighter jets that have been enforcing freedom of movement in the contested waters. The U.S. military insists it would exercise its rights under international law to sail and fly in international waters.
In Jakarta, visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said on Wednesday that China would work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is currently led by Indonesia, to hasten negotiations on a proposed nonaggression pact, which is designed to avoid armed confrontations in the South China Sea.
“China and Indonesia will work with other ASEAN countries to … accelerate consultations on a code of conduct in the South China Sea, and jointly maintain the peace and stability in the South China Sea fully and effectively.” Gang said in an online press conference.
The highly secretive talks between China and the 10-nation ASEAN, whose four members are locked in territorial conflicts with Beijing over the strategic waterway, have faced years of delay, including during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
China and the regional bloc have agreed to speed up the negotiations this year but it's unclear how they can overcome key differences, including which areas should be covered by the pact and whether the agreement should be legally binding.
China blasts Pentagon official’s Taiwan visit, military ties
China on Wednesday sharply criticized a visit to Taiwan by a senior Pentagon official and reaffirmed it has sanctioned Lockheed Martin and a unit of Raytheon for supplying military equipment to the self-governing island democracy.
The comments from the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office underscore the dramatic deterioration in relations between Beijing and Washington over Taiwan, technology, spying allegations, and, increasingly, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Asked about the reported visit by Michael Chase, deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, office spokesperson Zhu Fenglian said China “resolutely opposes any official interaction and military collaboration” between the U.S. and Taiwan.
Efforts by Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party to cement the island’s independence with foreign assistance are “doomed to failure,” Zhu told reporters.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory to be brought under its control by force if necessary, and has been stepping up its military and diplomatic harassment. The sides split amid civil war in 1949, and China’s authoritarian Communist Party has never held sway over the island.
Also Read: Congress delegation visits Taiwan in tense US-China moment
A Pentagon spokesperson did not comment directly on Chase’s visit, repeating that “our commitment to Taiwan is rock-solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region.” Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said it had no information about any such visit.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said a “new round of tensions” in the Taiwan Strait was a result of the Taiwanese authorities’ attempts to “seek independence with U.S. support, as well as the U.S. intention to contain China with Taiwan.”
“We urge the U.S. to ... stop any form of official U.S.-Taiwan contacts, stop meddling in the Taiwan issue and stop creating new factors of tension in the Taiwan Strait,” Wang said at a daily briefing.
Tensions between the U.S. and China again ratcheted up last month after Washington accused Beijing of sending a spy balloon that was shot down over the American East Coast. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a trip to Beijing in the wake of the incident and said over the weekend that the United States was concerned China would provide weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
China, which has declared a “no limits” friendship with Russia, has pointedly refused to criticize Moscow’s actions, blaming the U.S. and NATO for provoking the Kremlin, and has blasted the punishing sanctions imposed on Russia. Russia, in turn, has strongly backed China over Taiwan.
Also Read: Why China's stand on Russia and Ukraine is raising concerns
On a visit to Moscow Tuesday, the Communist Party’s top diplomat Wang Yi said relations between Moscow and Beijing are “solid as a rock” and will “stand the test of the volatile international situation.”
Russia and China have an “excellent opportunity to continue close strategic cooperation and contacts to protect our shared strategic interests,” Wang said.
Wang Wenbin, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said he had no information about a possible visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow this spring.
A delegation of U.S. lawmakers visiting Taiwan met on Tuesday with President Tsai Ing-wen, who said she looked for increased cooperation on issues from security to climate change.
On Monday, the delegation met with the head of the legislature as part of their five-day visit. They include Reps. Ro Khanna of California, Tony Gonzales of Texas, Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois.
The congressional team held talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s founder Morris Chang, considered the father of the island’s world-leading microchip industry that is now investing heavily in U.S. production.
Khanna and Auchincloss are both members of the new House select committee focused on competition with China.
Amid the flurry of exchanges, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and head of the National Security Council Wellington Koo were in Washington on Tuesday for what are believed to be security meetings.
They were filmed by Taiwan’s private TVBS television station entering the offices of the body the U.S. uses to oversee relations with Taiwan in lieu of formal diplomatic ties. Washington cut formal relations in 1979 in order to establish ties with Beijing, but remains the island’s chief political and military ally.
China has increasingly lashed back at the increase in exchanges with Taiwan by officials and elected representatives from the U.S. and other democratic nations. China’s campaign of diplomatic isolation has left Taiwan with just 14 formal allies, although it retains robust unofficial relations with dozens of other countries.
Last Thursday, China imposed trade and investment sanctions against Lockheed Martin Corp. and Raytheon Technologies Corp.’s Raytheon Missiles and Defense, barring them from importing goods into China or making new investments in the country.
The Ministry of Commerce declared they had been added to the “unreliable entity” list of companies whose activities are restricted because they might endanger national sovereignty, security or development interests. It wasn’t clear what impact the penalties would have.
Biden’s test: Sustaining unity as Ukraine war enters Year 2
One year ago, President Joe Biden was bracing for the worst as Russia massed troops in preparation to invade Ukraine.
As many in the West and even in Ukraine doubted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions, the White House was adamant: War was coming and Kyiv was woefully outgunned.
In Washington, Biden’s aides prepared contingency plans and even drafts of what the president would say should Ukraine’s capital quickly fall to Russian forces — a scenario deemed likely by most U.S. officials. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was offered help getting out of his country if he wanted it.
Yet as Russia’s invasion reaches the one-year mark, the city stands and Ukraine has beaten even its own expectations, buoyed by a U.S.-led alliance that has agreed to equip Ukrainian forces with tanks, advanced air defense systems, and more, while keeping the Kyiv government afloat with tens of billions of dollars in direct assistance.
For Biden, Ukraine was an unexpected crisis, but one that fits squarely into his larger foreign policy outlook that the United States and like-minded allies are in the midst of a generational conflict to demonstrate that liberal democracies such as the U.S. can out-deliver autocracies.
In the estimation of the White House, the war transformed what had been Biden’s rhetorical warnings — a staple of his 2020 campaign speeches — into an urgent call to action.
Also Read: Russia’s year of war: Purge of critics, surge of nationalism
Now, as Biden prepares to travel to Poland to mark the anniversary of the war, he faces a legacy-defining moment.
“President Biden’s task is to make the case for sustained free world support for Ukraine,” said Daniel Fried, a U.S. ambassador to Poland during the Clinton administration and now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. “This is an important trip. And really, Biden can define the role of the free world in turning back tyranny.”
Biden administration officials are quick to direct primary credit for Ukraine’s staying power to the courage of its armed forces, with a supporting role to the Russian military’s ineptitude. But they also believe that without their early warnings and the massive support they orchestrated, Ukraine would have been all but wiped off the map by now.
Sustaining Ukraine’s fight, while keeping the war from escalating into a potentially catastrophic wider conflict with NATO, will go down as one of Biden’s enduring foreign policy accomplishments, they argue.
In Poland, Biden is set to meet with allies to reassure them of the U.S. commitment to the region and to helping Ukraine “as long as it takes.” It’s a pledge that is met with skepticism both at home and abroad as the invasion enters its second year, and as Putin shows no signs of retreating from an invasion that has left more than 100,000 of his own forces killed or wounded, along with tens of thousands of Ukrainian service members and civilians — and millions of refugees.
Biden’s job now is, in part, to persuade Americans — and a worldwide audience — that it’s more important than ever to stay in the fight, while cautioning that an endgame is unlikely to come quickly.
His visit to Poland is an opportunity to make the case to “countries that repudiate archaic notions of imperial conquest and wars of aggression about the need to continue to support Ukraine and oppose Russia,” said John Sullivan, who stepped down as the U.S. ambassador to Moscow in September. “We always preach, we are seeking to protect a rules-based international order. It’s completely done if Russia gets away with this.”
The U.S. resolve to stand up to Russia is also being tested by domestic concerns and economic uncertainty.
Forty-eight percent of the U.S. public say they favor the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine, with 29% opposed and 22% saying they’re neither in favor nor opposed, according to a poll published this past week by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It’s evidence of slipping support since May 2022, less than three months into the war, when 60% of U.S. adults said they were in favor of sending Ukraine weapons.
Further, Americans are about evenly divided on sending government funds directly to Ukraine, with 37% in favor and 38% opposed, with 23% saying neither, according to the AP-NORC poll.
This month, 11 House Republicans introduced what they called the “Ukraine fatigue” resolution urging Biden to end military and financial aid to Ukraine, while pushing Ukraine and Russia to come to a peace agreement. Meanwhile, the more traditionalist national security wing of the GOP, including just-announced 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a former U.N. envoy, has critiqued the pace of U.S. assistance, pressing for the quicker transfer of more advanced weaponry.
“Don’t look at Twitter, look at people in power,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told the Munich Security Conference on Friday. “We are committed to helping Ukraine.”
But Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said he wants the president and his administration to impress on allies the need to share the burden as Americans grow weary of current levels of U.S. spending to assist Ukraine and Baltic allies.
Sullivan said he hears from Alaskans, “Hey, senator, why are we spending all this? And how come the Europeans aren’t?”
The U.S. has provided more economic and military aid than any country since the start of the war, but European nations and other allies have collectively committed tens of billions of dollars to back Ukraine and have taken in millions of refugees fleeing the conflict.
From the beginning of his administration, Biden has argued the world is at a crucial moment pitting autocracies against democracies.
The argument was originally framed with China in mind as America’s greatest economic and military adversary, and with Biden looking to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward the Pacific. The pivot toward Asia is an effort that each of his recent predecessors tried and failed to complete as war and foreign policy crises elsewhere shifted their attention.
With that goal, Biden sought to quickly end the U.S. military’s presence in Afghanistan seven months into his term. The end to America’s longest war was darkened by a chaotic withdrawal as 13 U.S. troops and 169 Afghan civilians looking to flee the country were killed by a bombing near Kabul’s international airport carried out by the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate.
U.S. officials say the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan has given the administration the bandwidth and resources to focus on assisting Ukraine in the first land war in Europe since World War II while putting increased focus on countering China’s assertive actions in the Indo-Pacific.
While the war in Ukraine caused large price increases in energy and food markets -– exacerbating rampant and persistent inflation — Biden aides saw domestic benefits to the president. The war, they argued, allowed Biden to showcase his ability to work across the aisle to maintain funding for Ukraine and showcase his leadership on the global stage.
However the months ahead unfold, it’s almost certain to be messy.
While Biden last year had to walk back a public call for regime change in Russia that he had delivered off the cuff from Poland just weeks after the war began, U.S. officials increasingly see internal discontent and domestic pressures on Putin as key to ending the conflict.
“So how does it end?” Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said at an event this past week in Washington to mark the coming anniversary. “It ends with a safe, viable Ukraine. It ends with Putin limping back off the battlefield. I hope it ends eventually with a Russian citizenry, who also says, ‘That was a bad deal for us and we want a better future.’”
When Biden hosted Zelenskyy in Washington in December, the U.S. president encouraged him to pursue a “just peace” — a framing that the Ukrainian leader chafed against.
“For me as a president, ‘just peace’ is no compromises,” Zelenskyy said. He said the war would end once Ukraine’s sovereignty, freedom and territorial integrity were restored, and Russia had paid back Ukraine for all the damage inflicted by its forces.
“There can’t be any ‘just peace’ in the war that was imposed on us,” he added.
North Korea confirms ICBM test, warns of more powerful steps
North Korea said Sunday its latest intercontinental ballistic missile test was meant to further bolster its “fatal” nuclear attack capacity against its rivals, as it threatened additional powerful steps in response to the planned military training between the United States and South Korea.
Saturday’s ICBM test, the North’s first missile test since Jan. 1, signals its leader Kim Jong Un is using his rivals’ drills as a chance to expand his country’s nuclear capability to enhance its leverage in future dealings with the United States. An expert says North Korea may seek to hold regular operational exercises involving its ICBMs.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said its launch of the existing Hwasong-15 ICBM was organized “suddenly” without prior notice at Kim's direct order.
KCNA said the launch was designed to verify the weapon’s reliability and the combat readiness of the country’s nuclear force. It said the missile was fired at a high angle and reached a maximum altitude of about 5,770 kilometers (3,585 miles), flying a distance of about 990 kilometers (615 miles) during a 67-minute flight before accurately hitting a pre-set area in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Also Read: US to increase weapons deployment to counter North Korea
The steep-angle launch was apparently aimed at avoiding neighboring countries. The flight details reported by North Korea, which roughly matched the launch information previously assessed by its neighbors, show the weapon is theoretically capable of reaching the mainland U.S. if fired at a standard trajectory.
The Hwasong-15 launch demonstrated the North’s “powerful physical nuclear deterrent” and its efforts to “turn its capacity of fatal nuclear counterattack on the hostile forces” into an extremely strong one that cannot be countered, KCNA said.
Whether North Korea has a functioning nuclear-tipped ICBM is still a source of outside debate, as some experts say the North hasn’t mastered a technology to protect warheads from the severe conditions of atmospheric reentry. The North has claimed to have acquired such a technology.
The Hwasong-15 is one of North Korea’s three existing ICBMs, all of which use liquid propellants that require pre-launch injections and cannot remain fueled for extended periods. The North is pushing to build a solid-fueled ICBM, which would be more mobile and harder-to-detect before its launch.
“Kim Jong Un has likely determined that the technical reliability of the country’s liquid propellant ICBM force has been sufficiently tested and evaluated to now allow for regular operational exercises of this kind,” said Ankit Panda, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at Korea Aerospace University in South Korea, said that North Korea appeared to have launched an upgraded version of the Hwasong-15 ICBM. Chang said the information provided by North Korea showed the missile will likely have a longer potential range than the standard Hwasong-15.
The North’s launch came a day after it vowed an “unprecedentedly” strong response over a series of military drills that Seoul and Washington plan in coming weeks.
In a separate statement Sunday, Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of Kim Jong Un, accused South Korea and the United States of “openly showing their dangerous greed and attempt to gain the military upper hand and predominant position in the Korean Peninsula.”
“I warn that we will watch every movement of the enemy and take corresponding and very powerful and overwhelming counteraction against its every move hostile to us,” she said.
North Korea has steadfastly slammed regular South Korea-U.S. military trainings as an invasion rehearsal though the allies say their exercises are defensive in nature. Some analysts say North Korea often uses South Korea-U.S. drills as a pretext to modernize its weapons arsenals, which it believes is essential to win sanctions relief from the U.S.
“By now, we know that any action taken by the U.S. and South Korea — however justified from the vantage point of defense and deterrence against (North Korea’s) reckless behavior — will be construed and protested as an act of hostility by North Korea,” said Soo Kim, a security analyst at the California-based RAND Corporation. “There will always be fodder for (Kim Jong Un’s) weapons provocations.”
“With nuclear weapons in tow and having mastered the art of coercion and bullying, Kim does not need ‘self-defense.’ But pitting the U.S. and South Korea as the aggressors allows Kim to justify his weapons development,” Soo Kim said.
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the U.S. will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and South Korea and Japan. South Korea’s presidential National Security Council said it will seek to strengthen its “overwhelming response capacity” against potential North Korean aggression based on the military alliance with the United States.
The South Korean and U.S. militaries plan to hold a table-top exercise this week to hone a joint response to a potential use of nuclear weapons by North Korea. The allies are also to conduct another joint computer simulated exercise and field training in March.
The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, meeting on the sidelines of a security conference in Germany on Saturday, agreed to boost a trilateral cooperation involving the United States and exchanged in-depth views on the issue of Japan’s colonial-era mobilization of forced Korean laborers — a key sticking point in efforts to improve their ties, according to Seoul’s Foreign Ministry.
South Korea and Japan are both key U.S. allies but often spat over issues stemming from Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula. But North Korea’s recent missile testing spree is pushing the two countries to explore how to reinforce their security cooperation.
Last year, North Korea set an annual record with the launch of more than 70 missiles. North Korea has said many of those weapons tests were a warning over previous U.S.-South Korean military drills. It also passed a law that allows it to use nuclear weapons preemptively in a broad range of scenarios.
Kim Jong Un entered 2023 with a call for an “exponential increase” of the country’s nuclear warheads, mass production of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons targeting South Korea and the development of more advanced ICBMs targeting the U.S.
Senior Chinese diplomat urges U.S. to correct mistakes in airship incident
A senior Chinese diplomat on Saturday urged the United States to show sincerity, correct its mistakes, acknowledge and repair the damage it has done to the China-U.S. relations over the Chinese civilian unmanned airship incident.
Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks when answering questions on China-U.S. relations at a China session of the ongoing 59th Munich Security Conference (MSC).
Calling the incident a political farce created by the U.S., Wang said China had clearly told the U.S. that the Chinese civilian unmanned airship, affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, deviated from its planned course and entered the U.S. airspace, and China had urged the U.S. to jointly handle the issue in a rational and professional manner.
"Unfortunately, the U.S. ignored the basic facts and brazenly sent a fighter jet to shoot down the non-threatening airship with a missile," he said. "Such an unthinkable and hysterical action is, without doubt, excessive use of force, and clearly violates common practice and relevant international law."
Also Read: China, EU should strengthen cooperation: Chinese diplomat
China firmly opposes and has strongly protested against the U.S. over its action, said Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
"A lot of balloons are flying over the Earth every day. Does the U.S. want to shoot them all down?" he questioned. "Such an action is no proof of the American power, but the exact opposite."
He urged the U.S. to stop doing such absurd things out of domestic political needs and to correct its mistakes.
The senior Chinese diplomat said the underlying reason why the unexpected incident has caused such a stir in bilateral relations is the United States' wrong perception and strategic misjudgment of China.
Wang said China's policy toward the U.S., based on the clear and transparent principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, encourages exploring the right way for two major countries with different social systems, histories and cultures to get along.
On the contrary, the U.S. sees China as the gravest geopolitical challenge and strategic competitor in its China policy, and it is using all means possible to block and suppress China with such an erroneous view of China, Wang noted.
He said that China has never been afraid of competition despite all the U.S. talking about competing with China, but the competition should be fair and rules-based.
The Chinese diplomat denounced the United States' CHIPS and Science Act as unilateral and self-serving, saying that the act uses state power to suppress Chinese companies, violates the rules of the World Trade Organization and seriously disrupts the stability of the global industrial and supply chains.
The act shows that the U.S. is standing against the free trade that it advocates, Wang said, adding that it will not only undermine the legitimate rights and interests of all other countries, but also compromise the credibility and interests of the U.S. itself.
"A virtuous man acquires wealth in an upright and just way," Wang cited an ancient Chinese saying, noting that the U.S. has torn apart its disguise in an attempt to blatantly plunder.
Wang urged the U.S. to view China's development in a fair and objective way, pursue a positive and pragmatic China policy, and work together with China to bring China-U.S. relations back to the track of sound and stable development.
This serves the interests of the two countries and peoples and also meets the common expectation of the international community, he added.
Some 150 senior officials, including over 40 heads of state and government, and leaders of international organizations joined this year's MSC to discuss pressing global security challenges and concerns.
Blinken: China’s balloon incursion ‘must never happen again’
The top diplomats from the United States and China met on Saturday in the first high-level contact between their countries since the U.S. shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon two weeks ago, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken sending the message that Beijing’s surveillance program had been “exposed to the world.”
Blinken and Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official, held the hourlong talks in Munich, where they were attending an international security conference, according to the U.S. State Department.
“I made very clear to him that China sending its surveillance balloon over the United States in violation of our sovereignty, in violation of international law, was unacceptable and must never happen again,” Blinken said Saturday in an interview for CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
His spokesman, Ned Price, said in a statement that Blinken also told the Chinese official that his nation’s “high-altitude surveillance balloon program — which has intruded into the airspace of over 40 countries across five continents — has been exposed to the world.”
Blinken had canceled a trip to Beijing earlier this month due to the balloon incident, which has become a major issue of contention between the two countries. A meeting at the conference in Germany had been widely anticipated.
Blinken also told Wang that the U.S. does not seek conflict with China, repeating a standard talking point that the Biden administration has provided since it has come into office.
“The United States will compete and will unapologetically stand up for our values and interests, but that we do not want conflict with the PRC and are not looking for a new Cold War,” Price said. Blinken “underscored the importance of maintaining diplomatic dialogue and open lines of communication at all times.”
In addition to the balloon incident, Price said Blinken had reiterated a warning to China on providing assistance to Russia to help with its war against Ukraine, including assisting Moscow with evading sanctions the West has imposed on Russia.
“I warned China against providing materiel support to Russia,” Blinken said in a tweet. “I also emphasized the importance of keeping open lines of communication.”
Earlier Saturday, Wang had renewed Beijing’s criticism of the United States for shooting down the balloon, arguing that the move did not point to U.S. strength.
Beijing insists the white orb shot down off the Carolina coast on Feb. 4 was just an errant civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research that went off course due to winds and had only limited “self-steering” capabilities.
Wang, the director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, repeated that insistence in a speech at the conference and accused the U.S. of violating international legal norms in destroying the object with a missile fired from an U.S. fighter jet.
“The actions don’t show that the U.S. is big and strong, but describe the exact opposite,” Wang said.
Wang also accused the U.S. of denying China’s economic advances and seeking to impede its further development.
“What we hope for from the U.S. is a pragmatic and positive approach to China that allows us to work together,” Wang said.
His comments came shortly before an address to the conference by Vice President Kamala Harris, who didn’t mention the balloon controversy or respond to Wang’s comments. She stressed the importance of upholding the “international rules-based order.”
She said Washington is “troubled that Beijing has deepened its relationship with Moscow since the war began” in Ukraine and that “looking ahead, any steps by China to provide lethal support to Russia would only reward aggression, continue the killing and further undermine a rules-based order.”
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Lee reported from Washington.