🇦🇺 Australia to overhaul defense bureaucracy to improve spending, delivery, says minister

Australia will reorganize its defense department, forming a Defense Delivery Agency and appointing a national armaments director to improve defense spending and delivery, Defense Minister Richard Marles said on Monday.

The changes to start in July next year will merge the existing Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Group, and Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment Group. The new agency will report directly to the defense minister.

The reforms "will see a much bigger bang for buck for the defence spend", as Australia plans to spend an extra A$70 billion over the next decade, Marles said.

#Australia

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🇹🇼 Taiwan’s first domestically built submarine misses delivery deadline

Taiwanese shipbuilder CSBC Corp has missed the deadline for completing Taiwan’s first domestically made submarine, the defense minister said on Dec 1.

The vessel is part of a submarine program launched in 2016 that aims to deliver a fleet of eight vessels, but opposition lawmakers have criticized the repeated delays in the project.

Sea trials of the submarine began in June, nearly two years after it was first unveiled. The original target was to wrap up testing by Sept 30 and deliver the submarine by the end of November, the navy said previously. But Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo said on Dec 1 that sea trials were still ongoing.

#Taiwan

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🇫🇷🇨🇳 Macron heads to China as Europe walks tightrope between rivalry and reliance

French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to China this week for his fourth state visit, as Europe seeks to balance economic and security threats from Beijing with reliance on the world's second-largest economy during a time of global trade turmoil.

Macron in the past has sought to project a robust European front in dealing with China, while being careful not to antagonize Beijing, whose growing assertiveness is testing trade, security and diplomatic ties, analysts say.

Macron, who will start his trip with a visit to Beijing's Forbidden City on Wednesday, will meet President Xi Jinping on Thursday in the capital and again on Friday during a trip to Chengdu, in southwestern Sichuan province.

His visit comes after a tense trip by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in July, when she said ties between the EU and China were at an "inflection point."

#France #China

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🇨🇳 China issues first batch of streamlined rare earth export licenses

At least three Chinese rare earth magnet makers have secured licenses enabling them to accelerate exports to some customers, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, fulfilling a key outcome of the summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

China began designing a new rare earth licensing regime centered around so-called "general licenses" following the late October meeting between Trump and Xi that eased trade tensions between the two countries.

JL Mag Rare Earth has obtained licenses to ship to nearly all of its clients, while Ningbo Yunsheng and Beijing Zhong Ke San Huan High-Tech secured licenses to export to some of their clients, the source said.

#China

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🇰🇷 President Lee says S. Korea's own nuclear armament 'impossible'

President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday dismissed calls for South Korea's own nuclear armament, saying it would be "impossible" to gain the international community's approval.

Lee made the remark during a Cabinet meeting amid renewed calls from some opposition lawmakers to push for the country's nuclear armament.

"The uranium enrichment and nuclear reprocessing issues are in some ways not proceeding smoothly and swiftly. The reason for that is there are concerns about nuclear armament," Lee said during the meeting at the presidential office, citing "various kinds of talk" in some departments of the US government.

#SouthKorea

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🇯🇵 PM Takaichi's "work, work, work" remark tops Japan 2025 catchphrase list

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remark, "I will work, work, work, work and work," was selected as Japan's top catchphrase for 2025, the award's organizer said Monday.

Takaichi made the remark after winning the leadership election of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Oct. 4 that helped her become the country's first female prime minister later that month.

"I will have everyone work like a workhorse. I, myself, will abandon the idea of work-life balance," Takaichi also told her fellow LDP lawmakers, drawing criticism from lawyers representing victims of "karoshi," or death from overwork, who said her comments were not helping the country, notorious for extensive working hours.

#Japan

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🇯🇵🇨🇳 Japan lawmakers meet Chinese envoy amid spat

A coalition of Japanese lawmakers promoting friendship with China met Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wu Jianghao in Tokyo, according to local media.

The unofficial lunch meeting on Dec 1 included a discussion of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent remarks on Taiwan, the Sankei newspaper said.

The undisclosed gatherings suggest efforts to keep communications open beyond official channels, as a bilateral spat triggered by Takaichi’s comments linking Taiwan’s security to Japan’s continues to sour ties between Asia’s two largest economies.

#Japan #China

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🇺🇸🇨🇳 US halted plans to sanction Chinese spy agency to maintain trade truce

The United States has halted plans to impose sanctions on China's ministry of state security over a massive cyber spying campaign to avoid derailing a trade truce struck by both countries this year, the Financial Times said on Wednesday.

Chinese-linked hackers had previously targeted a host of US and global telecommunications companies and a US state’s Army National Guard network in a wide-ranging and years-long cyberespionage campaign tracked as Salt Typhoon.

President Donald Trump's administration will also not enact major new export controls against China, the report said, citing several US officials and others familiar with the situation.

#USA #China

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🇨🇳🇯🇵🇫🇷 China's foreign minister urges France to support its position on Japan

Foreign Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed China's position on Tuesday on remarks made by Japan's prime minister regarding Taiwan during talks with his French counterpart in Beijing and called on Paris to "continue to understand and support" that stance.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said last month a hypothetical Chinese attack on democratically ruled Taiwan could trigger a response from Tokyo.

China and France should enhance communication and cooperation, Wang told French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, who was accompanying French President Emmanuel Macron on a three-day state visit to China.

#China #Japan #France

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🇺🇸🇹🇼 Trump signs bill to forge closer US-Taiwan relations

US President Donald Trump has signed into law a bill aimed at forging closer relations between the United States and Taiwan, prompting a sharp response from China.

The Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, enacted by Trump on Tuesday, requires the State Department to review and update guidelines on official US contacts with the self-ruled island.

The law, an amendment to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020, says the review must be conducted at least once every five years, with the department obligated to submit an updated report to Congress.

#USA #Taiwan

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🇵🇭 Philippines’ Marcos to bump up military pay after coup calls

The Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos Jr announced an increase in soldiers’ salary, months after his military chief revealed attempts to unseat him.

Marcos said in a video released Dec 3 that the base pay increase will be done in three tranches, the first of which will be implemented at the start of 2026.

The move comes as Marcos’ administration is facing mounting political pressure from a corruption scandal that has triggered protests and shaken investor confidence.

In October, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Romeo Brawner Jr said he rejected calls from some retired officers “to intervene through several means, possibly through a coup d’etat”.

#ThePhilippines

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