Journalists pick top 10 news events of past year
China Daily journalists review the main stories of last year that offered a glimpse of things to come.
Xi-Trump summit charts course for future ties
In a two-and-half hour dinner meeting in Buenos Aires in Argentina on Dec 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping and United States President Donald Trump reached important consensus to continue bilateral trade negotiations, stop imposing new tariffs and exchange visits at an appropriate time.
They also agreed to expand cooperation and manage differences on the basis of mutual benefit and respect, and to jointly push forward a coordinated, cooperative and stable China-US relationship.
State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the meeting has charted the course for China-US relations in the some time to come.
Summits herald hope for peninsula
For the Korean Peninsula, 2018 is remembered as the year of diplomacy breakthroughs that have won acclaim from the international community.
The year witnessed three inter-Korean summits, three China-DPRK summits and the first-ever DPRK-US summit which took place in Singapore in June.
The DPRK also sent a delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics held in the Republic of Korea and at the opening of the Olympics, athletes from the two countries marched under one flag.
While each of these meetings has produced new agreements, the DPRK has also destroyed the Punggyeri nuclear test site, marking the beginning of the Korean Peninsula’s denuclearization.
Brexit up in the air
Whether the British government’s divorce deal with the European Union will be approved by the UK Parliament is still pending as British lawmakers took a 17-day recess.
The United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29, but the only thing that is certain about the Brexit deal is uncertainty.
Prime Minister Theresa May has struck a withdrawal agreement with Brussels, but was forced to postpone a parliamentary vote on the deal earlier to avert almost certain defeat.
The vote was then rescheduled for the week of Jan 14, but opposition remains strong across the political spectrum as leaving has raised many doubts.
Khashoggi probe
Washington Post columnist and Saudi government critic Jamal Khashoggi went missing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct 2. His disappearance and later confirmed death led to a firestorm of criticism of Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh presented various reasons to distance the country from alleged involvement, finally admitting he died in a “brawl” in the consulate. Officials denied, however, that the Saudi crown prince had ordered the killing.
The case sparked an investigation by Turkey and the US Congress sanctioned several Saudis. Still, little concrete action has been taken by world powers against Saudi Arabia or the crown prince. The country is the world’s largest oil exporter and a US ally.
‘America First’ turns US inward
The United States, under President Donald Trump’s “America First” philosophy, slid into unilateralism in 2018 by imposing trade tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, including those from its allies, and intensifying trade frictions with China. During the year, it withdrew from the Iranian nuclear agreement signed in 2015 and threatened to do away with the IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces Treaty it signed with the Soviet Union in 1957.
Trump insisted on a wall along the US-Mexico border to prevent immigrants from Central American countries entering the US. The budget required however has caused differences within the US political system, leading to a partial shut down of the government at the end of last year.
Syrian civil war drags on
Syria continued to be in the international spotlight in 2018, with its civil war dragging into its eighth year.
The Syrian government has regained around 60 percent of the country’s territory, but the situation is still hard to predict.
In April, the US and its allies accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons on civilians. The US then launched missile attacks on Syria. In November, Russia attacked the chemical weapons field controlled by rebels.
On Dec 19, US President Donald Trump said he had decided to pull all 2,000 US troops out of Syria after he declared victory over the Islamic State, paving the way for Turkish involvement.
Africa looks to free trade
A total of 49 of the African Union’s 55 member states have signed the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. Thirteen countries have ratified the agreement, while 12 others are in advanced stages of obtaining parliamentary approval, according to the AU.
The free trade agreement was first signed in March this year by 44 countries that pledged to boost intra-African trade by removing trade barriers, increasing investments in industrialization and infrastructure expansion and consequently creating jobs for the world’s fastest growing labor force.
The agreement, if realized, will create the world’s biggest trading bloc — 1.2 billion people with a GDP of over $3 trillion.
Yellow vest protests rock France
Protests against French President Emmanuel Macron, which started on Nov 17 following a fuel tax hike, have slowed recently, but demonstrations have continued across France.
Macron back tracked on his proposed fuel tax hike but the movement has ballooned into widespread anger over rising costs of living and Macron’s perceived neglect of struggling families in rural and small-town France over the following weeks.
About 282,000 people turned out for the first Saturday protest wearing the yellow, high-visibility vests that French motorists must carry in their cars. The protests have seen rioting in Paris and other cities and taken a heavy financial toll. By Dec 22, 10 people had died in connection with the “yellow vest” protests.
World faces nature’s wrath
Natural disasters including tsunamis, flooding, earthquakes and wildfires claimed thousands of lives in 2018, and policymakers are urged to join efforts to fight against climate change to control temperate rise and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The disasters, which included two tsunamis in Indonesia, killing more than 2,600 people, deadly floods in Japan, claiming over 200 lives, and the worst wildfires in California, causing over 100 deaths, are believed to be result of climate change. Delegates from nearly 200 countries met in Katowice, Poland, in December to discuss implementing the climate deal signed in 2015 in Paris, from which the United States withdrew.
Russia and Ukraine
Russia’s seizure of Ukraine ships and 24 people on the Black Sea in November caused strong protests from Kiev and deteriorated Moscow’s already tense relationships with the West.
The incident led Ukraine to declare martial law and called on NATO to send ships to the area. The European Union and the United States condemned the move as the EU decided against further sanctions on Russia but extended existing ones targeting Russia’s defense, energy and banking sectors, until mid-2019.
It is the most dangerous clash between the two neighbors since 2014, when Crimea held a local referendum to be incorporated into Russia. Ukraine said the peninsula was annexed.