A Bit More Detail

• Bloomberg notes a report of Egypt's discovery of the wreckage of the crashed EgyptAir jet, reports on the visit of a IMF team to Mozambique, and looks at Vietnam's success in capturing Southeast Asian trade with the European Union.


• Bloomberg View notes that Donald Trump's candidacy can mean bad things for the Republican Party.


• CBC looks at how a top export from Tibet is a parasitic fungus, and looks at controversy over a CSIS evaluation of diaspora communities and terrorism.


• MacLean's looks at the wife of the Orlando shooting.


• The National Post notes the retraction of an ASEAN statement about maritime borders with China.


• Open Democracy carries an ill-judged radical Brexiteer's statement. All I can say is that socialism in one country is not likely, certainly not with the Tories in charge.


• The Toronto Star notes the fears of tax authorities that Conrad Black might abscond without paying his taxes.


• Universe Today notes the discovery, in a Swedish quarry, of a type of meteorite no longer present in the solar system.


• Wired reports on the second LIGO discovery and notes the import of The Onion in times of trouble.

[T]he Chinese-Russian exercises also look like a symbolic response to U.S. efforts to strengthen security relationships with China’s Asian neighbors. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to Washington is a case in point. Abe has begun a genuine discussion within Japan about whether to amend the pacifist constitution, transforming the country’s self-defense force into something more like a standard military.

The impetus for this change is China’s increasing security threat to its Asian neighbors -- and a nagging uncertainty on the part of Japanese about whether the U.S. would go to war to defend Japan in a pinch. Abe’s visit is part of an attempt by the Barack Obama administration to reassure the Japanese, but also to implicitly to lend credibility to Abe’s defense initiatives.

[. . .]

Yet this geopolitical angle doesn’t necessarily explain why the Mediterranean. Naval exercises almost anywhere could’ve expressed the same thing, perhaps even more strongly, because China’s naval assets in the Mediterranean aren’t particularly significant.

The better explanation for why the Mediterranean is much more local. China has twice in recent years had to send its ships to rescue and evacuate significant numbers of Chinese workers who fell into danger as a result of regional instability. The first time was in Libya, where 35,800 Chinese workers had to be evacuated after the 2011 uprising and subsequent bombing campaign to bring down Muammar Qaddafi. The second time was in late March and early April, when Chinese ships helped offload several hundred Chinese workers from Yemen as the situation there further deteriorated and Saudi airstrikes escalated.

These episodes brought home China’s evolving role in the Middle East and North Africa. So far, Chinese policy makers have shown no interest in inheriting the traditional U.S. role of maintaining hegemony in the Middle East to create stability and facilitate the flow of oil. However, China has to some degree included the Middle East in its strategy of building infrastructure projects in less-developed countries and establishing substantial settlements of Chinese workers there.