China slams US for inviting Taiwan to democracy summit

Beijing: Furious over the Biden administration’s invitation to Taiwan to take part in the “Summit for Democracy”, China on Wednesday warned the US that it will get “hurt” by giving Taipei the world stage as Beijing slammed the summit itself saying the event was aimed at pursuing Washington’s “geopolitical games”.

Taiwan, a self-ruling island which China claims as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary, is among 110 invitees to the Washington-led Summit for Democracy to be held December 9-10, the US State Department announced on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden is to host the summit bringing together leaders from governments and civil society and China was omitted from the list of invitees, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

Invitees from the AsiaPacific region also include India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Most European countries are also invited, including Serbia, but not Bosnia and Herzegovina or Hungary. -(AP)

Marriage rates drop in China

Beijing: Fewer people are getting married in China in addition to the falling birth rates, hastening the demographic crisis in the world’s most populous country, according to an official data. The number of marriage registrations in China has fallen for seven consecutive years and hit a 17-year low last year, figures from the recently released China Statistical Yearbook 2021 showed.A total of 5.87 million couples got married in China in the first three quarters of 2021, down slightly from the same period of last year, according to the data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. It is expected that the number of marriage registrations in China will continue to decline in 2021, state-run China Daily reported on Wednesday. -(PTI)