Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's tour through the Caribbean reflects Taiwan's imperative to reinforce relationships with allies vulnerable to poaching by China.
The big picture: Only 17 countries continue to recognize Taiwan instead of the People’s Republic of China, and the majority are in Latin America and the Caribbean. Tsai's 10-day trip follows 2 years of bad news, as Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic have all broken decades-long diplomatic ties with Taipei in order to extend official ties to Beijing.
Iranian intelligence officials said on Monday that they had detained 17 people on suspicion of being spies for the CIA and that some have been sentenced to death, according to Iran's state media.
What's new: President Trump said that Iran's claim is "totally false" on Twitter. "Just more lies and propaganda (like their shot down drone) put out by a Religious Regime that is Badly Failing and has no idea what to do. Their Economy is dead, and will get much worse. Iran is a total mess!" he tweeted.
The United States Southern Command criticized Russia as it released images Sunday of a Venezuelan fighter jet it said "aggressively shadowed" a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft flying over the Caribbean last week.
Details: The Russian-made SU-30 Flanker approached the U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries II "at an unsafe distance" in international airspace and in an "unprofessional manner" on Friday, the United States Southern Command said in a statement.
Hong Kong police fired tear gas into a crowd of hundreds of thousands as activists came out in droves Sunday night to occupy government buildings, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The big picture: Hong Kong has now experienced 7 consecutive weekends of anti-government protests, as the former British colony continues to weather its worst political crisis in decades. The government condemned protestors who stormed the Chinese liaison building, claiming that "[s]uch acts openly challenge the authority of the central government and touch the bottom line of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle," per the Journal.
Chinese foreign direct investment in the United States dropped from a peak of $46.5 billion in 2016 to $5.4 billion in 2018, according to data from Rhodium Group reported by the New York Times.
The big picture: The chilling effect that President Trump's trade war has had on trust between the two nations is among several factors that could explain the nosedive. Amped-up regulations, tariffs and an overall shift in attitude toward China's growing global influence has helped reverse the trend of Chinese investment in the U.S., which had previously been accelerating.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner will travel to Jerusalem and several other capitals in the Middle East next week to discuss how to move forward with the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, senior U.S. officials told me.
Why it matters: This will be an important trip for the progress of the U.S. peace plan — both the economic and political components. The White House is currently in discussions over the timing for revealing the political part of the U.S. peace plan, which has been thrown off as a result of new elections being called in Israel.
Barring a surprise of historic proportions, Boris Johnson will be announced on Tuesday morning as leader of the U.K.’s Conservative Party, and the country’s next prime minister.
Why it matters: The face of the campaign to leave the EU in 2016, Johnson will be tasked with solving the Brexit puzzle that stymied Theresa May and plunged the U.K. into a political crisis. He’ll also attempt to steady the so-called “special relationship” with the U.S. — and he’s just the man President Trump wanted in the job.
