Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
China may respond to the U.S. shooting down its suspected spy balloon after warning of "serious repercussions," but analysts say any move will likely be finely calibrated to keep from worsening ties that both sides have been seeking to repair.
Regional analysts and diplomats are closely watching China's response after a U.S. fighter jet shot down the balloon - which Beijing says was an errant weather-monitoring craft - in the Atlantic off South Carolina on Saturday.
China on Sunday condemned the attack as an "over-reaction," saying it reserved the right to use the necessary means to deal with "similar situations," without elaborating.
Some analysts said they will be scrutinizing the seas and skies of East Asia for signs of tension, given growing deployments of ships and aircraft from China and from the United States and its allies.
But while bilateral tension has risen in the past few days over the balloon incident, Beijing and Washington have been seeking to improve ties.
The discovery of the balloon in the upper atmosphere above North America prompted the United States to postpone a visit to Beijing this week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. That trip had resulted from a November summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.
Both sides are widely seen as keen to stabilize relations after a turbulent few years, with the Biden administration leery of tensions descending into conflict and Xi eyeing a recovery for the world's second-largest economy after a severe COVID-19 slump.
The path of rebuilding U.S.-China relations likely remains on track, said Zhao Tong, a senior fellow at the China office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting researcher at Princeton University.
"The two sides still have a shared strong interest in stabilizing and responsibly managing the bilateral relationship," Zhao told Reuters.
Collin Koh, a security fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, predicted China would continue to respond vigorously to U.S. military reconnaissance patrols but stop short of confrontation.
Even in calmer moments, Chinese forces actively shadow U.S. military patrols, particularly at sea, amid tensions over Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea, say regional military attaches.
"Against manned platforms we might expect China to exercise restraint, but against unmanned ones it becomes more uncertain - especially if Beijing believes that it's possible to contain fallout since it involves no crew," Koh said.
He noted China's seizure of a U.S. underwater glider deployed by an oceanographic research ship off the Philippines in December 2016. The Chinese navy later returned it to a U.S. warship.
Christopher Twomey, a security scholar at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in California, said any Chinese response would be limited.
"I'd expect they'd protest moderately but hope to sweep this under the rug and reinstate progress on senior-level visits within months," Twomey said, speaking in a private capacity.
Zhu Feng, executive dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University, said U.S. officials should stop "hyping" events to ensure a smooth return to the normalized communications they earlier requested from Beijing.
Zhu expressed hope "the two governments can turn the page as soon as possible so that Sino-U.S. relations can return to an institutionalized channel of communication and dialog."
Some analysts are watching Chinese state media and online activity for hints at any clamor for a tougher response, as China's mainstream state media have stuck to reporting official statements.
On China's heavily censored social media, there was little evidence that nationalistic anger was being stirred up over the incident, with many netizens asking what the fuss was over one balloon.
"Now, China can retire its satellites!," one user joked.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.