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Shanghai has laid out a full spectrum of goals on finance for the next five years and beyond, following an unequivocal push by China’s central leadership to grow the city into an international financial centre. China’s largest city-level economy aims to evolve into a world-class, socialist metropolis by 2035, with an intensified focus on innovation and manufacturing, according to a local document released on Monday. Shanghai unveiled its proposals for the drafting of its own 15th five-year plan,...

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China achieved its twin goals of tech advancement and macro stability in 2025. Its goals for 2026 remain the same. However, a rapidly deteriorating global security environment is likely to shift national priorities towards preparation for worst-case scenarios. Oil supplies and sea lanes are becoming insecure. The US-China trade war could reignite at any time. China will have to accelerate its goals of energy and technology self-sufficiency to enhance national resilience. Fighting for sea lane...

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Taiwan’s military held a closed-door briefing on Monday to break an opposition blockade of a controversial NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.5 billion) special defence budget that has prompted accusations of “black box” decision-making from rival parties. Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo Li-hsiung delivered a classified briefing to the legislature’s foreign affairs and defence committee, seeking to persuade lawmakers to allow the long-stalled bill to be referred for committee review. The package...

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China has emerged as a credible challenger to the US in artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery, where advantage depends not only on computing prowess but also on the ability to effectively mine data, from genomes to clinical trial results, according to Leung Chuen-yan, a private equity investor and life sciences scientist. “Globally, the way companies develop and use AI to discover drugs is similar, from finding the drug target and designing the molecule to planning clinical trials,” said...

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For years, many of mainland China’s art students dreamed of working or studying in Europe. After hours spent poring over the works of the continent’s masters as part of their degree requirements, living where their pieces are preserved, displayed and appreciated would seem a natural fit. But with funding and hiring freezes striking numerous overseas art programmes and museums, that path grows less appealing by the day. Now, rather than relocate to a new continent to further their studies, more...

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Brazilian beef exports will remain stable ‌in 2026 compared with last year, beef lobby Abiec said on ‍Monday, projecting shipments between 3.3 million and 3.5 million metric tonnes this year. That compares with 3.5 million tonnes of beef exported in 2025, including fresh and processed products, when Brazil’s ⁠beef shipments had their best year on record both in volumes and revenue, according to trade data. Roberto Perosa, Abiec president, said exports would remain broadly unchanged after top...

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An explosion at a Chinese restaurant in central Kabul on Monday killed at least seven people and wounded more than a dozen others, emergency services said. An Agence France-Presse journalist saw police cars and an ambulance at the scene following the blast on a street known for its flower sellers in the Shahr-e-Naw area. Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said the explosion happened at the Chinese Noodle restaurant, which he said mainly served Chinese Muslims. “A Chinese Muslim ... and six...

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China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative gained further traction in 2025, with a record US$213.5 billion of new deals signed as projects in metals, mining, fossil fuels and new technologies surged, a report by the Griffith Asia Institute has found. The value of new deals confirmed under China’s global infrastructure strategy rose 75 per cent last year compared with 2024, with a notable pivot towards investment in Africa and Central Asia, according to the report released on Sunday. China has...

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The United States is likely to lose its clear edge over China in strategic relations with major nations by 2035, a prominent Chinese political scientist has predicted. Yan Xuetong, honorary dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute of International Relations, said strategic competition between Beijing and Washington was likely to remain intense in the coming decade and could escalate into a crisis during US President Donald Trump’s second term, but the risk of direct war could decline under...

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In a historic blow to its space programme, China suffered two rocket launch failures in a single day for the first time over the weekend. While Saturday’s failed launches gained immediate attention on social media, with some describing the day as “Black Saturday”, space observers said the setbacks were part of the growing pains the country’s rapidly developing aerospace industry would inevitably experience. They also drew parallels with similar problems Elon Musk’s firm SpaceX had experienced,...

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After a weekend of Donald Trump threatening to slap tariffs on EU countries for opposing his drive to acquire Greenland, the question on European lips on Monday was: will the bloc finally punch back? A string of national leaders has come out against the US president’s gambit, part of a long-running campaign to make the giant autonomous Danish territory part of America, with speculation mounting that the use of duties could trigger European retaliation. To keep Trump engaged in Ukraine’s war...

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The global landscape is undergoing profound rupture. The United States has blatantly interfered in the internal affairs of Venezuela through direct military action and openly covets Greenland. US President Donald Trump has called Canada the “51st state” of his country and threatened to “take back” the Panama Canal. The US is undermining the core assumptions that have underpinned the Western alliance system. Against this backdrop, Canada’s policy community broadly and Prime Minister Mark Carney...

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China has proposed to host the secretariat of a new treaty governing the high seas, in what observers say is the latest effort by Beijing to proactively play a bigger role in shaping international rules of order. Days after United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order to pull the US from 66 international organisations, including United Nations commissions and major bodies set up to tackle climate change, China has bid for Xiamen in Fujian province – a coastal hub that sits on...

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China’s Unitree Robotics shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, as the Hangzhou-based company ramped up production ahead of its planned listing on the mainland. That number – covering “pure” full-body, bipedal humanoid models – exceeded those of its American peers such as Tesla, Figure AI and Agility Robotics, which shipped 150 humanoid robots each last year, according to market research firm Omdia. Unitree saw its annual output...

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People’s Liberation Army activities in the Taiwan Strait are being closely watched by the United States and Japan and it needs to find a way to operate effectively while being surveilled, according to analysts. A report by Beijing-based defence think tank Lande said the PLA’s most recent large-scale drills around Taiwan – dubbed Justice Mission 2025 – were launched with no warning yet the response from the US and Japan was immediate. It said that highlighted the constant presence in the region...

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The International Monetary Fund has raised its 2026 economic growth forecasts for both China and the United States by 0.3 percentage points, the latest sign that the pause in their trade war has eased pressure on both economies. In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF’s flagship publication released on Monday, the Washington-based fund also upgraded its global economic growth estimate by 0.2 percentage points over its October forecast to 3.3 per cent this year. China’s economy is now...

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The Shenzhou-20 spacecraft returned to Earth with no astronauts inside – just metal, heat and a cracked window – touching down at the Dongfeng landing site in China’s northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Monday. The hull appeared to be darkened after enduring the intense heat and stress of re-entry, but on-site inspections revealed the uncrewed capsule’s exterior was generally intact and the returned items inside were in good condition, according to Chinese space authorities. In an...

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For much of the past decade, the energy transition debate has largely revolved around one question: can clean technologies work at scale? That is increasingly being answered. Solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles (EVs) have moved into the mainstream as key technologies become more cost-effective, efficient and faster to deploy. In many markets, these energy sources are no longer the future of energy; they are the present. The challenge is no longer simply proving that more...

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December was a record-breaking month and busier than ever for the Hainan, China’s first Type 075 amphibious assault ship and one of Beijing’s most important assets in the event of any potential military operation against Taiwan. The Yushen-class vessel, one of the world’s largest amphibious assault ships, made an appearance during the People’s Liberation Army’s large-scale military drills around the self-ruled island in late December, the first time a Type 075 took part in such...

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China’s birth count plummeted to a record low last year, falling by about 10 million from its 2016 peak and slashing the total by more than half in less than a decade, as the country’s population shrank for a fourth consecutive year. Only 7.92 million babies were born in 2025, down 17 per cent from 9.54 million in 2024, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday. This marked the lowest birth figure since records began in 1949 and broke the previous record low set...

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“We will not leave the desert till we beat the foe, although in war our golden armour be outworn 100 times.” Wang Changling’s famous poem from China’s Tang dynasty depicts soldiers in golden armour battling on the desert frontiers. However, for a long time, no Tang dynasty gold-plated armour was unearthed, leaving its appearance to the imagination. But on January 14, the Key Laboratory of Archaeological Sciences and Cultural Heritage at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) unveiled the...

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China’s top securities regulator has signalled it wants a slower, longer-lasting stock market rally rather than a short-lived speculative surge as it steps up measures to curb excessive trading after activity and margin financing hit fresh highs early this year. The stance, reiterated at a securities watchdog meeting last week, drew renewed attention after regulators moved to cool pockets of overheating in the A-share market following a strong start to 2026. At its January 15 work conference,...

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Even as global trade weathered extreme volatility in 2025, China is pressing ahead with port expansions, building bigger and more strategically positioned hubs to secure its trade future. In the first 11 months of 2025, China’s foreign trade container throughput jumped 9.5 per cent, year on year, to 320 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU), contributing to a record US$1.19 trillion trade surplus for the full year, according to official data. Major ports helped drive the records. Shanghai, for...

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Home prices in mainland China continued to decline at a rapid pace in December, posing challenges for an economy that is struggling to find new growth drivers. New home prices fell 0.4 per cent month on month on average across 70 cities, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday. The fall matched November’s drop and was among the steepest in more than a year. Prices slipped 3 per cent year on year in December, accelerating from a 2.8 per cent drop in November. Only...

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Physicist You Chenglong has left the United States to take up a full-time position in China after working for more than a decade in the strategically important fields of quantum sensing and precision measurement. Previously based at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, You is regarded as a fast-rising researcher in his field. According to Chinese media reports, he joined the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in Chengdu as a professor this month. UESTC has...

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