China News

US software company SAS Institute has withdrawn from mainland China and dismissed its local staff, according to a Beijing-based employee affected by the move, as the analytics specialist ended more than two decades of operations amid intense domestic competition and geopolitical tensions. The company on Thursday announced the lay-offs via an email and hosted a short video call, in which executives thanked local employees for their contribution and cited “organisational optimisation” for the...

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China’s resumption of US soybean purchases tells American farmers that their key Chinese customers are returning, but analysts still expect the trade of agricultural products to become a regular part of ongoing negotiations between the countries in the coming years. US President Donald Trump said aboard Air Force One that “tremendous amounts of the soybeans and other farm products are going to be purchased immediately”, after a meeting with President Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday...

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The world’s two largest powers signalled at least 14 months of likely stability in US-China relations following a pivotal summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump – and hinted they would meet “regularly”, setting the stage for more encounters next year. With a trade deal expected to be signed as soon as next week, Beijing and Washington reached a truce on thorny issues ranging from soybeans and rare earths to fentanyl during talks that highlighted the personal...

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Brazil’s soybean producers are downplaying concerns over a freshly minted US-China trade agreement that will see Beijing resume large-scale purchases of American soybeans, insisting the 12 million tonnes (13.23 million tons) pledged represents routine seasonal trade rather than a market upheaval. Mauricio Buffon, president of Brazil’s Soybean Producers Association (Aprosoja), said the volume announced by Washington and Beijing on Wednesday should not alarm Brazilian exporters, framing it as part...

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Robot dogs might not be able to survive a potential assault on Taiwan, based on the results of an amphibious landing exercise carried out by the People’s Liberation Army and broadcast in a documentary aired by state broadcaster CCTV. The four-legged robots, loaded with explosives, were released by the first wave of landing forces in the exercise. They ran across ditches, blocks and barricades on the beachhead in an attempt to clear a passage for the penetration of the enemy defensive line. At...

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Pang Zhibo, a leading expert on industrial chips and robots with high-end manufacturing giant ABB in Sweden, has returned to China and joined Peking University as a fully tenured professor. As ABB’s senior principal scientist, Pang was second only to the company’s chief technology officer – who personally appointed him – and oversaw more than 800 developers and 80 technical products globally across all business areas. The Swiss-Swedish multinational, best known for robotics, motors, energy and...

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Indonesia is still “considering” acquiring Chinese J-10 fighter jets, but no decision has been made yet, according to Jakarta’s Ministry of Defence, clarifying earlier reports that the country was set to buy up to 42 units to modernise its military. “It’s still being analysed and reviewed. At the moment, we are considering all platforms that can fulfil our need to help guard our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” ministry spokesman Brigadier General Frega Wenas Inkiriwang said. On October...

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Ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) families are putting greater focus on legacy planning to create sustainable impact for future generations amid growing uncertainty and vast fortunes shifting to younger heirs, according to participants in a Standard Chartered event in Dubai focused on family offices. The emphasis among such families was changing from wealth preservation towards a strategic repositioning of family-office locations, governance structures, succession planning and decision-making,...

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Developer China Vanke reported a deeper third-quarter loss, highlighting mounting challenges as the prolonged property market downturn continues to weigh on its sales. The Shenzhen-based company posted a loss of 16.1 billion yuan (US$2.3 billion) in the three months ended September 30, roughly doubling its loss from a year earlier. That brings its combined losses for the first nine months of the year to 28 billion yuan, according to a statement to the Shenzhen exchange on Thursday. Persistent...

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Few moments in US history have tested academic freedom as much as the present, with US President Donald Trump’s administration releasing a 10-point Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. What started as bureaucratic proposals have hardened into a national doctrine tying federal funding to political conformity. It is changing the nature of US universities and reshaping international education options. The plan, initially sent to nine universities, proposed conformity with certain...

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Brunei has officially adopted China’s civil aviation certification standards, easing access for Chinese-built aircraft such as the narrowbody C919 jet into the wealthy Southeast Asian market while serving as a potential model for how the planes could expand their international reach. Brunei accepted the airworthiness code of the Civil Aviation Administration of China earlier this month, the Chinese embassy in Brunei said on Monday on its website, citing the equatorial country’s Department of...

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Cheers erupted inside Xiaomi’s gleaming electric vehicle factory on the outskirts of Beijing when it recently welcomed its 100,000th visitor of the year – a tourist from Nanjing. The milestone, announced on the company’s Weibo account, came after it opened part of its car production facilities to the public in April 2024 – turning a once-secretive factory floor into one of Beijing’s hottest new attractions. Xiaomi now plans to increase public tours to 111 sessions a month in November, the...

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Leading artificial intelligence models from the United States and China are “highly sycophantic”, and their excessive flattery may make users less likely to repair interpersonal conflicts, a new study has found. The study by researchers at Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University published earlier this month tested how 11 large language models (LLMs) responded to user queries seeking advice on personal matters, including cases involving manipulation and deception. In AI circles,...

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1. Trump hails ‘great success’ as Xi talks raise hopes of easing US-China tensions China and the United States have reached a truce on thorny issues ranging from soybeans and rare earths to fentanyl, following Thursday’s meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.
2. ‘Amazing’ Xi-Trump summit, as it happened – deals struck as trade war thaws Catch up on our live coverage of Xi and Trump’s first in-person meeting since the latter’s return to the White House.
3. 5 takeaways from the...

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Few areas of China reflect the country’s decades-long economic transformation more vividly than its cities. Rapid development has turned villages into dense urban landscapes and already sizeable metro areas into some of the world’s largest population centres. As the rate of urbanisation slows and the country transitions into a new economic era, we explore how select Chinese cities are navigating the change. Read the rest of our series here. In a remote corner of China’s southwestern Guizhou...

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In a stark departure from past China-US summits, Taiwan did not rate a mention on Thursday, prompting speculation that Xi Jinping and Donald Trump had arrived at a tacit and pragmatic understanding to deprioritise the contentious issue. Taiwan – regarded by Beijing as a core interest and “the first red line that cannot be crossed” in bilateral relations – has in recent years occupied a few lines in official readouts following face-to-face meetings between the countries’ leaders, but not in...

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After months of threats, chest-thumping and uncertainty, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief on Thursday after a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping teased at least temporary relief on a host of bilateral trade irritants. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that China had agreed to buy 12 million metric tons (13.28 tons) of soybeans this year and at least 25 million annually through 2028, a key issue for anxious US farmers after Beijing...

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The Dutch government is under renewed pressure to end its seizure of the Chinese-owned, Netherlands-based semiconductor company Nexperia, after Washington agreed to suspend its updated export control rule for one year. After a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump on Thursday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Washington would temporarily halt the implementation of its so-called 50 per cent subsidiary rule. Introduced in late September, that rule...

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This month, the Post’s Xiaofei Xu sat down with Deng Li, China’s ambassador to France and Monaco, for an in-depth and wide-ranging interview. In part two, Deng discusses Beijing’s economic relationship with France and the EU. Part one can be found here. As Europe adapts to the changing nature of the global economy and the fast pace of technological innovation, China is ready to help the continent as it determines its role in emerging industries, Beijing’s top diplomat in Paris told the...

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Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing.

1. ‘Amazing’ Xi-Trump summit, as it happened – deals struck as trade war thaws Chinese President Xi Jinping has held talks with his American counterpart Donald Trump, their first in-person meeting since Trump’s return to the White House, as the rivals seek to manage heightened tensions, particularly over trade.
2. ‘Positive step’: cautious relief as China...

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Amid the apparent absence of a concrete deal being reached with Washington on one of Beijing’s long-standing points of trade contention – export controls on the most advanced semiconductors – analysts say it reflects China’s increasing resolve to become more independent from the US. After a meeting with President Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday morning, US President Donald Trump said the two sides “did discuss chips”. “China is going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips …...

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Soon after China put the electromagnetic catapults on its newest aircraft carrier to the test, US President Donald Trump has taken a swipe at the “stupid electric” technology – and called for a return to steam power. The advanced catapult launch system was originally developed by the United States to boost the performance of its aircraft carriers. But when he addressed US Navy sailors aboard the USS George Washington in Japan on Tuesday, Trump said he was serious about signing an executive order...

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Police in Shenzhen, the technology hub in southern China’s Guangdong province, have smashed a syndicate selling counterfeit imported chips to mainland manufacturers, according to local media, exposing an underground market for high-end semiconductors amid US export controls. The syndicate’s modus operandi was to collect discarded chips, which were laser-polished and relabelled, and sold as imported products from Infineon Technologies, Texas Instruments and Analog Devices, according to a report...

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China and the United States have reached a truce on thorny issues ranging from soybeans and rare earths to fentanyl, following Thursday’s meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in South Korea. Trump hailed the talks at the Gimhae Air Base in Busan as a “great success” and said he had agreed to visit China in April. He added that Xi would visit the US “some time after that”. The summit may help the two countries’ relationship enter a “more constructive phase” following a series of...

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If the US hopes to rebuild a competitive shipbuilding industry and narrow China’s commanding lead, it should adopt some lessons from Beijing – emphasising long-term planning, steady government funding and policy consistency, witnesses told a US Senate hearing this week. China’s phenomenal rise in the global shipbuilding sector has caught the attention of Washington’s policymakers who are keen to restore the nation’s commercial fleet and production capacity, leading many to blame China for...

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