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Chile’s election of an ultraconservative leader has created another vocal ally for US President Donald Trump in a lithium-rich region where China has emerged as the dominant economic partner, positioning the South American country at the centre of an intensifying superpower rivalry. In what was probably Chile’s sharpest rightward shift since the end of its military dictatorship in 1990, José Antonio Kast, a right-wing former lawmaker who campaigned on Trump-style hardline positions on crime and...

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The reported US seizure of a ship allegedly carrying Chinese-made dual-use components to Iran might signal Washington was “testing the waters” on reviving an old tactic to pressure Beijing’s ties with its adversaries, but such moves risked breaching international law, analysts said. An American special operations team boarded a ship from China bound for Iran in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka last month, The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday. Citing sources, it said the operation aimed to...

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Beijing’s fresh imperative to “invest in people” – first raised in a proposal for the 15th five-year plan and reaffirmed at an agenda-setting policy meeting last week – reflects a rethink in economic strategy designed to stimulate domestic demand and improve social welfare, analysts said. China’s leaders vowed to “fully tap” the domestic economy’s potential at the annual central economic work conference held last week, which laid out their economic policy priorities for 2026. A readout from the...

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Mannings, one of Hong Kong’s largest health and beauty chains, will cease all retail operations in mainland China, both online and offline, as it adjusts its strategy in the highly competitive market. In a letter to its members, Mannings China said “its physical stores on the mainland will close permanently after January 15, 2026”. Its online sales channels will wind down even earlier. Mannings’ official mini mall on Tencent Holdings’ WeChat will stop service at midnight on December 28, 2025,...

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A top scientist has sharply criticised China’s increasingly resource-driven research culture, warning that a reliance on vast accumulated funding, manpower and data for scientific output is inefficient and actively undermines genuine innovation. Zhang Hong, a senior cell biologist at the Institute of Biophysics in Beijing and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, condemned what he called “a vicious cycle” in how life sciences research was increasingly done in China. Projects were inflated...

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Chinese artificial intelligence chip designer MetaX Integrated Circuits will make its trading debut in Shanghai on Wednesday, according to a filing late on Monday, more than a week after industry peer Moore Threads Technology’s stellar listing on the city’s Star Market. Founded in Shanghai in September 2020 by former engineers at Advanced Micro Devices, MetaX priced its initial public offering at 104.66 yuan per share, which was expected to raise 4.2 billion yuan (US$596 million) from the sale...

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For over a century, the dream of efficiently concentrating low-grade heat into high-temperature industrial energy has been constrained by a stubborn ceiling: 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit). Now, a team from China has shattered that temperature limit. Using a revolutionary heat pump with no moving parts, they achieved an output of 270 degrees with a 145-degree heat source to drive the cycle. Developed by a team led by Luo Ercang at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of...

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Senior US and Chinese defence officials met in Washington this week in the latest sign of renewed military-to-military communication as the two countries seek to stabilise ties. Alvaro Smith, a deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the Pentagon, met with China’s Major General Ye Jiang, Deputy Director of the Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation, for the 19th annual US-China Defence Policy Coordination Talks from December 15...

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It has been a turbulent year for the fraught US-China relationship. In the second story in this new series, we look back at the events of 2025, examining how the trade war tested policymakers and firms, forcing a rethink in business, strategy and supply chains. In April, when US President Donald Trump upended global trade by announcing “reciprocal tariffs” on almost all the country’s trading partners, officials in eastern China’s Ningbo – a national export hub – went on a wartime footing. Across...

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Chinese authorities have intercepted 430kg (948lbs) of cocaine aided by tip-offs by the United States, a sign of possible progress on the issue following an agreement on counternarcotics cooperation reached by the leaders of the two countries in October. Chinese authorities had found the drug in an international container at the Yantian port in Shenzhen, southern China’s Guangdong province, on November 26, state broadcaster CCTV said on Tuesday. The case is under further investigation and no...

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Taiwan has moved to tighten conscription rules after a string of high-profile cases involving celebrities and young men who falsified their medical records to evade mandatory military service. In addition, the proposed changes would also mandate alternative service for transgender and intersex people, a move that has sparked backlash from rights groups and other members of the public. The island’s defence ministry on Monday unveiled a draft amendment to its physical classification standards,...

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China has announced a new policy package to boost household spending by tightening coordination between commerce and financial regulators, expanding access to credit and promoting new forms of consumption. The move comes as soft retail sales and weak consumer confidence continued to weigh on economic growth last month, highlighting the urgency for policymakers to expand domestic demand. That priority has topped the agenda of the central economic work conference – an annual gathering of the...

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US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order (EO) designating illicit fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid driving the US overdose crisis, as a weapon of mass destruction. The EO issued by the White House asserted that “illicit fentanyl is closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic” due to its extreme potency. “Two milligrams, an almost undetectable trace amount equivalent to 10 to 15 grains of table salt, constitutes a lethal dose,” it said. The order highlights the national...

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China has accused Japan of attempting to “mislead the public and hope that somehow the issue would resolve itself” after its foreign minister selectively quoted its position on Taiwan from a joint communique that was the foundation of establishing their diplomatic ties in 1972. During a parliamentary session on Monday, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi repeated Tokyo’s position on Taiwan as stated in the document that established and normalised ties with Beijing, although he did not read out...

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Mainland Chinese media are calling for the demolition of a wartime monument in Japan, resurfacing a long-standing point of bilateral tension, as Beijing and Tokyo are locked in a diplomatic row over Taiwan. Yuyuantantian, a social media account run by mainland state broadcaster CCTV, said on Saturday that Japan seized more than 370 stones from the countries it invaded during the second world war – most from China – and used them to build Hakko Ichiu Tower, which the account described as “a tower...

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Beijing has greenlit Biren Technology’s initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, as more Chinese artificial intelligence chip designers rush to go public amid heightened investor interest in these stocks. Biren, which designs high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), received regulatory approval to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange, according to a China Securities Regulatory Commission filing on Monday. This was expected to put the company on track to become the first GPU...

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A prominent Chinese expert on US affairs says the competitive relationship between Washington and Beijing is likely to remain stable for the rest of Donald Trump’s presidential term – a prospect crucial for China’s strategic planning. The China-US rivalry has achieved a “resilient balance”, Ni Feng, researcher and former director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said at a symposium held in Shenzhen on Sunday. Unlike the competition of the...

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A Chinese biopharmaceutical firm has sealed a global licensing deal valued at up to US$1.44 billion, the second in a week, as a wave of cross-border tie-ups shows no sign of abating despite headwinds from the US Biosecure Act. Shanghai Scizeng Medical Technology, a unit of Changchun High-Tech Industry, has agreed to grant US-based Yarrow Bioscience exclusive global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise GenSci098, an injectable therapy for thyroid eye disease and Graves’ disease, both...

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China has launched a national-level service platform to help returning overseas students find work and start businesses, as the country steps up its efforts to attract talent and the number of returnees surges. The Ministry of Education has partnered with 50 organisations to provide returnees with entrepreneurial mentors and match them directly with local government and corporate needs. The measures show the value of overseas returnees is still recognised at the national level, despite recent...

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The Communist Party chief of Henan province has made an impromptu visit to the famed Shaolin Temple, whose former abbot was rounded up on corruption charges earlier this year, and called for a clear boundary between the temple and business. Liu Ning made the comments during his first inspection of the temple on Sunday, nearly five months after former abbot Shi Yongxin – known as “the CEO monk” – was abruptly removed, according to a report by the official Henan Daily. In an “in-depth exchange”...

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Recent months have witnessed an important shift in the political landscape across the Taiwan Strait, one that deserves careful consideration from policymakers in Asia, Europe and the United States. Despite considerable global turbulence, years of rising tensions in Asia and external pressure, there are emerging signs of stabilisation and even fresh momentum for peaceful momentum towards unification between mainland China and Taiwan. Taiwan’s political environment has evolved significantly since...

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Britain’s government on Monday summoned China’s ambassador to the UK to protest the conviction of British citizen Jimmy Lai Chee-ying on national security charges in Hong Kong, while US President Donald Trump said he urged leniency for Lai in a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “I feel so badly. I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked to consider his release,” Trump told reporters, without specifying exactly when he spoke with Xi. “He’s an older man, and he’s not well. So I did put...

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Home prices in mainland China continued to decline at a rapid pace in November, posing challenges for policymakers who have vowed to stem a years-long downturn. 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 decline eased slightly from a 0.5 per cent fall in October, but it was among the steepest in more than a year. Prices slipped 2.8 per cent year on year in November, compared with a...

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It has been a turbulent year for the fraught US-China relationship. In a new series, we look back at the events of 2025, starting with the geopolitical struggle between the two rival superpowers. In a year marked by domestic crises and global turmoil, Washington and Beijing are set to end 2025 with a fragile truce after they stepped back from the brink of full-blown tariff warfare – but deeper antagonisms remain. The downward spiral of rhetoric and retaliation started with US President Donald...

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Senior US officials on Monday pushed back against suggestions of American retreat from the Indo-Pacific, declaring that Washington is recalibrating its foreign assistance to more effectively outcompete China in the strategically vital region while maintaining support for allies through targeted aid and security cooperation. The focus, they said, is shifting away from broad assistance towards targeted partnerships that serve US interests and advance a free and open Indo-Pacific, ranging from...

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