China News

If you were asked which middle-income country has one of the lowest levels of educational attainment, very few would say China. We continually hear stories about mass university expansion, record numbers of annual graduates and elite institutions that rank among the world’s best. Despite these impressive strides, gaps in education remain a large roadblock for China’s further economic development. The country remains largely undereducated for its level of economic development: only about 31 per...

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A bipartisan group of lawmakers has proposed creating a new agency with US$2.5 billion to spur production of rare earths and the other critical minerals, while the Trump administration has already taken aggressive actions to break China’s grip on the market for these materials that are crucial to hi-tech products, including mobile phones, electric vehicles, jet fighters and missiles. It is too early to tell how the bill, if passed, could align with the White House’s policy but whatever the...

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A hacker group with links to China recently used Venezuela-themed phishing emails in a malware campaign targeting US government-related entities, as cyberattack campaigns increasingly leverage geopolitical materials, according to Swiss cybersecurity firm Acronis. A malware campaign has used recent developments between the US and Venezuela as “thematic lures” to attack US government and policy-related entities with a back door that has espionage-focused capabilities, including basic remote...

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US authorities have charged 20 people ‌with rigging college basketball and Chinese Basketball Association ‍games, according to a federal indictment released on Thursday, including some individuals previously charged in an NBA-related gambling investigation. The charges were unsealed ⁠by federal prosecutors in Philadelphia following a grand jury and accuse the defendants of conspiring on games from September 2022 until February 2025. During the 2022-2023 CBA season, the ‍individuals sought to...

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China needs to legislate to protect itself against the risk of “external suppression” and safeguard its technology and supply chains, a legal expert with a top Beijing think tank has warned. Li Honglei, head of a Communist Party committee that oversees two law institutes under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said tighter national security legislation was needed to make the country more “resilient”. He said the risks had been laid bare by America’s abduction of the former Venezuelan...

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China has warned that the “law of the jungle” must not apply in Iran amid the current wave of anti-government protests. Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke to his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi by phone on Thursday, telling him that Beijing was willing to play a “constructive role” in resolving differences through dialogue. Some observers have described the recent protests in Iran as the largest since the 1979 Islamic revolution with an estimated death toll ranging from 2,000 to 12,000. Araghchi...

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Chinese companies are expected to shoulder higher costs for deploying advanced chips from the US, owing to a new 25 per cent tariff imposed by Washington on select high-performance semiconductors, according to analysts. The administration of US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the new import duties on advanced artificial intelligence chips covered Nvidia’s H200 and Advanced Micro Devices’ MI325X graphics processing units, as well as their equivalent products and derivatives. According to...

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China and Canada are at a “new starting point” and the two countries should deepen cooperation to protect multilateralism and free trade. That was the message Premier Li Qiang had for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Beijing on Thursday, on the second day of a four-day state visit to China. “Standing at a new starting point, China is willing to work with Canada to uphold the strategic partnership, strengthen dialogue and communication, enhance political mutual trust, respect each other’s...

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When contemporary Europe engages with the world, it increasingly presents as two distinct Europes operating within the same institutional framework. This duality – a Europe of strategic dependence vs a Europe of normative assertion – creates a contradiction. For partners, particularly in China and across Asia, this is not merely an abstract identity crisis but a practical geopolitical puzzle that complicates engagement and challenges assumptions about Europe’s global role. One Europe, embedded...

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China has ramped up audits involving online influencers and high-wage earners, as part of broader efforts to expand tax revenue and refine the taxation system. The State Taxation Administration on Wednesday spotlighted two fresh cases involving influencers in the centrally administered city of Chongqing and in Gansu province. In Chongqing, authorities ordered an influencer surnamed Peng – who has 30 million followers and works in online video production and commercial advertising – to pay 4.15...

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Nie Weiping, a legendary Go master in China, died in Beijing at the age of 73 on Wednesday. Nie is best remembered for his dramatic victory in the first Japan-China Super Go in 1985. Few had hope that China would win because its players had long lagged behind Japanese competitors in the strategy board game. By the time it was Nie’s turn to play in Tokyo, Japan’s top player, Kobayashi Koichi, had already won six straight games against his Chinese counterparts. Nie was the only Chinese player left...

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Beijing has revealed how its graft-busters are investigating bribes paid in hard-to-trace cryptocurrencies by tracking the ways in which corrupt officials have been spending the proceeds. A documentary shown on state broadcaster CCTV on Wednesday highlighted the case of Yao Qian, the former director of the digital currency institute at the People’s Bank of China. Investigators became suspicious when Yao bought a villa in Beijing for more than 20 million yuan (around US$2.9 million) under the...

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Chinese nationals will be allowed to enter the Philippines without a visa for up to two weeks from Friday, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila. The visa-waiver programme will cover Chinese nationals entering the Philippines for both tourism and business, but will apply only to those entering via Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Metro Manila and Mactan-Cebu International Airport in Cebu. “This is in line with the president’s directive to facilitate trade, investments and...

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Hong Kong and Shenzhen are establishing a white list for data transfers as part of an overarching effort to forge closer cross-border ties, which policymakers and business leaders see as essential to unlocking opportunities in artificial intelligence and fintech in the region. “If you have a white list to facilitate the movement of sensitive data, biological data and samples between Hong Kong and [mainland] China, it would ensure trust between [parties sending and receiving information] because...

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A US aircraft carrier has reportedly left the South China Sea after a live-fire drill and is heading to the Middle East amid anti-government protests in Iran. US cable news network NewsNation reported on Thursday that the Pentagon ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group, which includes Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, to leave their position in the South China Sea and sail towards the Middle East. According to the US Naval Institute’s carrier tracker, there...

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In China, bookstores are the new hotspot, but not because of what’s on the shelves. Eye-catching interior designs are drawing photographers and influencers to snap photos among the bookshelves. But not everyone is happy about this new trend. China’s bookworms argue that the crowds, noise and flash photography are ruining the vibe of these once tranquil spaces.

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South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s back-to-back visits to China and Japan suggest a “pragmatic approach” to reset ties with both countries as tensions soar between Beijing and Tokyo, analysts said. Lee met Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday during a two-day trip to Japan. Speaking to reporters after their summit in Nara – Takaichi’s hometown – Lee said there was “unprecedented turmoil” in the global political landscape and trade order. He stressed the need for South Korea and...

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China is recruiting social workers for disputed islands in the South China Sea. According to a notice published on Monday, the government of Sansha, the authority set up to administer the disputed territories, said it was looking for 11 “community workers” to post on eight reefs and islands in the Paracel and the Spratly islands. The territories include Woody Island, the administrative centre of the disputed territories, and Mischief Reef, which is home to a large military base. The notice was...

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China’s military says it is using quantum technology to gather high-value military intelligence from public cyberspace. The People’s Liberation Army said more than 10 experimental quantum cyber warfare tools were “under development”, many of which were being “tested in front-line missions”, according to the official newspaper Science and Technology Daily. The project is being led by a supercomputing laboratory at the National University of Defence Technology, according to the report, with a...

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European aviation evaluators have begun test flights of China’s home-grown C919 airliner in Shanghai, the Post has learned, as the manufacturer of the narrowbody jet presses ahead with its bid to secure Western safety certification – a crucial step in the journey to global adoption and being able to compete with industry leaders Boeing and Airbus. Two test pilots from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have conducted verification flights, according to a source with knowledge of the...

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Hong Kong and Shenzhen can work closely to empower finance with artificial intelligence, delegates said on Thursday at the China Conference: Greater Bay Area, an event hosted by the South China Morning Post. Joseph Chan Ho-lim, undersecretary for Financial Services and the Treasury in the Hong Kong government, said Hong Kong and Shenzhen were seeking deeper cooperation between finance and technology. Chen said at the event in Qianhai, a bonded zone in Shenzhen, that Hong Kong, as a...

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“Rural heating problems in Hebei cannot wait any longer” declared a recent report in Farmers’ Daily. It described a disturbing reality in parts of northern China: elderly villagers who would rather shiver through freezing temperatures than turn on their heaters, because they simply cannot afford the cost. For many urban readers, this may sound implausible. For millions of rural elderly, it is routine. On the surface, the problem appears to be a side effect of China’s well-intentioned...

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In a landmark case in China, two AI chatbot developers have appealed against their convictions on pornography charges over software that generated sexual content for paid users. The Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court began on Wednesday hearing the appeal by the two defendants against an earlier decision by a lower court to sentence one of the developers to four years and the other to 1½ years in prison for “creating pornographic material for profit”. The hearing has been adjourned,...

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A requirement to set minimum prices for their cars in the European Union will reduce sales there for Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers, but higher profit margins will eventually improve their bottom lines and brand reputations, according to analysts and industry officials. Assemblers of Chinese pure-electric cars from BYD to Leapmotor will avoid a brutal discount war after European authorities accepted price undertakings to replace punitive anti-subsidy tariffs of up to 35.3 per cent. Minimum...

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US President Donald Trump has put allies and trade partners on notice, invoking national security powers to ease China’s chokehold on critical minerals, warning global suppliers to negotiate agreements to secure reliable, diversified supplies for the US or face new trade barriers, including tariffs. In a proclamation signed on Wednesday, the “America first” president declared that the US’ reliance on foreign-processed critical minerals poses a national security threat. He directed US Trade...

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