China News

Some people wonder whether China could carry out a sophisticated state-sponsored kidnapping like the US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife. And it’s not just that; there is state terrorism like remote assassinations by drones, which also end up killing a lot of civilian bystanders, not to mention breaching the sovereignty of their countries. The United States can apparently do that anywhere around the world. Such Hollywood-style cowboy militarism no doubt makes its...

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China’s top counter-espionage agency has warned that overseas entities are attempting to steal the country’s geographic data through covert mapping operations that threaten national security. Foreign “anti-China hostile forces” have been deploying “various clandestine methods” to gather, steal and exploit China’s foundational mapping and geographic information, the Ministry of State Security said in a social media article on Tuesday. It said the data, crucial for infrastructure planning,...

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The US has officially green-lighted Nvidia to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips in China, as the Trump administration seeks to strike a balance between curtailing China’s AI progress and maintaining American AI firms’ global market share. The H200, US chip giant Nvidia’s second-most-advanced AI processor, can be shipped to China under conditions that include that its China shipments account for no more than half of the amount sold domestically, according to the Department of Commerce’s...

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Australia’s former prime minister and a prominent China scholar, Kevin Rudd, will step down as ambassador to the United States a year ahead of schedule, a move some analysts say underscores a fundamental shift in how Canberra must navigate a Washington increasingly centred on the personal rapport with US President Donald Trump. The resignation follows a period of heightened friction between Rudd and Trump, punctuated by the “America first” leader’s blunt public declaration in October 2025 that...

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Near the end of last year, thousands of European travellers saw their holiday plans unravel after a prolonged power outage in the Eurotunnel – the underwater train passage linking Britain and France – caused by a fault in the overhead supply. For many, this brought back memories of chaotic scenes the previous April, when rolling blackouts struck much of Portugal and Spain. The United States also suffered from multiple power outages last year, including major disruptions in California – most...

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Enrolment at Harvard for Chinese students rose in the autumn from a year earlier, even as the Donald Trump administration moved to rein in visas for them and limit foreign enrolment and funding at the prestigious university. The number of students from mainland China rose from 1,390 in autumn 2024 to 1,452 in autumn 2025 – an increase of 4.5 per cent – according to Harvard data released on Friday. Hong Kong student enrolment rose from 68 to 73, while enrolment from Macau, which is in the single...

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China has “more to lose” compared with Venezuela if Iran’s rulers should fall, according to diplomatic observers, but it is expected to avoid direct intervention. The country is facing a wave of anti-government protests fuelled by economic hardship in which hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters are thought to have been killed. US President Donald Trump has said he was looking at “some very strong options” and this week announced a new set of tariffs targeting countries that maintained...

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Canada and China appear ready to kick-start trade talks after years of strained relations, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Beijing this week coinciding with both countries questioning their once stronger ties with the United States, analysts said. Carney travelled to Beijing on Tuesday for his first official visit to the country, where he will discuss trade, agriculture and energy with officials from Canada’s second-largest single-country trading partner. Liang Yan, a...

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Alibaba Group Holding’s artificial intelligence strategy is defined by a commitment to open-source models, the company said on Tuesday, following a year of soaring adoption for its suite of AI services. The statement came as Alibaba’s stock in New York rose more than 10 per cent on Monday, following news that its flagship Qwen family of AI models surpassed 700 million downloads on the developer platform Hugging Face, making it the world’s most widely adopted open-source AI system. “A defining...

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Taiwan has begun co-producing 155mm (6.1-inch) artillery shells with the US, as the island moves to strengthen wartime ammunition resilience amid Beijing’s escalating military pressure and concern over supply disruptions in a high-intensity conflict. Taiwan’s defence ministry on Monday said Taipei and Washington had launched early-stage joint production of a new type of 155mm howitzer ammunition. Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang, head of Taiwan’s Armaments Bureau, testified during a legislative...

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China and the Philippines have again exchanged barbs over confrontations in the disputed South China Sea, with each accusing the other of provocation and escalating tensions. The deputy spokesperson at the Chinese embassy in the Philippines said on Tuesday that a statement the day before by the National Maritime Council – a government body created by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr in 2024 to address the nation’s maritime challenges – was “unfounded and misleading”. It accused Manila...

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The Chilean government has awarded a contract to Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech to supply its influenza vaccine ahead of the southern hemisphere winter. The vaccine will be part of Chile’s nationwide immunisation programme, which public health body Cenabast said was “internationally recognised for its impact on public health protection, particularly among high-risk groups”. Beijing-based Sinovac’s influenza vaccine uses an inactivated virus based on a split-virion platform – a...

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Shares of Chinese companies tied to commercial rocket production tumbled after they cautioned that a recent rally had outpaced underlying fundamentals. Hunan Aerospace Huanyu Communication Technology plunged as much as 20 per cent on Tuesday, while China Spacesat dropped as much as 10 per cent before rebounding. Goldwind Science & Technology, which has a stake in rocket start-up LandSpace Technology, fell more than 13 per cent. China Aerospace Times Electronics Technology, CICT Mobile...

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America’s top defence official declared that the US must achieve unquestioned AI “dominance” to prevent adversaries from gaining a technological edge, as he unveiled a strategy that includes integrating Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s announcement did not mention China by name, but it came a month after a report to the US Congress in which the Pentagon warned of Beijing’s accelerating use of AI to reach its military modernisation goals. On Monday, Hegseth said the...

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China and the European Union began 2026 with another trade clash. As the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive phase, Brussels tightened compliance and Beijing warned of countermeasures. However, this week, the two sides signalled progress on defusing the electric vehicle dispute; the EU issued guidance to Chinese EV exporters on submitting minimum price plans. The juxtaposition underlines the point: even when one high-profile area shifts from escalation to technical...

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Alexey Amunts, whose pioneering work on mitochondrial ribosomes helped catalyse the cryo-electron microscopy “resolution revolution”, has left the Max Planck Institute in Germany to join China’s Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART) this month. Amunts confirmed he had joined SMART as a senior investigator and would “contribute to its international relations agenda”. He is internationally recognised for his breakthroughs in visualising life’s molecular machinery at...

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UBS Group conveyed a sanguine outlook on Chinese stocks in 2026, as the world’s second-largest economy proved to be an important alternative for global investors seeking to diversify away from US equities, which face headwinds from stretched valuations to jitters about the independence of the Federal Reserve. Chinese stocks are expected to be energised by the nation’s growing innovation capability, greater adoption of artificial intelligence across traditional industries and potential inflows...

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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is said to be weighing up an early election, a move that could put her in a stronger position with both China and the United States if she secures a decisive win, according to observers. But a diplomatic thaw between Japan and China is not expected any time soon. Media reports in recent days have suggested that Takaichi may call a snap general election to capitalise on her high approval ratings. Citing government sources, the Yomiuri Shinbun reported on...

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China’s central bank strengthened the yuan’s daily fixing for a third consecutive session to a nearly 16-month high, as the currency also held firm in offshore markets despite recent US dollar strength. On Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China set the yuan’s midpoint rate, also known as the daily fixing rate, at 7.0103 to the US dollar – the strongest showing since the end of September 2024, when the rate was set at 7.0074. That official midpoint rate, however, was still weaker than that of the...

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A partnership between China’s SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals and Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis on Monday has revived hopes for treating Alzheimer’s disease. The deal, worth nearly US$1.7 billion, grants Novartis exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialise SciNeuro’s antibody candidates to develop drugs for the progressive brain disease. SciNeuro’s novel amyloid beta targeted antibody programme leverages proprietary blood-brain barrier shuttle technology to help more of the drug cross...

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China is stepping up its efforts to use its vast coal reserves instead of oil to produce plastics and synthetic rubber. Coal can be refined to make olefins – an essential raw material for tens of thousands of chemical products that include plastics, synthetic fibres and rubber. While the mainstream practice is to produce olefins from oil, using coal can bring significant cost savings and might help to reduce the country’s reliance on imported fuel at a time when Donald Trump is seeking to expand...

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Mainland chip designer GigaDevice Semiconductor jumped more than 45 per cent on its first trading day in Hong Kong on Tuesday, as the Beijing-based firm’s debut catered to investor appetite for tech companies amid China’s push for self-reliance. The firm’s shares started trading at HK$235, versus the offer price of HK$162. Its shares closed between HK$224.20 and HK$226.80 on the grey market on Monday evening, helping some investors cash in gains of about 40 per cent before the official debut,...

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Last month, the United States announced its decision to sell advanced weapons amounting to US$11.1 billion to China’s Taiwan region. The authorisation of the largest ever arms package to Taiwan since China and the US established diplomatic relations has seriously violated the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués, severely undermined Chinese sovereignty and security interests, gravely interfered in China’s internal affairs and sent the wrong signals to “Taiwan...

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In the daytime the temperature in northern China often stays below freezing, but for many rural villagers the prohibitive cost of heating means that they have little choice but to endure the cold. “We dare not turn on the heating during the day,” one woman from Guan county in Hebei named Wang said. The 75-year-old’s home is around 70km (43 miles) from the centre of Beijing, but running the heating all day would cost between 60 and 90 yuan (US$8-13), an expense that could soar over the course of...

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Distressed Chinese property developer Vanke’s potential debt restructuring constitutes a one-off, technical default, and was not likely to result in contagion effects, according to an HSBC report. The leading mainland developer before it got caught up in the property crisis, Vanke has not yet registered a material default on its domestic bonds. However, two of its key medium-term notes have entered grace periods, and S&P downgraded the company’s long-term issuer credit rating from “CCC-” to “SD”...

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