China News

A local government official in northeast China has been accused of covering up a fishing boat accident and preventing the vessel’s owner from calling the police for help, and investigations sparked by the incident have exposed a series of corruption cases related to fishing industry safety. The accident took place on November 10. A boat registered in Yingkou, Liaoning province, capsized while crew members were fishing, causing 11 to fall into the water. Two were rescued and nine have been...

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Beijing has frozen youth exchange programmes with Tokyo amid continuing fallout over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, a diplomatic source said, raising concern that the bilateral rift could affect generations to come. The Japanese side was told about the cancelled programmes in recent weeks after China launched retaliatory measures against Japan over Takaichi’s comments earlier this month, according to the diplomatic source. “Usually, November and December are the...

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With the world’s biggest high-speed rail network already established, China now plans a more balanced, integrated and intelligent transport system over the next five years, prioritising efficiency and smart technology over sheer scale. Beijing will move away from large-scale expansion to optimising new projects and upgrading existing assets, Minister of Transport Liu Wei said at a recent symposium on the 15th five-year plan attended by local transport officials, according to an official...

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Beijing has flagged risks of excessive duplication in China’s rapidly growing humanoid robot sector, vowing to strengthen guidance for an industry that officials have identified as an important engine of future growth. Driven by an influx of new capital, the number of humanoid robot companies in China has climbed to over 150 and is continuing to grow, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) spokeswoman Li Chao told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday. “More than half of them are...

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A massive fire engulfed the Wang Fuk Court residential estate in Hong Kong on Wednesday, sparking discussions about the potential for new firefighting technologies to boost rescue capabilities. It was Hong Kong’s deadliest inferno in recent decades, as fire rapidly spread across seven adjoining residential blocks covered in bamboo scaffolding. Residential high-rises are closely clustered in the densely populated city. Since 2000, China has built almost 1,600 skyscrapers – 60 per cent of the...

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Opposition critics have accused Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te of stoking fear on the island with his suggestion that Beijing could be preparing to take Taiwan by force by 2027. They also said that Lai’s attempt to justify a massive increase in defence spending was nudging Taiwan towards a wartime footing without consensus or clarity. The controversy erupted after Lai told a press conference on Wednesday that Beijing was pursuing a goal to “complete unification with Taiwan by force by...

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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will not join French President Emmanuel Macron on his state visit to China next week, the Post has learned, in a break from recent tradition. Macron has included the European Union on his last few engagements with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This was seen as an effort to “Europeanise” his dealings with Beijing. Von der Leyen went to Paris last year to meet Xi alongside Macron and also visited Beijing in 2023 alongside the two-term centrist...

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China will not seek a nuclear arms race and opposes the United States’ deployment of offensive missiles in Asia, according to Beijing’s latest white paper on nuclear policy. The paper – titled “China’s Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in the New Era” – updates the previous 2005 version of the document. In the white paper released on Thursday, Beijing said it had consistently kept its nuclear forces at the minimum level required for national security. Beijing has long underscored...

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In nuclear war, the long-held assumption of mutual assured destruction no longer exists. Welcome to the age of permanent strategic instability, where superpowers mix fast and accurate nuclear and non-nuclear missiles in the same arsenal. The risk of war is greater than many realise. The scale of catastrophe is also significant. A potential nuclear winter is estimated to amount to billions of deaths from starvation after years of global crop failures. Such risks and consequences are disastrously...

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Both China and the European Union have signalled that a dispute over semiconductor maker Nexperia should be resolved at the corporate level, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce, as affected countries continue to seek a solution to supply-chain disruptions. The push for a corporate resolution came after two separate video conferences that Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao had on Wednesday – with German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and European Commissioner for Trade Maros...

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Beijing has warned against foreign interference in its internal affairs following reports that US President Donald Trump privately pressed Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to dial back her rhetoric on Taiwan. During a call on Tuesday, the US leader urged Takaichi not to provoke China, according to a Wall Street Journal report that cited government officials. While reportedly briefed on Takaichi’s domestic political constraints, Trump asked her to “temper” her tone, but stopped short of...

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The diplomatic crisis over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments about Taiwan shows no sign of easing after two weeks, with mainland Chinese commentators predicting Beijing would continue to push for a retraction. However, that demand appears unlikely to be met in the short term, and one diplomatic analyst warned that the pressure tactics should aim to avoid a nationalist backlash within Japan and win support for Beijing’s stance. The Chinese foreign ministry and state media stepped...

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In the eighth instalment of his exclusive series for the South China Morning Post, American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek explores the big world manifestation of small world quantum mechanics. Read his previous articles here. The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2025 was awarded to John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit”. The trio collaborated on a series of...

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As bilateral relations between Beijing and Tokyo continue to spiral, China’s embassy in Japan has advised citizens to put travel plans on hold “in the near term”, citing a recent spike in unprovoked assaults and discrimination. In a security warning issued on WeChat, the embassy reported a “significant” surge in requests for help since July. “Recently, several Chinese citizens in Japan have reported that they were verbally abused, assaulted and injured for no reason,” it said. The advisory came...

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China’s industrial profits dropped in October after a strong September, according to official year-on-year data released on Thursday, and analysts are pointing to domestic competition and trade tensions weighing on corporate balance sheets. Profits fell 5.5 per cent from a year ago, reversing a 21.6 per cent surge in September and a 20.4 per cent jump in August, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics. For the January-October period, profits earned by Chinese companies of a...

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The race to launch China’s first reusable rocket is heating up, with three contenders now lined up at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the country’s northwest for flights that could make history. On the pads stand the state-owned Long March 12A, LandSpace’s Zhuque-3, and Space Pioneer’s Tianlong-3 – all three of which are expected to be used to build China’s massive internet satellite constellations and to compete internationally on low-cost, rapid-turnaround missions. Both the Long March...

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China has launched a 19-point plan to better align the supply of consumer goods with demand, as Beijing steps up its efforts to rebalance its economy towards a consumption-driven growth model. A document outlining the plan issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and five other departments on Wednesday laid out goals that included the cultivation of three “trillion-yuan-level consumption sectors” and 10 “hundred-billion-yuan-level consumption hotspots” by 2027. The...

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A test train crashed into railway workers in China’s southwestern Yunnan province early on Thursday morning, killing 11 people and injuring two, state media said. The test train No 55537, which was used to test seismic equipment, collided with construction workers entering the railway line on a curve at Luoyangzhen Station in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Railway and local government authorities immediately activated their emergency response to manage...

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A Chinese biomedical researcher whose academic trajectory included years at the University of California, Berkeley, and collaborations with pioneering chemical engineers has died at the age of 44. Xie Hongxue, who had been working as a lecturer for nearly five years at the school of materials science and engineering at West Anhui University, a small regional college in central China, died in Wuhan on November 16 from an unnamed illness, according to Shanghai-based news site ThePaper.cn. Xie’s...

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Corrupt local officials in China are manipulating collective decision-making procedures for personal gain and to mask their activities, state media has warned. A report published on Wednesday highlighted examples of behind-the-scenes manipulation where subordinates were told how to vote in advance, and of collusion between corrupt officials or sham public consultations. “In recent years, to standardise collective decision-making, systematic procedures and requirements were introduced in many...

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On the 32nd anniversary of New Oriental, a private Beijing-based education services provider, the company’s founder, Yu Minhong, wrote an internal letter to his staff about his trip to the South Pole. “I am standing in the icy world of Antarctica, surrounded by vast expanses of pure white, emerald-like icebergs and boundless tranquillity,” he wrote. “The glaciers shimmer with a captivating glow under the sunlight, as if to silently declare the power of time and the meaning of perseverance.” He...

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The dust has yet to settle despite the conclusion of the 47th Asean Summit under Malaysia, which remains the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for the remainder of the year. There are two main takeaways from the Kuala Lumpur meetings. First, by most objective measures, Malaysia has successfully pulled off not only the summit but its year-long chairmanship, steering several initiatives long in the making past the finish line. One of the most consequential is the formal admission...

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A bipartisan group of US lawmakers is urging Donald Trump’s administration to reject Myanmar’s “sham” elections next month, days after the administration cited the country’s electoral progress as grounds to remove legal protections for Myanmar nationals in the US. “Burma’s planned elections this December are proving to be a sham,” said Representatives Brian Mast and Gregory Meeks and Senators Jim Risch and Jeanne Shaheen on Wednesday, using the former name for the war-torn country. “Orchestrated...

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French President Emmanuel Macron will visit China next week and meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Élysée Palace said in a statement on Wednesday. The three-day visit is scheduled to begin on December 3, with two stops in Beijing and Chengdu, according to the statement. “On this occasion, major issues relating to the strategic partnership between France and China will be addressed, as well as several major international matters and areas of cooperation aimed at tackling the global...

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While Beijing has remained largely offstage during US President Donald Trump’s latest push to end the war in Ukraine, China still sees significant stakes in how any peace deal could reshape its strategic environment – from the global balance of power to post-war reconstruction opportunities, according to observers. A Trump-brokered peace plan to end the nearly four-year war, first reported last week, remains fluid, but the proposed settlement has reportedly been reduced to 19 points after the...

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