China News

When President Xi Jinping commissioned the Fujian on November 5, China became only the second nation to have an aircraft carrier with an electromagnetic catapult system. It is also notable that, last month, two navy aircraft from the USS Nimitz crashed into the South China Sea. These events crystallise a strategic reality often obscured by aggregate force comparisons: the relevant naval balance is not between the 11 US aircraft carriers and China’s three, but between what the United States can...

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Chinese scientists have identified micron-sized grains of “iron rust” in lunar soil samples brought back by the Chang’e-6 mission last year. This finding challenges the traditional understanding of the moon’s surface chemistry and offers new clues to explain lunar magnetic anomalies. The results were published on Friday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. A research team from Shandong University, in collaboration with the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences...

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By lifting its arms embargo on Cambodia, Washington has signalled that President Donald Trump aims to lure Phnom Penh away from Beijing – a move experts warn would be difficult to achieve. According to a notice from the US Federal Register, the State Department formally ended its arms embargo on Cambodia as of November 7, and any arms sales to the country will now be decided on a case-by-case basis. “Based on Cambodia’s diligent pursuit of peace and security, including through renewed engagement...

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Local authorities have formally approved the arrest of the former head of China’s famous Shaolin Temple, four months after he was placed under criminal investigation for alleged financial and sex scandals. Shi Yongxin’s arrest had been approved “on suspicion of embezzlement, misappropriation of funds, and accepting bribes as a non-state functionary”, the Xinxiang Procuratorate announced in a statement on Sunday. Xinxiang, in China’s central Henan province, is about two hours’ drive from the...

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The vulnerability of safe digital spaces for China’s LGBTQ community has been underscored by the abrupt removal of the country’s two most popular gay-dating apps – Blued and Finka – from mainland app stores under government orders. The apps, both owned by Hong Kong-based BlueCity Holdings Ltd, were first noticed missing by Chinese social media users last weekend. Apple confirmed the removals in a statement sent to the South China Morning Post on Thursday, explaining that it follows the laws in...

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Alibaba Group Holding has begun a revamp of its artificial intelligence chatbot in a move to match OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to app store information and media reports, as some observers see “panic” in Silicon Valley over the Chinese tech giant’s rapid AI progress. The new chatbot app, Qwen, an upgraded and renamed version of the previous app, Tongyi, became available on Android and Apple app stores on Friday. Alibaba dubbed the updated app the “most powerful official AI assistant for its...

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A commentary by military mouthpiece PLA Daily warned on Sunday that Japan risked turning its entire country into a battlefield if it intervened militarily in the Taiwan Strait, marking the latest escalation in a heated diplomatic row sparked by comments by Japan’s leader. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told her country’s parliament on November 7 that the use of force against Taiwan could be seen as a “survival-threatening situation”, a scenario that would allow Tokyo to deploy its...

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China’s premier metropolis has a vision for the future of dining – and it is one involving restaurants run by artificial intelligence, with automated kitchens, robot servers, data-driven menus and intelligent supply chains. The spread of automation in the catering sector has become a hot-button issue in China over recent months, but Shanghai appears committed to charging ahead with a plan to transform local eateries using smart technology. The city has set a target of becoming a “nationally...

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The use of chips for artificial intelligence and electric vehicles (EVs) will offer strong demand underpinning the development of mainland China’s semiconductor industry, according to veterans of the sector at an annual gathering in Shanghai. At the 2025 Global Semiconductor Market Summit, chip executives discussed the industry’s future amid US-China tech rivalry and surging demand for chips, as well as different technology trajectories. The two-day event, which wrapped up on Friday, was...

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A new defence pact between Tokyo and Manila allows the Japanese military to deploy in the Philippines for the first time since World War II – with the goal of deterring Beijing in the South China Sea. Analysts said the “quasi-security alliance” – which took effect in September and is known as a reciprocal access agreement – could harden Manila’s stance in the contested waters, and that other US allies in the region could follow suit. Ding Duo, an associate research fellow at the National...

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Australia, with its stable political and economic landscape, is likely to attract more property investors from Hong Kong and mainland China in the coming year, according to agents. The luxury property segment of the world’s sixth-largest country is also expected to see increased interest from affluent investors looking for cost-efficient safe havens amid changes in the immigration and residency requirements of the US and the UK, among other jurisdictions. “For many years, Australia has been a...

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Chinese merchants who sell to overseas markets via popular sites like Shein and Temu are struggling with escalating tax and compliance burdens from both their main export market, the European Union, and the domestic tax authority. The latest pressure came from the EU, which on Thursday agreed to abolish a rule that allowed goods worth less than €150 (US$174) to enter the region without customs duties. The new rule will apply once an EU customs data hub is ready, scheduled for 2028. However, the...

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Taiwan is facing an intensifying debate about draft dodging among young men after the government moved to extend the term of compulsory military service amid heightened tensions with Beijing. The island’s government has extended the term conscripts must serve to one year, and the contrast between its warning that the stakes have never been higher in the face of increased pressure from Beijing and the growing reluctance to serve has fuelled a debate about weaknesses in its mobilisation system. A...

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When Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump met in Busan, South Korea, on October 30, they spent nearly two hours discussing rare earths, fentanyl and trade. Taiwan, the one issue most likely to bring the world’s two largest powers into direct conflict, never came up. That silence was the message. It revealed how both leaders prefer to manage rivalry through quiet understanding rather than confrontation. The approach reduces the risk of war but narrows Taiwan’s options. The...

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After US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping shook hands in Busan last month, the headlines highlighted smiles and tariff rollbacks. Washington hailed it as a “massive victory”, saying China had pledged to buy 12 million tonnes of American soybeans by January and at least 25 million tonnes annually for the next three years. Futures on the Chicago Board of Trade surged and farmers in the US Midwest cheered. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared that “our great soybean...

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In a small town in the US Midwest, 47-year-old military veteran Natalie Hubble loves spending her evenings lost in the mythic worlds portrayed in Chinese fantasy stories. Hubble has never been to China, yet few could describe Chinese mythical tales as well as she does. She described her growing connection to Chinese culture, ancient and modern, as a “natural progression”, since she reads over 150 books a year and likes to take recommendations from all over the world. She said her favourite...

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Supporters erupted in joy last week as Zohran Mamdani won a commanding victory in the New York mayoral race, becoming the first Muslim elected to lead the US financial capital. The young politician’s complex identity as an African-born person of South Asian heritage, his political positions and the broader implications of his win have resonated far beyond New York. In China, his victory quickly became a talking point, both online and among scholars. According to Chinese observers, the rise of...

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Defying global geopolitical currents, China’s business schools are actively resisting the mounting risks of decoupling from the West, according to a leading accreditation body. Its top executive said that instead of retreating into isolation amid rising US-China tensions, Chinese institutions remained deeply committed to internationalisation as they prioritised global talent and diverse cultural backgrounds to boost their competitive edge. “No [Chinese business] school that I visited expressed...

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The launch of Guinea’s US$20 billion Simandou iron ore project marks a globally significant milestone. The event on Tuesday at Guinea’s Morebaya port, attended by Chinese and regional African leaders, saw the departure of the first shipment of ore from the Simandou project – a major feat after nearly three decades of development. The Chinese delegation was led by Vice-Premier Liu Guozhong, who underscored the importance Beijing has attached to securing high-grade ore for decarbonising the...

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The slump in China’s property market has not yet bottomed out and will continue to be a drag on economic growth, former finance minister Lou Jiwei warned, calling for expansionary fiscal and monetary policies as well as structural reforms to counteract the sector’s persistent headwinds. While Lou said real estate is unlikely to be a source of systemic risk – a source of concern after China’s largest developers faced rolling liquidity crises that left many homebuyers without the flats they had...

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Alibaba Group Holding on Saturday denied a report by The Financial Times about the company’s alleged support for China’s military in operations against the United States. “The assertions and innuendos in the article are completely false,” an Alibaba representative said. “We question the motivation behind the anonymous leak, which the FT admits that they cannot verify.” The Alibaba representative called the article a “malicious PR operation” that appears to “undermine President Trump’s recent...

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China has told its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan, upping the ante in its row with Tokyo after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested her country could deploy its military forces in the event of a cross-strait conflict. In a notice late on Friday night, China’s foreign ministry said the safety of its citizens in Japan had “continued to deteriorate”, citing a series of targeted attacks this year. The ministry said the Japanese leader had made provocative remarks on Taiwan-related...

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Grass-roots enthusiasm has played the main role in shaping China’s online nationalist narrative and has pushed celebrities to follow, according to a study published in the American peer-reviewed journal Science Advances last week. Contrary to the common perception that nationalism on Chinese social media space functions more top down and that Beijing uses social media to influence or control public opinion, the study jointly done by researchers from leading universities in the United States and...

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The Nexperia factory in Dongguan, in the heart of southern China’s Pearl River Delta, has long been a poster child for successful globalisation. Since its launch in 2000, the plant, which covers an area the size of 10 football fields, has operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, non-stop. Following its most recent upgrade in 2018, its annual production capacity surged to 90 billion units, making it the largest assembly site in the Chinese-owned Dutch chipmaker’s global network. Yet, this...

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China has discovered a rare gold deposit in the Kunlun Mountains near the western border of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, according to government geologists involved in the survey. Initial estimates suggest its total gold reserves could exceed 1,000 tonnes. “The outline of a thousand-tonne-scale gold belt in West Kunlun, Xinjiang, is now taking shape,” wrote He Fubao, a senior engineer with the Kashgar Geological Team, and his colleagues in a paper published on November 4 in the...

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