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Beijing’s embassy in Israel has protested following reports of a secret trip by Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister to the Middle Eastern country. Citing several anonymous sources, Reuters reported on Thursday that Francois Wu Chih-chung had travelled to Israel in recent weeks, though it was not disclosed who he met there. Taipei has not officially confirmed that the visit took place. On Saturday, the Chinese embassy in Israel commented on the visit, stating that Beijing firmly opposed official...

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The global green energy transition is less about geopolitics and more about economic reality, according to Arif Aga, director of global renewable engineering consultancy SgurrEnergy. For many nations seeking to adopt clean energy, their priority remains the practical pursuit of lowering costs, a reality that has entrenched China’s leading role in the global clean power supply. According to the renewable energy technical adviser, the vast scale of Chinese manufacturing and its rapid enhancement...

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A key industrial hub in eastern China is launching a push to transform itself into one of the world’s top copper-smelting bases, aiming to forge stronger supply chains for the strategic metal as prices flirt with record highs. In an implementation plan released on Tuesday, the Shandong provincial government pledged to expand its copper industry, with the next two years seeing rapid advancements. The move comes as geopolitical tensions and the race for technological dominance shore up copper’s...

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After decades of human activities and overgrazing, desertification has accelerated at an alarming speed in China, resulting in sandstorms, flooding and drought. The economic repercussions are potentially affecting more than 400 million people. In the past, Chinese kingdoms and empires erected the Great Wall to prevent steppe nomads from invading from the north. Now, the government is planting a whole new kind of wall to protect from encroaching deserts.

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Multiple documents on websites run by public institutions in China were found to feature fake names and people, a pattern state media warned could harm government credibility and provide a haven for corruption. The series of blunders unfolded when internet users on December 3 found that a tender document listed what appeared to be a fake judging panel, with the names of all five members coinciding with the first five entries on Baidu’s “10,000 Popular Chinese Names” archive. The proposal was...

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In 1865, when a British entrepreneur built a demonstration railroad near Beijing, Empress Dowager Cixi saw not progress but danger – of disruptions to feng shui, imperial graves and rural order – and had the tracks torn up. Two decades later, when a Chinese-built coal line threatened to steam too close to sacred grounds, Cixi’s solution was not innovation but regression. She ordered that the locomotive be replaced with horses. By clinging to tradition in the face of technological transformation,...

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During a trip home, I took my daughters to the Nanking massacre memorial hall. It is not an easy place to visit. In shadowy rooms, photographs of victims line the walls. The names of the dead stretch across black stone. In glass cases lie bones unearthed from mass graves. I wanted my children to learn history honestly, to understand what war does to people. I shared stories my grandma had told me: as she fled town, a bomb fell on a nearby street. One neighbour vanished. Only bits of her remained...

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European Union members have observed an uptick in China’s support for Russia, multiple sources said, as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine prepares to drag into its fourth year. Officials are parsing evidence of an increase in battlefield weapons being shipped from China to Russia, to add to the well-documented flow of goods with dual civilian and military uses between the two states. “We note that 80 per cent of critical dual-use goods come to Russia either through or from China. They claim to be...

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The European Union will start collecting a three-euro flat fee for each small parcel valued below €150 (US$176) sent directly from a non-EU country to customers in the bloc, following a decision adopted by the EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Friday. The move, set to kick in next July, marks a milestone in Europe’s fight, led by France, against the influx of small parcels, mostly from Chinese platforms such as Temu and Shein, entering the union tax free. But how effective these...

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US-based rare earth firm REalloys believes it has a road map to build a North American supply chain for critical minerals that bypasses China, working with Canadian and Japanese partners – a potential first, though not without risks and challenges. The Ohio-based company expects to deliver rare earth products, including magnets, in early 2027, using a non-Chinese sourcing strategy that spans metal supply to procurement. In October, it received a letter of interest from the US Export-Import Bank,...

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The global race to deploy data centres in space to power artificial intelligence (AI) development has begun, with China seizing an early lead. “In terms of the highest performance of space-based computing or the completeness of [the] technological framework, we are at the forefront,” Beijing-based computer scientist Han Yinhe said. Han is a researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and is taking part in a major initiative to develop...

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After witnessing the effects of a tumultuous trade war with the United States this year, China’s top leaders have issued a directive to fortify the domestic economy against persistent or even heightened trade frictions. Following the annual central economic work conference, which concluded on Thursday and set the agenda for 2026, officials emphasised “better coordinating domestic economic work and international economic and trade struggles”, anchoring a pro-growth strategy for the start of...

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1. Japan, US defence chiefs cover radar row and other China tensions in phone call US and Japanese defence chiefs spoke on the phone on Friday about a confrontation between Chinese and Japanese fighter jets over the weekend, with Tokyo saying it did not seek to escalate the tensions.
2. Mexico slaps tariffs of up to 50% on Chinese goods as US trade pact review...

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When it comes to building next-generation stealth jets, experience is the foundation of speed, reliability and combat readiness. Handing this critical job to a company with no stealth fighter experience could significantly delay progress and hand competitors a strategic gift. This is an open message from Yang Shuifeng, a lead designer of China’s cutting-edge stealth fighters. “The experience and capability of the research and development team cannot start from zero,” Yang, senior engineer and...

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Chinese autonomous-driving technology firm Pony.ai is betting on an “asset-light” strategy and newer generations of low-cost driverless cars to drive growth for its robotaxi operation as the company expects to break even by 2030. Under the asset-light model, Pony.ai would team up with third-party companies – such as taxi operators or ride-hailing platforms – that would fund the deployment of its robotaxi fleet, according to Leo Wang Haojun, chief financial officer. Instead of taking on the full...

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China is expected to set its fiscal deficit ratio at around 4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2026, analysts said, adding the affirmation of a more prominent role for fiscal policy at this week’s central economic work conference indicates a selective approach to increasing government expenditures. In a statement issued after the annual conference ended on Tuesday, officials called for maintaining a “necessary deficit size, total debt and expenditure volume”. The December meeting of...

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The mayor of Taipei is set to travel to Shanghai for a rare joint forum while being watched closely by Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Chiang Wan-an, mayor of Taipei, will travel to Shanghai on December 27 and 28 for the Shanghai-Taipei City Forum, Taiwan’s Central News Agency said on Thursday. On Friday, Xinhua stated that the annual forum, carrying the theme “Technology Transforming Life”, would convene in Shanghai on December 28. The forum, which was first held in 2010,...

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China’s military mouthpiece warned on Friday that provocative actions by right-wing Japanese politicians risked plunging Asia into peril, as Beijing prepared to mark the 88th anniversary of the Nanking massacre amid heightened tensions with Tokyo. PLA Daily published the commentary as sirens are poised to wail across Nanjing, the capital of eastern Jiangsu province, at 10.01am on Saturday for the national memorial ceremony led by the Central Committee and the State Council. Introduced by China’s...

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For three decades, Xu Chongyu was Europe’s secret weapon against the rising tides. From his quiet office at the University of Oslo, his hydrological models have guarded cities from Copenhagen to Brussels, predicting floods before the first clouds formed. But the climate clock was ticking fast and his homeland needed him, so the Chinese-born scientist decided to leave. A homecoming ceremony was held for Xu on December 3 at North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power (NCWU) in...

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China’s new ambassador to the Philippines has said both sides should try to get relations back on a “healthy” course, while President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said differences should be the “exception rather than the norm”. Jing Quan said this would be essential for both countries’ development and beneficial to regional prosperity and progress when presenting his credentials to Marcos on Thursday, according to the Chinese embassy. “China hopes the Philippines will proceed from its fundamental and...

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A Chinese business group has urged the European Union to halt its “discriminatory and disproportionate” use of anti-subsidy probes to target Chinese companies, as Brussels steps up its scrutiny of firms allegedly receiving unfair state subsidies. The EU launched an in-depth foreign subsidy regulation (FSR) investigation against the Chinese security firm Nuctech on Thursday, just days after Brussels reportedly raided the Chinese-invested e-commerce platform Temu’s European headquarters in Dublin...

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Scientists have developed a new type of semiconductor that they hope will overcome a major problem for bioelectronic devices: the immune response that causes the body to reject implants. Bioelectronics is the science of integrating electronic systems with biological systems using devices that can monitor or interact with the body’s natural processes. Advanced examples include brain-computer interfaces, which translate brain signals into commands to control external devices. Researchers in China...

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The 2025 film Nuremberg ends with a sober line from British historian R.G. Collingwood: “The only clue to what man can do is what man has done” – a stark reminder that history repeats when justice does not. While the crimes of Nazi Germany were brought before an international tribunal 80 years ago, the atrocities committed by Japan’s secret Unit 731 in northeast China’s Heilongjiang province during the second world war – have never faced a comparable legal reckoning. The covert unit conducted...

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China is on track to slash its reliance on imported soybeans to less than 30 per cent within a decade, from the current 90 per cent, research from Goldman Sachs suggests, as Beijing accelerates efforts to shore up self-sufficiency – including inoculating its food supply against trade shocks. Demand-management strategies for the crop – a vital source of cooking oil and animal feed, as well as a key commodity at the centre of Beijing’s trade relations with Washington – reduced annual consumption...

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US and Japanese defence chiefs spoke on the phone on Friday about the recent confrontation between Chinese and Japan Self-Defence Force fighter jets, as Tokyo said it did not seek to escalate the tensions. During the call, Japan’s defence minister Shinjiro Koizumi and his US counterpart Pete Hegseth engaged in a “candid exchange” of views on the “rapidly deteriorating” security situation in the Indo-Pacific region, according to a Japanese defence ministry release. “The two sides stated serious...

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