China News

Central bank governor Pan Gongsheng has stressed the importance of China maintaining a sound monetary system that remains resilient to external shocks and systemic risks, signalling a focus on stability ahead of a key policy meeting. Pan said monetary policy must balance internal and external pressures, “primarily taking into account domestic economic and financial conditions”, while also factoring in the “spillover effects” from other economies, in an editorial for the Communist Party’s...

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The EU has for the first time launched a formal review of a price undertaking offer from a company seeking to avoid its tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, following a submission from Volkswagen’s Chinese joint venture. Over the course of 12 to 15 months, the European Commission will examine whether VW Anhui can replace its countervailing duties with a managed price system in a move that would effectively equalise the impact of the tariffs. While the commission is not reopening its...

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Beijing has dismissed Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s latest remarks on Taiwan as “prevarication”, warning that it “absolutely does not accept” her continued refusal to retract comments made in early November. On Wednesday, Takaichi appeared to attempt to dial down weeks of tensions when she told a parliamentary questioning session that Tokyo’s “fundamental position regarding Taiwan remains unchanged from that stated in the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communique, and there has been no change...

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A new Chinese AI system called Wen Dao – billed as the world’s first such model to be designed explicitly for ethical risk detection – has landed in the middle of its first major moral dilemma. Its immediate challenge is to navigate one of 2025’s most explosive social debates: whether the country should automatically seal the records of convicted drug users under the newly revised Public Security Administration Punishments Law. Effective January 1, an amendment to the law known as Article 136...

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With their domestic profits narrowing and production capacity expanding, China’s firms are continuing to widen their overseas footprints in search of new, more lucrative markets. In this series, we examine China Inc.’s next phase of “going global” and the complex, challenging international environment its companies have chosen to enter. The “Made in China” label has evolved considerably in recent decades. Mostly found affixed to low-cost goods of relative simplicity in China’s early years as a...

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Mainland China’s billionaires have tightened their grip as Asia-Pacific’s wealthiest after their combined fortunes swelled to nearly US$1.8 trillion, with electric-vehicle (EV) maker BYD’s founder Wang Chuanfu and bubble tea chain Mixue’s bosses among the biggest drivers of that growth, according to a UBS report. Backed by a booming tech sector and surging asset prices, the wealth of mainland China’s billionaires jumped 22.2 per cent year on year to US$1.77 trillion in the 12 months to early...

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Malaysia’s announcement that the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 will resume was welcome news for Jiang Hui, whose mother was a passenger on the plane. “I hope the truth will come out soon, the wait has been such a torment for the families,” he wrote in a social media post sharing the news. Malaysia’s transport ministry made the announcement on Wednesday, more than a decade after the Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in...

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Chinese President Xi Jinping told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that he was willing to work with France to “eliminate interference” and work on developing a steady relationship as they met for talks on Thursday, where issues such as trade are expected to be on the agenda. Xi said the world was undergoing rapid changes and the two countries “should demonstrate their responsibility, uphold the banner of multilateralism… and firmly stand on the right side of history”. “China, together with...

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The fragile rapprochement between China and India faces a fresh test as New Delhi looks to promote its links with the sixth Dalai Lama, observers have warned. India is hosting the first international conference of the 17th century Tibetan spiritual leader at his birthplace in today’s Tawang, a mountain town in an area that India governs as the border state of Arunachal Pradesh and China claims as Zangnan or southern Tibet. Pema Khandu, the state chief minister, opened the four-day event at...

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A majority of Europeans want to maintain an equal distance from the United States and China rather than aligning with one of the two superpowers over the other, a survey published on Thursday shows. While just 4 per cent of Europeans polled would prioritise alignment with China over the US, 55 per cent preferred to keep “the same distance between the two”, according to the result of the Eurobazooka, a survey published by Le Grand Continent, a French magazine. One-fifth of those polled across...

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China’s pharmaceutical industry is on the brink of enormous growth and transformation. In just a few years, it has moved on from being the world’s cheapest source of active pharmaceutical ingredients to becoming a major hub for pharmaceutical innovation – a place where new, more effective drugs are born. It is now the second-largest developer of drugs, trailing only the United States. In the global drug development pipeline, China’s growth rate is phenomenal, leaping from 3 per cent in 2013 to...

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China should focus on technological innovation to drive domestic and global development, a forum this week has heard. China would push for high-quality development and opening up to the outside world, Li Shulei, head of the Communist Party’s publicity department, told the 2025 Understanding China Conference in Guangzhou on Monday. The event, which ran between Sunday and Tuesday, was attended by around 800 people and technological innovation was a central theme. China also strove to help...

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The Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC) earned HK$2.34 billion (US$300.7 million) in investment income last year, as the city’s wholly owned investment vehicle made an impressive report after its first year of operation. HKIC posted HK$2.25 billion in operating income for the year that ended on December 31, on HK$64 billion in total assets, while deploying less than one-fifth of its initial capital of HK$62 billion, according to a report on Thursday. “HKIC is the patient capital investment...

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Witnesses at a US trade agency hearing are pushing officials to put economic security high on the agenda to counter China ahead of a high-stakes review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The hearing convened by the Office of the US Trade Representative on Wednesday – the first public session before next July’s joint review of the free trade deal – kicks off three days of testimony from more than 140 representatives from business, think tanks, academia and advocacy groups. “One...

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The United States will redouble efforts to ensure its return to the moon ahead of China and also establish an enduring presence on Earth's natural satellite to entrench the country’s presence, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said on Wednesday during a Senate confirmation hearing. Such a sense of urgency for the US to accelerate its pace in this “second space race” has haunted Capitol Hill, as Beijing, a strategic rival framed by Washington,...

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With their domestic profits narrowing and production capacity expanding, China’s firms are continuing to widen their overseas footprints in search of new, more lucrative markets. In this series, we examine China Inc.’s next phase of “going global” and the complex, challenging international environment its companies have chosen to enter. On a busy roadside in Riyadh, K-pop music – popular among the city’s youth – pulses from the speakers of Javis Wang’s bubble tea shop. His stores have...

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Putting aside the ongoing war of words between Beijing and Tokyo surrounding Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s statements on Taiwan last month, there is a simple question that needs answering. Can Japan’s Self-Defence Forces really afford to fight the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) without American military support? Takaichi’s answer appears to be that Japan’s military must do so. The legislation approved by Japan’s Diet in September 2015 allowed the country to exercise its right of...

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Beijing is unlikely to offer military help to Venezuela if the United States moves against President Nicolas Maduro, analysts say, but it could still benefit from a shift in Washington’s global posture that revives old notions of spheres of influence, including one that might one day favour its ambitions towards Taiwan. While Beijing has condemned what it calls “external interference” and urged restraint, it has shown no sign it would defend the Venezuelan leader. The United States has deployed...

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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday described the United States as an ally to both mainland China and Taiwan, while at the same time asserting that its relationships have not shifted, hours after US President Donald Trump enacted legislation deepening US ties with the self-governed island. Asked about concerns among some in Washington about the Trump administration’s approach to the long-held policy of strategic ambiguity on the Taiwan issue at The New York Times DealBook Summit,...

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When a full-scale model of the world’s first independent submarine hunter drone was unveiled at the Dubai Airshow last month, it offered a glimpse of the latest in a series of advances in China’s development of a modern integrated anti-submarine system. The Wing Loong-X export variant unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has anti-submarine capabilities that are reportedly superior in some respects to the United States Navy’s Boeing P-8 Poseidon and other manned aircraft. The full-scale model drone’s...

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Shanghai has launched a crackdown on online content that talks down the property market, as the sector remains mired in a prolonged downturn and two leading data providers pull back on releasing updated sales figures for China’s top developers. The Shanghai branch of the Cyberspace Administration of China said it had instructed platforms including RedNote and Bilibili – often dubbed China’s answer to Instagram and YouTube – to remove content deemed to be spreading misleading or alarmist...

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As it fights to survive in the new era of economic warfare, the European Union wants to turbo-boost efforts to de-risk its ties with China, using two new proposals. Launched on Wednesday, the blueprints will combine to upgrade the bloc’s economic arsenal and unpick its heavy reliance on China for critical minerals, including rare earths. The first, an economic security communication, will provide the EU with an “operating system” on which to manage its many trade, competition and economic...

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The legal battle over the death of Chinese-American neuroscientist Jane Wu officially began in a Chicago courtroom this week – a case that has shaken the research community and focused intense scrutiny on Northwestern University’s conduct. A civil lawsuit filed by Wu’s family in June centres on how the university handled one of its most accomplished professors during the controversial “China Initiative”, alleging her suicide in July 2024 was a direct result of the school’s treatment amid the...

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China’s average life expectancy hit a record 79 years in 2024, edging closer to developed-nation levels as the country grapples with a deepening demographic crisis and scrambles to improve aged-care resources. In discussing the all-time high, which broke the 2023 record of 78.6 years, National Health Commission (NHC) head Lei Haichao reiterated on Monday that the country’s newborns should be expected to live an average of 80 years by 2030 – a key metric in President Xi Jinping’s “Healthy China”...

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China has carried out extensive upgrades to its surveillance and electronic warfare systems across its Spratly Islands outposts to improve its intelligence gathering in the South China Sea, according to an American think tank. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative under the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report on Tuesday that satellite images revealed new and upgraded radar sites, antenna fields and other reinforced electronic warfare...

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