China News

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”...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

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...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

China is training an artificial intelligence tool to support the country’s port industry using what the National Development and Reform Commission says is the “world’s largest” port operation data set. The AI application draws on data covering “the most comprehensive range of port business scenarios”, according to Li Chao, deputy director of the NDRC’s policy research office. “It will provide strong support for technological research and development as well as verification in areas such as port...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

Japan’s position on Taiwan remains unchanged, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Wednesday, referring to a 1972 commitment that led to the normalisation of ties between Beijing and Tokyo. “The Japanese government’s basic position regarding Taiwan remains as stated in the 1972 Japan-China joint statement, and there has been no change to this position,” Takaichi told the Japanese parliament. According to the 1972 statement, “the government of the People’s Republic of China reiterates...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

A fireworks shop owner in Hunan province died from drinking pesticide after publicly reporting officials for disciplinary violations, Chinese media reported. The owner, surnamed Peng, had recently published a video of himself drinking the substance, local authorities in Chenzhou, Hunan province, said in a notice on Monday. A local task force was investigating the matter to ascertain if the allegations were true and would “deal with the incident according to laws and regulations without mercy”,...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

French President Emmanuel Macron has started a three-day visit to China, where he is expected to confront thorny issues including Europe’s trade with Beijing and the Ukraine war. On Wednesday evening, Macron landed in Beijing at the start of his fourth visit to China, which will also include a trip to the southwestern city of Chengdu. He was given a red-carpet welcome by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, with whom he had a brief exchange of words. The French leader is due to meet Chinese President Xi...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

HSBC Holdings, the biggest lender in Hong Kong and Europe, has appointed veteran accountant Brendan Nelson as group chairman, according to its filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Wednesday. Nelson, 75, has been serving as interim chairman since October 1, replacing Mark Tucker, who stepped down to become non-executive chairman of insurer AIA. The appointment surprised the market after HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery said a day earlier at a global banking summit in London that Nelson was not...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

China and Russia had reached a “high degree” of strategic consensus on issues related to Japan and jointly opposed the revival of “Japanese militarism”, a readout from Beijing said after Foreign Minister Wang Yi met chief Kremlin security aide Sergei Shoigu in Moscow. Statements from the World War II allies after Tuesday’s meeting indicated continued solidarity amid growing China-Japan tensions. Shoigu, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also told Wang that Russia could achieve...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

China’s latest credit figures have raised eyebrows, but they need not raise alarm. New bank lending, aggregate social financing and total credit growth all came in weaker than expected for October, marking their softest readings in more than a year. For markets conditioned to expect Beijing to counter every slowdown with a surge of liquidity, the numbers may suggest a worrying loss of momentum. But that reading misses the broader structural shift under way. The data reflects not a collapse, but...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in Beijing for his three-day visit to China on Wednesday – and he is not coming alone. Alongside his wife Brigitte, the French leader is bringing a delegation of more than 80 people, including multiple ministers and nearly 40 CEOs from across the corporate world. Despite rising trade tensions between China and Europe, the long guestlist signals that Macron is travelling to Beijing looking to do business – and hints at France’s likely priorities. From...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

We have put together stories from our coverage on science from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing.

1. China’s new tech war warriors: PhD graduates without a thesis China’s top defence university is piloting a scheme that allows PhD students to graduate with a product or design instead of a thesis in an effort to solve “bottleneck” engineering problems amid the tech race with the United States.
2. Chief...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

Records of minor offences will be sealed under a new regulation rather than linked to a person’s identity information – a move that is proving unpopular among the public though it has been welcomed by legal experts. The new rule is part of the amended Public Security Administration Punishments Law, which was introduced in 2006 and includes minor offences such as drug use, soliciting prostitutes and minor brawls. National People’s Congress lawmakers approved the revision in June and it will take...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

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 emergence of Chinese companies onto the global stage has been one of the most important business stories of the past 50 years. From engineering contractors...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

China’s first reusable rocket, the Zhuque-3, launched for the first time on Wednesday and successfully reached orbit, but efforts to recover the first stage failed after it crashed near the planned recovery site. The United States is still the only country in the world to successfully return an orbital-class booster, though China is still vying for the second spot with other upcoming launches. The reusable rocket, designed by the Beijing-based commercial space company LandSpace, was launched...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

The Chinese military has laid out new rules to strengthen political discipline and party loyalty, vowing to eradicate “erroneous political views and inappropriate remarks” and “fake combat capabilities”. The revisions to the supplementary rules to the implementation of the Communist Party’s disciplinary regulations will come into effect on January 1, 2026, and are part of an ongoing crackdown on corruption that has led to the downfall of several top generals in recent months. On Monday, PLA...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

The whereabouts of a six-year-old boy from China remain unknown after he was allegedly separated from his father while both were held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York last week. The city’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday raised the issue on social media, saying that the first grader, named Yuanxin, was “arrested and separated” along with his father Fei Zheng during a “routine check-in” with ICE on November 26. “Now he’s in custody, alone. ICE won’t say where....

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

Across the strategic waterway of the South China Sea, claimant countries are increasingly relying on long-endurance aerial drones to carry out continuous patrols – overcoming the geographic and logistical limitations of traditional aircraft and ships. The US Marine Corps last month deployed MQ-9A Reaper drones to the Philippines, at Manila’s request, to “support Philippine regional maritime security through shared maritime domain awareness”, according the US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific. The...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

Once, when pop diva Faye Wong was seen reading on a plane, the book reportedly on her lap was the perennial local bestseller Art of Thinking by Lee Tien-ming. Food critic, columnist and media personality Benny Li Shun-Yan reportedly said that after learning of her interest, he introduced Wong to Lee, arguably Hong Kong’s most famous philosopher, who passed away last week at the age of 80. I remember that some were surprised by Wong’s philosophical interests. Actually, mainland entertainers often...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

Beijing is extending an olive branch to overseas companies as it seeks to build a more integrated global supply chain for the shipbuilding industry, in its latest push to project goodwill and support free trade. Gao Dongsheng, chief economist at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), said on Tuesday that China was committed to further opening up its shipbuilding sector. Mainland shipyards, which currently have a capacity to build about 65 million deadweight tonnes of large...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

Hong Kong’s booming fundraising market is set for another busy week, with four companies scheduled to debut this week and a string of billion-dollar listings – including Chinese luxury electric vehicle maker Avatr Technology – lining up behind them. Among this week’s newcomers, chip materials supplier Guangdong Tianyu Semiconductor plans to raise the highest sum, seeking up to HK$1.74 billion (US$223.42 million) from the sale of 30.07 million shares. The shares have been priced at HK$58 each....

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

US President Donald Trump and his administration on Tuesday seized on China’s recent ban on select Brazilian soybean shipments, touting it as proof they had won Beijing back over to US suppliers even though official data shows China has only resumed American purchases modestly. At a lengthy, end-of-year cabinet meeting, US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that “just a couple of days ago, China announced that they were going to halt all purchases from Brazil because they had found some...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

With 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. China, known as the “world’s factory” after decades spent manufacturing and shipping much of the world’s consumer goods, is now going a step further: as a number of...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

The US Supreme Court lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s tariff war and the recent budget fight on Capitol Hill might have dragged down – if not sunk – one of Washington’s proposed tools to spearhead its strategic competition with China. Ten months after Trump’s executive order authorising the creation of the nation’s first-ever sovereign wealth fund (SWF), there are still few clues about how it can be funded, structured and managed, leaving a giant question mark on whether it could run into a...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.

Chinese aerospace firm Lingkong Tianxing unveiled a hypersonic glide missile last week that has a range of up to 1,300 km (800 miles) and a top speed of Mach 7. The YKJ-1000 has been nicknamed the “cement-coated” missile for its use of civilian-grade materials such as foamed concrete in its heat-resistant coating. According to slides widely circulated online, the unit production cost of this missile, already in mass production after successful combat trials, may be as low as 700,000 yuan (around...

From China - South China Morning Post via This RSS Feed.