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As China’s two largest cities by economic output, Beijing and Shanghai are widely seen as barometers for the country’s broader economic performance. In 2025, Beijing’s gross domestic product reached 5.2 trillion yuan (US$748 billion), making it the second Chinese city to cross the 5-trillion-yuan mark after Shanghai, which breached the threshold in 2024 and did so again in 2025 with a GDP of 5.67 trillion yuan. Based on last year’s figures, each city’s economic size is comparable to that of a...

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Following the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, held phone talks with To Lam, who was re-elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee at the first meeting of the … Continue reading Chinese and Vietnamese leaders discuss after Vietnamese party congress

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Republicans in the United States increasingly oppose friendly cooperation with China, according to a new survey released on Wednesday, marking a major break with past decades. The report titled “The Growing Partisan Divide on US Foreign Policy”, published by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and drawing on 50 years of comparative data, found that respondents in the increasingly partisan US are sharply split on how Washington should deal with Beijing. Bipartisan agreement on the topic has...

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One of the leading scholars of China-Latin America relations, Francisco Urdinez is known for coining the concept of “economic displacement”, a theory that also gives its name to his Cambridge University Press book title published in November. The idea holds that China’s rise has reduced US relevance in the region by making partnerships with Beijing more consequential and ties with Washington less essential for many governments. Now, in the wake of US attacks on Caracas and the abduction of...

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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused China of profiting from Venezuela’s long-running economic collapse by securing discounted oil, telling senators that removing Nicolas Maduro was necessary to end energy arrangements that he said “favoured Beijing at the expense of the Venezuelan people”. During a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Rubio portrayed China as a central beneficiary of the Maduro government, arguing that Beijing had taken advantage of sanctions...

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The following article from Beijing Review, written by Carlos Martinez, situates Donald Trump’s renewed threats to seize Greenland within the broader context of Washington’s escalating strategic confrontation with China. While framed publicly as a matter of “national and world security,” the push to bring Greenland under direct US control reflects a desire to lock in … Continue reading Greenland in the New Cold War

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Japan’s House of Representatives (the lower house of parliament) was formally dissolved on January 24 at the outset of the ordinary parliamentary session, with a general election now set for February 8. With the official campaign beginning on January 27, the 16-day contest will be the shortest in Japan’s post-World War II history. With more … Continue reading Japanese Prime Minister calls snap election to cement right wing turn

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Sun Haiyan, Vice-Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee (IDCPC), led a party delegation to visit India, January 12-14, and then visited Pakistan on January 15. In India, the delegation met respectively with Vikram Misri, Indian Foreign Secretary, Arun Singh, National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party … Continue reading CPC delegation visits India and Pakistan

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Despite the United States pushing to acquire Greenland, geological and technical constraints have so far prevented any country – including China – from successfully extracting and processing one of the Danish territory’s main critical minerals, a New York-based mining investor said. “In the Arctic, one of the popular – the sort of commonly occurring mineral – is called eudialyte,” said Tomasz Nadrowski, portfolio manager at Amvest Terraden, an investment and corporate finance firm specialising...

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The US faces critical “sustainment risks” that might lead to rapid defeat in a conflict with China, according to a Heritage Foundation report, which also found that while such a scenario could start in the Taiwan Strait, it would not be contained there. Based on the findings of an AI-based study called Tidalwave – after a 1943 operation of the same name – the right-wing think tank urged Washington to immediately strengthen American fuel and munitions reserves and logistical networks. At the same...

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Chinese investors rank US-China relations and domestic demand as their top two concerns for the next 12 months, while highlighting a weak property market and declining birth rates as key risks, according to quarterly survey results. While the outlook has instilled a continued sense of caution following a year of volatility and policy-driven rebounds, the overall investor sentiment remains resilient, the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) in Beijing said on Wednesday about its...

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“I’m often invited to simply choose between countries. I don’t do that,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday ahead of his China trip. The visit – after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Beijing trip drew US tariff threats – is an attempt to drag British foreign policy into alignment with 21st century realities: a world of strategic rivalry but deep economic interdependence. Starmer’s remarks are not diplomatic wordplay, but a declaration the United Kingdom will no longer be a...

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Beijing has pledged to step in if Canberra commits to regaining control of a strategic port in northern Australia that is leased to a Chinese firm. Chinese ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian said on Wednesday that Beijing “has the obligation to take measures” to protect the legitimate rights of Chinese companies overseas if the port of Darwin were taken back through a forced sale, according to Australian media reports. During last year’s successful re-election campaign, Australian Prime Minister...

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Beijing has begun approving imports of Nvidia’s H200 graphics processing units (GPUs), according to two sources familiar with the matter, ending regulatory uncertainty over the US tech giant’s second most powerful artificial intelligence chip. The first batch was expected to go to Big Tech companies, which were in urgent need of the GPU, a source said. However, access for state-backed companies, such as telecommunication network operators, was expected to remain under tight control, the source...

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With less than five months to go before the opening match of the 2026 Fifa World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, a wave of World Cup-driven orders is already rippling through China’s manufacturing heartlands. In Yiwu, the eastern Chinese city long known as the world’s largest hub for small commodities, exporters of fan merchandise and sporting accessories are reporting an early surge in overseas orders. World Cup fan merchandise maker and exporter Miji, who declined to give his full...

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The Communist Party and the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s main opposition party, will revive a long-stalled dialogue channel next week to navigate cross-strait tensions and discuss plans to promote industrial cooperation. Beijing confirmed on Wednesday that the think tank forum would be held in the Chinese capital on February 3, according to an announcement by Zhang Han, a spokeswoman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO). The party-to-party channel, known unofficially as the Communist...

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Education in China’s countryside should shift away from rote-based learning to focus on nurturing curiosity and creativity in the artificial intelligence era, Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma said in a meeting with rural teachers on Monday. In remarks published by the Jack Ma Foundation on Tuesday, former English teacher Ma said the dawn of the AI era posed a challenge for rural education, but also presented an opportunity to “return to the fundamentals of education”. Alibaba owns the South...

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The United States is seeking low-cost guided munitions to counter future warfare involving large numbers of drones, and China should also invest in this area, according to a Chinese military magazine. Ordnance Science and Technology published an analysis article this month, arguing that the US was finding its advanced munitions too costly and unsustainable in dealing with Houthi drone harassment in the Red Sea and in supporting Ukraine against large-scale low-cost Russian air strikes. The...

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In the global shift towards carbon neutral mobility, a striking role reversal is taking shape. China, often seen as a top-down planner, has emerged as a pragmatic, market-responsive architect of new energy vehicle (NEV) policy. Europe, a champion of climate ambition, is seemingly executing a retreat amid a disconnect between ambition and reality. The planned dilution of the European Union’s ban on new combustion-engine cars by 2035 to a carbon dioxide output reduction target of 90 per cent is...

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After nearly two decades of efforts, the European Union and India have formally concluded negotiations in New Delhi for a free-trade deal, shoring up the 27-member bloc’s ambitions to diversify trade ties while navigating tariff pressure from Washington and a ballooning deficit with Beijing. The agreement, announced on Tuesday and praised by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen as “the mother of all trade deals”, is poised to reduce or eliminate tariffs on 96.6 per cent of the EU’s...

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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 Shenzhou-20 spacecraft returns to Earth broken and unbroken China’s Shenzhou-20 spacecraft returned to Earth with no astronauts inside – just metal, heat and a cracked window – touching down at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia on Monday.
2. Nipah virus outbreak in India sparks worry in China...

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Taiwan’s defence ministry on Tuesday pushed back against an opposition party proposal to cut a planned NT$1.25 trillion (US$40 billion) special military budget to NT$400 billion and drop plans for the “T-Dome” layered air defence system. It said the plan would not only be unworkable but could also undermine the island’s defence readiness in the face of mounting military pressure from Beijing. The warning came as Taiwan’s legislature remained deadlocked over the special funding bill, which was...

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A Chinese drug could help manage outbreaks of Nipah and prevent the spread of the deadly virus that has no vaccine or cure, researchers said. The virus has a fatality rate of up to 75 per cent and the most recent outbreak in the Indian state of West Bengal has infected at least five people. While the virus has no approved treatment, researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology have found that VV116 – an oral antiviral drug originally developed to treat Covid-19 – allowed two-thirds of...

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China’s latest outbound investment numbers look underwhelming at first glance. At the commerce ministry’s recently concluded national conference on outbound investment and foreign aid, officials revealed that outward direct investment grew by just 1.3 per cent in 2025, a sharp slowdown from the double-digit pace seen in 2024 and 2023. On paper, it appeared to confirm a cooling of China’s overseas expansion. That conclusion misses what is actually changing. The more important story is not the...

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Britain is eyeing greater engagement and closer trade ties with China, seeking to steady a relationship long marked by volatility, its ambassador to Beijing said, ahead of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s highly anticipated visit. Peter Wilson told reporters on Tuesday that Britain was taking a long-term “strategic approach” to China and that London sought “a relationship that is consistent”. “We want to build the kind of relationship of mutual respect and trust between our leadership that allows...

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