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Hong Kong’s biotech fundraising momentum is expected to extend into 2026, as licensing deals and strong post-initial public offering (IPO) trading last year persuaded investors that China’s drug developers are worth backing again – even before they generate revenue. “Chinese innovation drugs expanding into overseas markets have become the industry mainstream, indicating the domestic innovation sector has entered its harvest phase,” said Felix Huang, head of equity at Oakwise Capital. “New trends...

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President Lee Jae-myung of South Korea, a key US ally in East Asia, arrived in Beijing at noon on Sunday for his first China trip since taking office. The four-day state visit comes at a moment when the global order is teetering, with old structures crumbling and a new world yet to emerge. Over 200 South Korean entrepreneurs, including the chairmen of Samsung and SK Group, are accompanying Lee on his trip, which includes two days each in Beijing and Shanghai. Lee will attend a Korea-China...

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Daniel J. Kritenbrink is a partner at The Asia Group. Previously, Kritenbrink served in the United States government as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and ambassador to Vietnam. His diplomatic career spans three decades and includes assignments in Japan, China, Kuwait and Washington. In this interview, Kritenbrink discusses the many nuances of the US-China relationship, from cooperation to competition to rivalry, and argues both countries should weigh the...

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China will be patient and play the long game as it views the new geopolitical chessboard, recalibrating carefully in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s move on Saturday to decapitate Venezuela’s leadership, analysts said. in a daring predawn raid, US forces descended on ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and airlifted him shackled and blindfolded to New York to face charges of “narcoterrorism conspiracy” and illegal weapons trafficking. “China is likely to thread this needle...

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As 2026 dawns, China has signalled a renewed crusade: persuading its citizens to spend more, for their own benefit and for the country’s. Yet history offers a cautionary tale. China’s leaders have long harboured an ambivalent relationship with consumption as a growth engine, instead favouring production and investment. This time, though, the signals suggest a deeper resolve. The gravity of this pivot is underscored by Qiushi, the Communist Party’s flagship publication, which last month published...

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US President Donald Trump issued a stark warning on Sunday to Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, saying she would pay a potentially larger price than her former boss, ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, if she does not cooperate with the United States. In the early hours of Saturday morning, US forces staged a complex raid that saw Maduro and his wife seized from their home, jailed and airlifted to New York to face trial on “narcoterrorism” and illegal weapons charges. “If she...

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Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife were transported to New York by helicopter, ship and plane within hours of their capture for arraignment in a US federal court as the world woke up Sunday to a new era of brazen US military might. In a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida shortly after the raid on Maduro’s compound in Caracas, US President Donald Trump held forth on the strength and precision of the US military, warned that other politicians could follow...

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China’s influence in Latin America may be significantly tested by the US revival of the Monroe Doctrine, as Washington’s attack on Venezuela is set to have a chilling effect on the region’s engagement with Beijing, analysts warn. In a surprise precision operation on Saturday, the US military struck Venezuela, captured its leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and placed them in detention in New York. Without giving a timetable for elections, US President Donald Trump said the US would run...

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The US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro will be closely studied by Beijing, which has signalled its ability to target Taiwan’s leadership in the latest PLA exercises near the island, according to analysts. The operation – carried out on Saturday by the US Army’s elite Delta Force, the military’s top special missions unit – was described by Chinese analysts as a “textbook” strike with high precision and minimal casualties. “The planning and execution were highly refined,” said Fu...

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A series of social media posts highlighting the economic insecurity facing ordinary Americans has triggered an intense debate in China about social problems in the United States and shattered some long-held perceptions. Many of the posts from influencers described the vulnerabilities as a “kill line”, a term used by Chinese video gamers to describe the health threshold below which a character can be instantly defeated. The term has now been repurposed to describe a financial and social tipping...

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Caught in a diplomatic dilemma, European countries have distanced themselves from the United States’ military strikes and forced regime change in Venezuela, while also remaining hesitant to directly criticise Washington’s actions. There was shock around the world over the weekend after US President Donald Trump’s administration launched “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and transport them to US territory before holding the...

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After working in Europe for 35 years, Mikael Oliveberg, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) and a judge of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, has taken a full-time position at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University in China. Oliveberg has left Stockholm University after nearly two decades as a tenured professor with its Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. He was welcomed to his new post by Li Lang, Guangxi Medical University’s vice-president, at a...

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China has raised concerns about the United States’ capture and removal of the Venezuelan leader from the country by force, and called on Washington to ensure safety and release Nicolas Maduro and his wife. The US launched military attacks on Venezuela on Saturday, captured President Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and detained them in New York. US President Donald Trump, hours after the operation, said the US would run Venezuela until there was a “safe, proper and judicious” transition. “The US...

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A plan by the chairwoman of Taiwan’s main opposition party to visit Beijing – where she hopes to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping – early this year carries hopes of improving communication amid high tension between the two sides of the strait. While supporters portray Cheng Li-wun’s trip as a potential opening to ease cross-strait tensions, critics warn it risks signalling political alignment with Beijing at a time of rising military pressure. Cheng, who was elected chairwoman of the Kuomintang...

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Since 2020, Li Jiang, a veteran manufacturing entrepreneur from Guangdong, has been selling off his properties one by one – a move that once puzzled many of his friends. For decades, real estate had been the ultimate “anchor” for retirement planning and wealth transfer among China’s high-net-worth families. At his peak, Li concentrated much of his wealth in property, owning seven assets ranging from CBD apartments to high-end suburban villas. These were intended partly for retirement and partly...

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A groundbreaking Chinese innovation is turning one of climate policy’s oldest assumptions on its head: that cutting emissions inevitably hurts the economy. Critics including US President Donald Trump have long dismissed green regulations as a drag on industry, claiming they raise costs and cut production. Even the European Union is now reconsidering its phase-out targets for fossil fuel vehicles, using the negative economic impact as justification. But new research from a team led by the Chinese...

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A little over a decade ago, a diplomatic row with Japan would have been enough to bring people out into the streets in China or at least stir a patriotic retail boycott. In 2012, for instance, tensions boiled over after Tokyo bought and then nationalised three of the Diaoyu Islands, a group of eight uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that Japan calls the Senkakus. China and Japan have a long-running territorial dispute over the islands and authorities appeared to tolerate the...

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In contrast to the United States, which innovates and influences, and the European Union, which regulates, China has become the world’s climate doer. Beyond the headlines of decoupling, tariffs and geopolitical rivalry, an underappreciated global transformation is quietly under way: China, often framed as the world’s factory and climate laggard, has, almost by stealth, become the world’s undisputed climate leader. This may sit uncomfortably with Western policymakers, and perhaps even with some...

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US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States would maintain direct control of Venezuela to prevent “somebody else” taking it over after a military operation that captured President Nicolas Maduro, pledging to keep oil flowing to China even as Washington signalled it would manage the transition itself. Trump’s remarks came hours after overnight air and ground strikes hit Venezuela, with explosions reported in Caracas and other states, prompting local authorities to declare a...

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China’s first fixed-wing carrier-based early-warning aircraft may have sacrificed aerial refuelling to be able to operate from both ski-jump and catapult-equipped vessels, according to a Chinese military magazine. The KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft was designed for catapult-launched operations and made its debut at the Victory Day parade in early September, flying over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Later that month, video was released of its take-off and landing via...

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Hong Kong-based entrepreneur Chan Shan Shan is a frequent traveller to mainland China. But rather than the usual activities or sightseeing spots that fill the days of most tourists, Chan has something else on her itinerary: horse riding. Over the past five years, Chan, 29, has left Hong Kong to canter across varied terrains in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai, all in neighbouring Guangdong province. She has mounted up in Yunnan province and western China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, as well...

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AI scientist Ling Haibin, the acclaimed computer scientist behind the world’s first mobile plant identification app, has left his position in the United States to take up a full-time role at Westlake University in Hangzhou, eastern China. One of Ling’s PhD research projects, which involved using computers to recognise leaves of different shapes, led to the creation of the identification app LeafSnap. The app teaches users about plant diversity, how to care for houseplants, diagnose disease and...

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Japanese militarism is infiltrating culture and sports, a key Communist Party publication has warned, spotlighting table tennis star Tomokazu Harimoto and others in a pointed commentary. According to the article in the Study Times, run by the cadre-training Central Party School, Japanese far-right forces are using cultural and sporting activities to “influence public perception and beautify the history of aggression”. These activities included football player Kaoru Mitoma being photographed with...

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China’s top anti-corruption agency detained a total of 65 “tigers” last year, a record number of high-ranking civilian officials since President Xi Jinping launched his sweeping crackdown on official misconduct more than a decade ago. The figure is 12 per cent higher than the 58 senior officials caught in the anti-corruption fight in 2024 – surpassing the peak set just a year earlier. Those detained included top officials in charge of China’s provinces and cities, senior administrators in...

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Ahead of his state visit to China, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said that while security cooperation with the US was an “unavoidable reality” for Seoul, its relations with Beijing should not move towards confrontation. In an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Friday, Lee called for more frequent leader-level dialogues – at least annually – to explore mutually beneficial opportunities amid an increasingly complex global environment. His state visit to China, set to begin on...

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