China News

Paul Cheung was recently named president of the Committee of 100, a non-profit organisation of influential Chinese-Americans that promotes bilateral exchanges between China and the United States on all fronts. In this Open Questions interview, Cheung talks about the role of C100 in addressing anti-Asian hate in the US and bridging the gap between the two biggest economic powers in their ever-growing rivalry. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. What’s your strategy as...

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The latest People’s Liberation Army drills around Taiwan may have been testing how to wear down the island’s air defences using rockets that are “cheap enough to be used in large quantities”, military observers said. On Tuesday, the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command wrapped up a two-day live-fire exercise named Justice Mission 2025. The exercise surrounded large parts of the island and came less than a fortnight after the United States approved a US$11.1 billion weapons package for Taiwan – the...

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China is kicking off 2026 with a three-year import quota for beef shipments from major trading partners, in a move aimed at protecting its struggling domestic industry over the coming years. Effective Thursday, a 55 per cent tariff will be levied on over-quota beef from countries including Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Uruguay, New Zealand and the United States, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Wednesday. “The objective of these safeguard measures on imported beef is to help the domestic...

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President Xi Jinping issued a rallying cry for the country to double down on efforts to boost economic growth and technological advancement in the new year during his annual televised New Year’s speech on Wednesday. The call came as Beijing faces complicated geopolitical challenges while pushing for economic transition at home, with the coming years seen as critical to consolidating its position in its rivalry with Washington. He also mentioned Taiwan, describing the island’s reunification with...

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Dutch chipmaker Nexperia and its Chinese parent, Wingtech Technology, are set for another showdown in early 2026, as the legal battle over control of the semiconductor firm intensifies. The two sides will face off before the Dutch Enterprise Chamber on January 14, a court representative told the Post on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The hearing aims to determine whether there were valid reasons to doubt the sound management of Nexperia before the chamber’s ruling in early October,...

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Deserts are hard to reclaim because plants cannot survive on shifting sand, but scientists in northwest China are changing that by dropping vast amounts of blue-green algae onto the dry terrain. These specially selected strains of cyanobacteria can survive extreme heat and drought for long periods, according to China Science Daily on Thursday. When rain finally comes, they spring to life, spreading rapidly and forming a tough, biomass-rich crust over the sand. This living layer stabilises the...

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Police in multiple Chinese cities have issued pre-emptive notices stating that no official New Year’s Eve countdowns will be held at popular landmarks, as they prioritise public safety and order ahead of the holiday. This coordinated messaging, consistent with recent years, emerged through a flurry of police notices issued on Tuesday and Wednesday. It reflects a cautious strategy by authorities to prevent a recurrence of tragedies like the 2014 Shanghai stampede. Authorities in major Chinese...

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Nvidia is scrambling to meet strong demand for its H200 artificial intelligence chips from Chinese technology companies and has ‌approached contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to ramp up production, sources said. Chinese tech companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H200 chips for 2026, while ‍Nvidia currently holds just 700,000 units in stock, two of the people said. The exact additional volume Nvidia intends to order from TSMC remains unclear, they...

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China has unveiled the details of an extension to its popular consumer goods trade-in scheme, a policy which has helped to fuel short-term boosts in consumption and contributed to the achievement of nationwide targets for economic growth. On Tuesday, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) – the country's top economic planner – announced with the Ministry of Finance that 62.5 billion yuan (US$8.93 billion) in ultra-long-term special bonds would be fast-tracked to local governments...

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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. How China cracked US ‘super code’ that controls most power grids in the world China is no longer using American software to run its power grid. The Southern Regional Electricity Market (SREM) – the world’s largest unified power market – has switched fully to Tianquan, a solver developed by Chinese engineers...

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The Japanese government has expressed concern to Beijing over its military drills around Taiwan amid tensions between the two countries that are already strained by the Japanese prime minister’s comments nearly two months ago about a Taiwan contingency, according to Kyodo. It coincides with a statement by Japan that Chinese coastguard vessels have patrolled near the Diaoyu Islands – which are at the centre of a separate long-time dispute between the two countries – for a record number of days...

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China’s factory activity returned to expansionary territory in December – beating market expectations to end an eight-month contraction – but analysts said it might be premature to view the rebound as a sign of sustained stabilisation. The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) stood at 50.1 in December, up from 49.2 the previous month, according to data released on Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics. The reading exceeded a projection of 49.6 from economists polled by the...

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China is set to break its own record in hypergravity research with a colossal new centrifuge that can spin multi-tonne samples at unmatched intensities. The machine, known as CHIEF1900, was built by Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group and shipped to Zhejiang University in eastern China on December 22 for installation. Once up and running, it will allow researchers to compress space and time, recreating catastrophic events such as dam failures and earthquakes inside a laboratory, according to...

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European aviation giant Airbus won another two major orders from Chinese clients for a total of 90 A320neo aircraft on Tuesday, just a day after receiving orders for 55 passenger jets of the same model from two other Chinese airlines. The orders came weeks after Airbus’ CEO accompanied French President Emmanuel Macron on a state visit to China and mark a big win for the European manufacturer over its American competitor Boeing in one of the world’s biggest aviation markets. Air China, Beijing’s...

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Myanmar’s military junta is staging the country’s first general election since its coup in 2021. Western critics have dismissed it as a “sham”, while the generals have insisted that the polls are “free and fair”. Posting on X, Tom Andrews, the United Nations rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, called the election “a theatre of the absurd”. He may be right but it is also beside the point. Andrews was a long-time foreign supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose second-term government was...

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President Xi Jinping has issued a mandate to expand grain production as China moves to shield its food supply from global volatility, calling for renewed efforts to modernise agriculture and rural areas over the coming year. Speaking at a two-day work conference in Beijing that ended on Tuesday, Xi urged a “no-relaxation” approach to grain output and called for higher overall production capacity and efficiency by integrating high-quality land, seeds, machinery and farming techniques. “We must...

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As families and friends gather to bid farewell to a turbulent 2025, the unassuming potato will, no matter where you live, almost certainly find its place on the dinner table. Domesticated nearly 10,000 years ago in Peru, it did not voyage beyond the Americas until the 16th century. Yet no vegetable has played a more significant role in human history and politics than this humble tuber. Dubbed the calorie king, potatoes produce more calories and nutrients per unit of land than any other major...

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China-founded start-up Tripo AI on Tuesday launched a major update to its flagship platform, renamed Tripo Studio 1.0, that speeds up artificial intelligence-driven 3D content creation by up to 200 per cent compared with its previous version, as the company’s international user community continues to expand. A pioneer in large-scale, general-purpose 3D models, Tripo AI’s user base has more than doubled to 6.5 million from 3 million in August, company founder and CEO Simon Song Yachen told the...

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American novelists Ken Liu and Rebecca F. Kuang were the undisputed stars of the annual Singapore Writers Festival last month. Their sessions were packed to capacity, with audiences eager to hear their thoughts on artificial intelligence, education, and even Singaporean cuisine. Days before the 10-day festival, which started on November 7, the leaders of China and the United States held key talks in Busan, South Korea, sending conciliatory signals amid an intense geopolitical rivalry. Yet in...

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In a pointed display of diplomatic unity, the ambassadors of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) nations – the United States, Australia, India, and Japan – convened in Beijing on Tuesday, just as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted live-fire exercises during its large-scale military drills around Taiwan. “The Quad is a force for good, working to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific. It is always great to meet with the Quad Ambassadors here in Beijing,” said US Ambassador to...

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At least two oil tankers have made their way to Venezuela in recent days and others are navigating towards the country, a sign of ‍state-run oil and natural gas company PDVSA’s effort to expand floating storage and keep selling crude even as a US blockade has reduced exports to a minimum. US President Donald Trump this month announced a blockade of all sanctioned vessels going in or out of Venezuelan waters as part of a strategy to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The US move has...

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China has signalled that its YJ-20 hypersonic ship-to-ship missile is ready for mass production with the release of a video showing the advanced weapon being put through its “finalisation test”. The footage of the YJ-20 being fired from the vertical launch system (VLS) of the Type 055 destroyer Wuxi was posted to social media on Sunday by China Military Bugle, the official People’s Liberation Army account. “Missile hit. Target destroyed,” the crew can be heard saying over the radio, though...

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US President Donald Trump’s hopes for a grand deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping are being undercut by American allies’ self-interested amplification of the “China threat”. This year’s Nanking massacre memorial was particularly poignant in light of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s controversial remarks on Taiwan. Beijing warned that any attempt to challenge the post-war international order or undermine established historical truths would be “doomed to failure”. Meanwhile, Singaporean...

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China’s official national Buddhist association has established its first supervisory body less than six months after the high-profile downfall of the “CEO monk”, former Shaolin Temple abbot Shi Yongxin. The move to improve oversight of Chinese Buddhist monks’ conduct was announced on Tuesday, a day after the Buddhist Association of China’s (BAC) 11th national congress concluded in Beijing. Shi Zhengci, the abbot of Wuzu Temple in Huangmei county, Hubei province, was elected as the association’s...

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South Korean President Lee Jae-myung will make a state visit to China next week as the two countries try to find a way through their intense economic rivalry to improve ties. The trip will make Lee the first sitting South Korean president to travel to China since 2019, and will include a three-day stop in Beijing from Sunday, a presidential official in Seoul said on Tuesday. Lee will meet President Xi Jinping in the Chinese capital before heading to Shanghai and then back to Seoul. The talks...

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