A 500-year-old Buddha statue that was found buried by a roadside in Australia has been returned to China, leaving an ongoing mystery about how it arrived in the country. The 15cm (six-inch) bronze figurine was formally handed over to Chinese consular representatives during a ceremony in the coastal town of Denham in Shark Bay on Tuesday, the public broadcaster ABC reported. It will be taken to China for further evaluation to establish its history before being displayed at a museum in...

A 500-year-old Buddha statue that was found buried by a roadside in Australia has been returned to China, leaving an ongoing mystery about how it arrived in the country. The 15cm (six-inch) bronze figurine was formally handed over to Chinese consular representatives during a ceremony in the coastal town of Denham in Shark Bay on Tuesday, the public broadcaster ABC reported. It will be taken to China for further evaluation to establish its history before being displayed at a museum in...

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hunan have warned of the potential risks of cross-border arranged marriages, saying some relationships lack genuine emotional foundations and can lead to financial ruin or legal trouble. Marriages can be risky when they are organised by illegal matchmaking agencies that charge high fees, according to a post on the Xintian county police branch’s social media account on Tuesday. For-profit international matchmaking is illegal in China. The post...

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hunan have warned of the potential risks of cross-border arranged marriages, saying some relationships lack genuine emotional foundations and can lead to financial ruin or legal trouble. Marriages can be risky when they are organised by illegal matchmaking agencies that charge high fees, according to a post on the Xintian county police branch’s social media account on Tuesday. For-profit international matchmaking is illegal in China. The post...

Beijing is rapidly scaling up the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce short-form videos and microdramas in its publicity campaigns, aligning with directives stressing technology’s role in strengthening ideological work and guiding public opinion. In contrast to sensational tropes dominating AI content across Chinese media platforms – such as Cinderella romance, rebirth for revenge and post-apocalyptic survival – a new wave of AI-generated miniseries weaves Chinese culture, policies...

The setting may have been casual but the choice was not when the Communist Party boss of a northeastern Chinese province sat down with digital content creators at a coffee shop on Wednesday. Jilin province party secretary Huang Qiang invited the influencers to the relaxed setting of the Songyuan Coffee Shop in Changchun to encourage them to “actively promote mainstream values and spread positive energy”. According to a local government statement, Huang and the participants also exchanged views...

Creators of China’s first Tibetan-language AI model have pledged to speed up upgrades aimed at promoting ethnic integration. Approaches to advancing the large language model, DeepZang, were discussed at a seminar on Monday that brought together representatives from research institutes, universities and enterprises, according to state-run portal Chinanews.com. It said the event held in Hohhot, in China’s northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region, addressed issues such as improving Tibetan...

China’s ruling Communist Party is marking 90 years since the end of the Long March with exhibitions, tours, film and television productions as it tries to mobilise the nation to contribute to its vision for the future. Ahead of the October 22 anniversary, commemorative activities are under way to promote the history of the Long March and revive its “spirit”. The Long March was an epic retreat between 1934 and 1936 by the party’s Red Army to evade Kuomintang, or Nationalist, forces during the...

While foreign leaders and their families walk the iconic restored sections of the Great Wall around Beijing, the ancient stones of a remote Ming-era stretch of the structure in northern central China have been sacrificed for cheaper dumping of coal-mining waste. For nearly 20 years, a section of the wall in Ningwu county, Shanxi province, was used as a short cut to dump slag, despite whistle-blowers repeatedly raising the alarm to officials, according to a report by Chinese state broadcaster...