In 2021, when Beijing finally pledged to stop building and financing new coal power plants overseas, Western governments and climate advocates rejoiced. John Kerry, US climate envoy at the time, said he was “absolutely delighted to hear” of the decision. It is “a key topic of my discussions during my visit to China”, Alok Sharma, a member of the British House of Lords, wrote on social media, suggesting it was a result of pressure from the West. But now, from Chile to Spain to Portugal, country...

Europe must respond to US threats over Greenland and China’s industrial excesses, or else “passively accept … vassalisation and bloc politics”, French President Emmanuel Macron warned in a speech at Davos on Tuesday. Macron warned of the “brutalisation of the world”, as he urged the use of the EU’s most powerful trade weapon in response to US President Donald Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on European countries who last week sent troops to Greenland. Trump has pledged to make the giant Arctic...

The European Commission wants to force EU member states to remove Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE from its mobile networks, as part of a sweeping new cybersecurity act unveiled on Tuesday. While the bloc’s executive arm has recommended that capitals weed equipment from those providers from their 5G networks since 2020, citing cybersecurity risks, only 13 of 27 have so far acted on it, commission sources said. This marks the first time Brussels has attempted to make their removal...

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that he met with Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng a day earlier on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in advance of US President Donald Trump’s much-anticipated speech to the global body on Wednesday. Bessent’s account of the sit-down between the main interlocutors over the past tumultuous year between Beijing and Washington suggests the pieces are in place to go ahead with a summit in Beijing between Trump and...

A new Chinese emergency aid programme has delivered its first shipment of rice to Cuba, which faces worsening food and fuel shortages amid a tightened US blockade that has halted Venezuelan oil shipments. Under the programme, China will send 30,000 tonnes of rice to the island nation, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. The first shipment was handed over on Monday, while a second batch has arrived at the Port of Santiago de Cuba. Additional deliveries are expected to leave China...

As US President Donald Trump’s tariff increases have roiled global markets and strained America’s alliances in recent months, China has been pursuing the opposite strategy: keeping import duties low and pledging further cuts as a way to secure strategic resources and build ties across the developing world. China’s average effective tariff rate – calculated by dividing total duties raised by the value of imports – has fallen steadily over the past decade and came to just 1.3 per cent in 2025,...

President Xi Jinping has ordered a thorough implementation of central government strategies and policies at local levels, as the world’s second-largest economy rallies efforts to achieve a strong start to its five-year plan amid formidable external challenges and domestic headwinds. The instruction on Tuesday arrived at a delicate time, as Beijing enforces some overriding strategies, such as a whole-of-nation approach to break technological bottlenecks, a campaign to fight vicious price...

China has condemned Monday’s suicide attack on a Chinese restaurant in Kabul, urging the Taliban to take further measures to protect the safety of its citizens in Afghanistan. Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Beijing had made “urgent representations” following the attack in a heavily guarded part of the capital that killed at least seven people – one Chinese national and six Afghans – and injured several others. Guo added that China had asked the authorities to “further adopt effective...

China’s commercial space sector logged 50 launches last year – more than half of the country’s total – underscoring the growing role of private players alongside the state-led space programme, with Beijing highlighting aerospace as a strategic industry. Commercial launches accounted for 54 per cent of the country’s total in 2025, according to data released on Tuesday by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Of the total, 25 launches were carried out by commercial launch vehicles....

The death toll from an explosion at a rare earth steel plant in north China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region has risen to nine. The explosion occurred at 3pm on Sunday at the Baotou Steel Group’s rare earth steel plant in Baotou, according to the city government. As of Tuesday, the accident has injured 84 people, killed nine and left one person missing, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The Ministry of Emergency Management sent a working group led by Vice-Minister Song Yuanming to the scene...

Taiwan’s opposition parties are stepping up criticism of the island’s government over a controversial economic deal with the United States, warning that what officials portray as a tariff win could carry heavy long-term costs for the island’s economy and industrial base. The cabinet on Tuesday released further details of the agreement, which allows Taiwan to secure a 15 per cent reciprocal tariff rate. The rate is down from a previously proposed 20 per cent and broadly in line with Japan, South...

China delivered a message of free trade, multilateralism, cooperation and dialogue at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday as the world, including the host continent Europe, grapples with increasingly aggressive moves from Washington. “Everyone should be equal before the rules; a very small number of countries should not enjoy the privilege of pursuing their own selfish interests. The world must not return to the law of the jungle, where the strong prey on the weak,” Vice-Premier He Lifeng...

The last two giant pandas in Japan are set to leave for China on January 27, one month ahead of schedule as bilateral tensions continue to worsen. The return of the twins, Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, marks the first time in about half a century that Japan will be without any pandas. Beijing first sent two of the animals to Tokyo to mark the normalisation of diplomatic relations in 1972. The four-year-olds were born at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo but technically all giant pandas and their offspring in overseas...

Britain on Tuesday approved China’s plan to build a massive new embassy in London, removing a major barrier to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to China later this month. The roughly 65,000 square metre (700,000 sq ft) embassy will be built at the site of the former Royal Mint, near the Tower of London. It will replace the Chinese embassy in central London. British media reports have said that Starmer would visit Beijing and Shanghai between January 29 and 31. Neither London nor Beijing has...

New energy, artificial intelligence, electric vehicle (EV) and biotechnology companies will remain the driving force behind Hong Kong’s initial public offering (IPO) market in the coming years, according to the head of bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX). “In the past year, dozens of new companies in green energy, automation and other sectors have listed in Hong Kong, enabling them to scale their research and global impact,” wrote Bonnie Chan Yiting, CEO of HKEX, in an...

Chinese authorities have signalled a new wave of measures to bolster domestic demand and hi-tech industries in the coming year, as Beijing seeks to rebalance growth and shore up momentum during its next five-year plan. On Tuesday, China’s top economic planner announced initiatives to boost consumption and technology investments, while the finance ministry unveiled programmes offering financial support to individuals and small businesses, following mixed economic data for 2025 released the day...

China has confirmed that it received an invitation from the United States to join Donald Trump’s “board of peace for Gaza”. When asked about China’s position on the US president’s proposal on Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said the invitation had been received but he did not say whether Beijing would accept. Trump has invited dozens of world leaders to join the initiative as part of his efforts to push forward his 20-point plan to resolve the conflict in Gaza. The board was...

China is working on a powerful 50-megawatt gas turbine to propel its next generation of warships and key facilities, according to state media. The gas turbine – an advanced power generation unit – is being developed by state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation, Economic Daily reported on Monday. It is part of a push by Beijing to establish a self-reliant supply chain for sectors it sees as crucial to national security and China’s industrial base. Advanced gas turbine engines are on...

Former top Chinese intelligence official Gao Yichen has been expelled from the Communist Party for corruption after being accused of receiving bribes and interfering with judicial matters. Gao, 75, former vice-minister of the Ministry of State Security, was found to have “seriously violated party discipline”, according to an official announcement by top anti-corruption watchdog Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Tuesday. He also served as deputy director of the party’s...

As China struggles to boost consumer spending, a professor at one of the country’s top universities has argued that authorities first need to overcome a psychological barrier: a deep-seated “luxury-phobia” that has taken hold among the Chinese public. The suggestion by Su Jian, a professor at Peking University, comes amid a debate in Chinese policy circles about how to revive the country’s sluggish demand, with retail sales slowing despite government efforts to rebalance the economy towards a...

China’s Chang’e-7 mission this year will be the world’s first to attempt to sample and directly measure water on the moon, but just touching lunar ice could mean losing it, a team of scientists has warned in a new paper. The spacecraft is expected to touch down near the rim of Shackleton crater at the lunar south pole, where it will deploy a rover and hopper to search for ice. While water could support long-term human activity on the moon, from providing drinking water and oxygen to producing...

While there may be hopes in Beijing that Washington’s attempt to acquire Greenland has strained transatlantic ties and might draw European countries closer to China, a veteran US diplomat said such a fundamental realignment was unlikely. The core task of the European Union’s foreign policy will remain navigating intensifying US-China rivalry while seeking a workable balance between the two, according to William Klein, a former charge d’affaires at the US embassy in China. Addressing a seminar at...

Shares of Chinese toymaker Pop Mart rallied nearly 10 per cent on Tuesday morning before closing more than 9 per cent higher after the company announced its first share buy-back in nearly two years, following a decline from last year’s peak. Pop Mart’s Hong Kong-listed shares rose to HK$198.70 at the open as investors welcomed the move. Shares closed 9.1 per cent higher at HK$197.20. The stock remains below last year’s closing level of HK$200.20, and more than 40 per cent off its August peak,...

Shanghai has laid out a full spectrum of goals on finance for the next five years and beyond, following an unequivocal push by China’s central leadership to grow the city into an international financial centre. China’s largest city-level economy aims to evolve into a world-class, socialist metropolis by 2035, with an intensified focus on innovation and manufacturing, according to a local document released on Monday. Shanghai unveiled its proposals for the drafting of its own 15th five-year plan,...

China achieved its twin goals of tech advancement and macro stability in 2025. Its goals for 2026 remain the same. However, a rapidly deteriorating global security environment is likely to shift national priorities towards preparation for worst-case scenarios. Oil supplies and sea lanes are becoming insecure. The US-China trade war could reignite at any time. China will have to accelerate its goals of energy and technology self-sufficiency to enhance national resilience. Fighting for sea lane...

Taiwan’s military held a closed-door briefing on Monday to break an opposition blockade of a controversial NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.5 billion) special defence budget that has prompted accusations of “black box” decision-making from rival parties. Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo Li-hsiung delivered a classified briefing to the legislature’s foreign affairs and defence committee, seeking to persuade lawmakers to allow the long-stalled bill to be referred for committee review. The package...

China has emerged as a credible challenger to the US in artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery, where advantage depends not only on computing prowess but also on the ability to effectively mine data, from genomes to clinical trial results, according to Leung Chuen-yan, a private equity investor and life sciences scientist. “Globally, the way companies develop and use AI to discover drugs is similar, from finding the drug target and designing the molecule to planning clinical trials,” said...

For years, many of mainland China’s art students dreamed of working or studying in Europe. After hours spent poring over the works of the continent’s masters as part of their degree requirements, living where their pieces are preserved, displayed and appreciated would seem a natural fit. But with funding and hiring freezes striking numerous overseas art programmes and museums, that path grows less appealing by the day. Now, rather than relocate to a new continent to further their studies, more...

Brazilian beef exports will remain stable ‌in 2026 compared with last year, beef lobby Abiec said on ‍Monday, projecting shipments between 3.3 million and 3.5 million tonnes this year. That compares with 3.5 million tonnes of beef exported in 2025, including fresh and processed products, when Brazil’s ⁠beef shipments had their best year on record both in volumes and revenue, according to trade data. Roberto Perosa, Abiec president, said exports would remain broadly unchanged after top importer...

A blast at a Chinese restaurant in central Kabul on Monday killed at least seven people and wounded more than a dozen others, emergency services said. An Agence France-Presse journalist saw police vehicles and an ambulance at the scene following the explosion on a street known for its flower sellers in the Shahr-e-Naw area. Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said the explosion occurred at the Chinese Noodle restaurant, which he said mainly served Chinese Muslims. “A Chinese Muslim, Ayub, and...

China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative gained further traction in 2025, with a record US$213.5 billion of new deals signed as projects in metals, mining, fossil fuels and new technologies surged, a report by the Griffith Asia Institute has found. The value of new deals confirmed under China’s global infrastructure strategy rose 75 per cent last year compared with 2024, with a notable pivot towards investment in Africa and Central Asia, according to the report released on Sunday. China has...

The United States is likely to lose its clear edge over China in strategic relations with major nations by 2035, a prominent Chinese political scientist has predicted. Yan Xuetong, honorary dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute of International Relations, said strategic competition between Beijing and Washington was likely to remain intense in the coming decade and could escalate into a crisis during US President Donald Trump’s second term, but the risk of direct war could decline under...

In a historic blow to its space programme, China suffered two rocket launch failures in a single day for the first time over the weekend. While Saturday’s failed launches gained immediate attention on social media, with some describing the day as “Black Saturday”, space observers said the setbacks were part of the growing pains the country’s rapidly developing aerospace industry would inevitably experience. They also drew parallels with similar problems Elon Musk’s firm SpaceX had experienced,...

After a weekend of US President Donald Trump threatening to slap tariffs on EU countries for opposing his drive to acquire Greenland, the question on European lips on Monday was: will the bloc finally punch back? A string of national leaders has come out against the US president’s gambit, part of a long-running campaign to make the giant autonomous Danish territory part of America, with speculation mounting that the use of duties could trigger European retaliation. To keep Trump engaged in...

The global landscape is undergoing profound rupture. The United States has blatantly interfered in the internal affairs of Venezuela through direct military action and openly covets Greenland. US President Donald Trump has called Canada the “51st state” of his country and threatened to “take back” the Panama Canal. The US is undermining the core assumptions that have underpinned the Western alliance system. Against this backdrop, Canada’s policy community broadly and Prime Minister Mark Carney...

China has proposed to host the secretariat of a new treaty governing the high seas, in what observers say is the latest effort by Beijing to proactively play a bigger role in shaping international rules of order. Days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to pull the US from 66 international organisations, including United Nations commissions and major bodies set up to tackle climate change, China has bid for Xiamen in Fujian province – a coastal hub that sits on the Taiwan...

China’s Unitree Robotics shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, as the Hangzhou-based company ramped up production ahead of its planned listing on the mainland. That number – covering “pure” full-body, bipedal humanoid models – exceeded those of its American peers such as Tesla, Figure AI and Agility Robotics, which shipped 150 humanoid robots each last year, according to market research firm Omdia. Unitree saw its annual output...

People’s Liberation Army activities in the Taiwan Strait are being closely watched by the United States and Japan and it needs to find a way to operate effectively while being surveilled, according to analysts. A report by Beijing-based defence think tank Lande said the PLA’s most recent large-scale drills around Taiwan – dubbed Justice Mission 2025 – were launched with no warning yet the response from the US and Japan was immediate. It said that highlighted the constant presence in the region...

The International Monetary Fund has raised its 2026 economic growth forecasts for both China and the United States by 0.3 percentage points, the latest sign that the pause in their trade war has eased pressure on both economies. In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF’s flagship publication released on Monday, the Washington-based fund also upgraded its global economic growth estimate by 0.2 percentage points over its October forecast to 3.3 per cent this year. China’s economy is now...

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. The hull appeared to be darkened after enduring the intense heat and stress of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. But on-site inspections revealed the capsule’s exterior was generally intact and the returned items inside were in good condition, according to Chinese space authorities. In an interview with...

For much of the past decade, the energy transition debate has largely revolved around one question: can clean technologies work at scale? That is increasingly being answered. Solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles (EVs) have moved into the mainstream as key technologies become more cost-effective, efficient and faster to deploy. In many markets, these energy sources are no longer the future of energy; they are the present. The challenge is no longer simply proving that more...

December was a record-breaking month and busier than ever for the Hainan, China’s first Type 075 amphibious assault ship and one of Beijing’s most important assets in the event of any potential military operation against Taiwan. The Yushen-class vessel, one of the world’s largest amphibious assault ships, made an appearance during the People’s Liberation Army’s large-scale military drills around the self-ruled island in late December. It was the first time a Type 075 took part in such...

China’s birth count plummeted to a record low last year, falling by about 10 million from its 2016 peak and slashing the total by more than half in less than a decade, as the country’s population shrank for a fourth consecutive year. Only 7.92 million babies were born in 2025, down 17 per cent from 9.54 million in 2024, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday. This marked the lowest birth figure since records began in 1949 and broke the previous record low set...

“We will not leave the desert till we beat the foe, although in war our golden armour be outworn 100 times.” In this celebrated poem from China’s Tang dynasty, Wang Changling captured the unyielding spirit of soldiers in golden armour battling on the desert frontiers. But for centuries, the splendour of the Tang gold-plated armour lived only in poetry and imagination, as none had ever been unearthed. But that changed last week, when the Key Laboratory of Archaeological Sciences and Cultural...

China’s top securities regulator has signalled it wants a slower, longer-lasting stock market rally rather than a short-lived speculative surge as it steps up measures to curb excessive trading after activity and margin financing hit fresh highs early this year. The stance, reiterated at a securities watchdog meeting last week, drew renewed attention after regulators moved to cool pockets of overheating in the A-share market following a strong start to 2026. At its January 15 work conference,...

Even as global trade weathered extreme volatility in 2025, China is pressing ahead with port expansions, building bigger and more strategically positioned hubs to secure its trade future. In the first 11 months of 2025, China’s foreign trade container throughput jumped 9.5 per cent, year on year, to 320 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU), contributing to a record US$1.19 trillion trade surplus for the full year, according to official data. Major ports helped drive the records. Shanghai, for...

Home prices in mainland China continued to decline at a rapid pace in December, posing challenges for an economy that is struggling to find new growth drivers. New home prices fell 0.4 per cent month on month on average across 70 cities, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday. The fall matched November’s drop and was among the steepest in more than a year. Prices slipped 3 per cent year on year in December, accelerating from a 2.8 per cent drop in November. Only...

Physicist You Chenglong has left the United States to take up a full-time position in China after working for more than a decade in the strategically important fields of quantum sensing and precision measurement. Previously based at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, You is regarded as a fast-rising researcher in his field. According to Chinese media reports, he joined the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in Chengdu as a professor this month. UESTC has...

As political and business leaders gather in the Swiss town of Davos for this year’s World Economic Forum, scheduled to begin on Monday, analysts expect China to continue positioning itself as a reliable trade partner and supporter of multilateralism – stances drawing an implicit contrast with the United States under President Donald Trump. This year’s meeting, themed “A Spirit of Dialogue”, will take place amid heightened global tensions in the wake of several controversial actions by Trump’s...

China has confirmed that it achieved its annual growth target last year as the economy weathered an unprecedented trade war with the United States, but growth slowed to a three-year low in the final quarter, dragged down by a series of domestic headwinds. Analysts expressed concern about China’s “lopsided” growth – with robust exports contrasting with soft internal demand – but pointed to the services sector as a “bright spot” as Beijing looks to shore up the economy heading into a new five-year...

China and Chile are set to launch a three‑month expedition into the uncharted depths of the eastern Pacific Ocean – a “historic opportunity” to seek new forms of life and geological insights into the causes of earthquakes and tsunamis. Setting off aboard the Chinese research vessel Tan Suo Yi Hao on Monday, the researchers will cover 700km (435 miles) around the Atacama Trench, one of the deepest and least explored regions of the eastern Pacific. The expedition, three years in the making, is...

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has unveiled a road map to introduce 20 measures under a five-year initiative aimed at modernising the city’s trade finance landscape and strengthening connectivity with mainland China and Asean trade corridors. Project CargoX, part of HKMA’s Fintech 2030 strategy, would use blockchain and data to help exporters secure bank loans more easily and strengthen Hong Kong’s role as an international trading hub, said Howard Lee Tat-chi, deputy chief executive of...

John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He has written extensively on security issues and international politics and is best known for his theory of offensive realism, which holds that to dominate the international system, great powers must constantly engage in security competition with each other, sometimes leading to war. In this, our 100th Open Questions interview,...

US President Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela and the kidnapping of the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, have put Russia and China – widely considered two of Caracas’ most important international partners – in a difficult position. If they do not significantly reduce ties with the Latin American nation, they risk Washington’s retaliation. But who has more to lose, Moscow or Beijing? Unlike previous American leaders, Trump has not made any pretence about protecting democracy and human...

China’s newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, has significant design flaws that future carriers can overcome only by adopting nuclear power, according to a military magazine. The Fujian is the country’s first domestically designed aircraft carrier and was commissioned in November. With a displacement of over 80,000 tonnes, it is the world’s largest conventional warship and the first non-American ship to be equipped with advanced electromagnetic catapults. However, the most advanced US ships – the...

China is rolling out hundreds of activities across Africa, including study trips and AI competitions, as part of what experts have described as a “soft power” charm offensive designed to deepen its influence across the continent. In moving beyond its traditional focus on infrastructure and high-level finance, Beijing is expanding its engagement through the 2026 China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges – an initiative dedicated to cultural and social diplomacy. Announced by Chinese Foreign...