The United States has stepped up scrutiny of China’s overseas lending, warning that the lack of transparency surrounding Chinese loans could increase the risk of unexpected defaults and debt restructuring in emerging markets. In its 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report, released on Tuesday, the US State Department said China had failed to meet its minimum transparency requirements, citing deficiencies in both its domestic finances and the disclosure of claims against foreign borrowers. “China’s lack...

The Trump administration’s export-control licensing regime is achieving little strategic benefit while costing the United States billions of dollars in lost exports and undermining American companies’ global market share, according to a new business survey. “Months-long licensing delays are costing the United States billions of dollars in exports and eroding American market share globally,” the US-China Business Council (USCBC) found in a flash survey of companies conducted in July. The survey...

As the United States and China consolidate their dominance in artificial intelligence, attention is turning to whether Europe can carve out a distinct third pole – a “G3” – or remain in Washington’s technological orbit. The race is rapidly evolving into a contest over international order. In June, Washington signed up 10 more partners for its Pax Silica framework – designed to secure supply chains for key advanced technologies such as microchips and AI – bringing the total to 24. Weeks later, 29...

The “long peace” is a term coined by Yale professor and Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis in his 1987 book The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War. It refers to the fact that, from the end of World War II in 1945 into the 1980s, more than 40 years passed without a third world war between the United States and Soviet Union. For centuries before 1945, great powers fought destructive general wars such as the Napoleonic Wars, World War I and World War II roughly once every...

China has detained several Japanese nationals, including top executives of companies with offices in China, for allegedly violating export restrictions on dual-use goods, Japanese newspaper The Mainichi said, citing multiple sources. Dual-use items comprise goods, software and technologies with both civilian and military applications, including critical minerals essential for manufacturing drones and advanced semiconductors. The detentions follow a string of enforcement measures, including the...

A Republican-led congressional committee focused on US competition with China has issued a public call for American academics to come forward if they think they missed out on jobs in favour of “applicants from China”. “Are you an American student, postdoctoral researcher, or academic who believes you were denied a research position, laboratory opportunity, or postdoctoral appointment because preference was given to applicants from China?” the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition...

US Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby avoided naming Beijing or addressing escalating tensions in the South China Sea during a speech in Manila on Monday, adopting a measured tone weeks before an expected meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Despite speaking in the capital of Washington’s oldest treaty ally in Asia, Colby made no direct reference to recent confrontations between Chinese and Philippine forces near the disputed Scarborough...

China has asked to join World Trade Organization consultations that Brazil opened against US tariffs of up to 37.5 per cent. Beijing filed the request in Geneva on Monday, telling the trade body it held a substantial commercial interest in the case. The move was first reported by the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and independently confirmed to the South China Morning Post by a Brazilian government source. In the request, China said Washington could apply comparable measures to Chinese...

A Chinese citizen faces up to 20 years in US federal prison after pleading guilty on Monday to attempting to purchase US-made military equipment to export to China, in violation of US arms export controls, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ). Chen Dingwei, 29, was charged with attempting to purchase military-grade satellite modems and radios manufactured for the US military by US companies, which are barred from being exported to China under the US Arms Export Control Act. US...

The Trump administration is on pace to revoke a record number of visas this year, the State Department said on Monday, as it disclosed that more than 175,000 had been revoked since US President Donald Trump returned to office. The visas were revoked from foreign nationals who “violated the terms of their visas, committed crimes, called for violence against US citizens, defrauded Americans, abused our immigration system, or endangered national security”, according to the State Department. A State...

US President Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Iran compensate the victims of attacks, conflicts and domestic repression he blamed on Tehran, adding a new condition to negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The demand came after Iran reiterated that Washington must compensate it for damage caused by more than five months of US and Israeli strikes before the strategic waterway can be fully reopened. “It is an interesting idea because now I am likewise demanding compensation from...

The China-India-Pakistan triangle has never been short on danger, but Islamabad’s new defensive alliance has added another variable to an already volatile situation. Last week, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia signed a pact in Mecca in which they agreed to treat an armed attack on one as an attack on all. The three governments have described it as defensive and not directed at any particular state. Analysts said its main significance for India lay less in whether it would be invoked, but in how...

Beijing is stepping up efforts to challenge the Western concept of the “tribute system”, arguing that foreign frameworks distort ancient Chinese diplomacy and misrepresent the country’s contemporary global rise. China is redoubling efforts to define its own practices, experiences and ideas through original, home-grown social science language rather than through what it says are Western conceptual lenses. The theory was forged and made popular in the US decades ago as a means to interpret both...

The head of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department, Liu Haixing, hailed China and Cuba as “good brothers” during a meeting with Cuban officials in Havana, in a show of solidarity as Washington ramps up pressure on the island. According to an official Chinese readout, Liu on Sunday held talks with Emilio Lozada Garcia, the Communist Party of Cuba’s international relations chief, describing China and Cuba as “good friends, good comrades and good brothers” and saying ties were at an...

New Delhi has issued names for 27 locations in Arunachal Pradesh on its official maps, including sensitive sites near the disputed border with China, in a move that an analyst warned could complicate efforts to repair bilateral ties. The Indian government announced the move on Friday, just a day after officials from the two countries held a working-level consultation in New Delhi to discuss border management and reaffirm the need for peace along the Line of Actual Control. Beijing has long...

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed a Nato-like defence agreement in Mecca as the United States’ war on Iran prompts countries in the region to rethink security arrangements. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement stipulates that “any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all”, the three countries said in a joint statement. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz...

The grand security bargain between the United States and Gulf countries is widely perceived to be fraying, creating what analysts see as an opening for Beijing to expand its presence in the region. For decades, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states relied on Washington’s defensive shield, while it in turn relied on them for access, energy and influence. Riyadh’s decision to sign a mutual defence agreement with Turkey and Pakistan is the clearest sign yet of that shift. Signed this week in Mecca,...

The European Union’s traditional August break was supposed to provide officials with some respite ahead of a potentially bruising autumn when it will try to set its fiery trade relationship with China on a new course. Instead, a border crisis on its southern flank has created turmoil and division among its 27 members, raising questions over how prepared the bloc is for a dust-up with one of the world’s economic superpowers. “We had a real-time test of what happens when one member state was under...

After years of strain, China-Australia ties have reached a “good enough” baseline for Canberra, though still short of Beijing’s broader ambitions, according to a former top Australian diplomat. The relationship had taken a significant downturn since 2017, but was now on “a more realistic footing”, Graham Fletcher, a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank, wrote in a report released on Sunday. Fletcher served as Australia’s ambassador to China from 2019 to 2023. The...

At a night market in Shenzhen, Sasa Xu finishes her day with passion fruit tea. It costs US$2.40, bringing her total spend for the day to US$9.40 – details that close out her video “What low-income life in China really looks like”. The video has drawn more than 470,000 views since it was posted to YouTube in April. It includes footage of Xu at a traditional wet market and walking through a densely populated “urban village” where many of the city’s low-income workers live. “Through these simple,...

Just outside the Nigerian capital Abuja, where Green Agriculture West Africa Limited (Gawal) is based, locals do not refer to the company by name, instead as the place where the Chinese supply “magic” rice seeds. Ahmed Yusuf, 42, credits the seeds with turning around his rice business for good. Before Gawal, Yusuf’s yields averaged just 2 tonnes per hectare, putting him on the verge of forsaking farming after more than a decade of toiling. “Each year I was making losses, and I couldn’t meet the...

Though the relationship between the Chinese and Indian governments has been thawing, Beijing has yet to win over the Indian public as it lacked a long-term strategy and communication channels, according to Chinese researchers. Beijing needed to find common ground by expanding its bottom-up strategies as “a matter of urgency”, Zhou Qingan, dean of Tsinghua University’s school of journalism, and Li Yiming, a research assistant at the school argued in a recent article. In a June paper published in...