The Pentagon’s newly expanded blacklist of Chinese military-linked companies has tested the fragile stability reached at last month’s summit, highlighting that intense competition persists despite recent efforts to ease bilateral tensions. On Monday, the US Defence Department released its updated Section 1260H list as required by American law, expanding the roster to 188 entities, up from 134 last year. Many of China’s technology and industrial giants were targeted. E-commerce giant Alibaba,...

The post-summit detente between Washington and Beijing has moved from diplomatic language to institutional design. Less than three weeks after the summit between President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, the US Trade Representative (USTR) asked companies to identify “non-sensitive” Chinese goods that might qualify for tariff relief under a new US-China Board of Trade. On the same day, the USTR also proposed Section 301 duties on imports from 60 economies, including China, after its...

If the Democrats win control of Congress in America’s midterm elections it could bring “renewed volatility” to relations with China, a veteran Chinese diplomat has warned. “The results [of the 2026 midterms] … are likely to have a profound impact on the stability of China-US relations,” said Bian Qingzu, former secretary general of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. Founded in 1954, the association has long been a conduit to foster non-governmental exchanges...

The European Commission has declared its trade and economic relationship with China “unsustainable”, pointing to a daily trade deficit of €1 billion (US$1.16 billion) and Chinese manufacturing overcapacity that puts millions of jobs across various sectors at risk. However, a clear-eyed analysis reveals this premise to be entirely flawed. The narrative spun by Brussels is a desperate attempt to weaponise trade policy to mask structural, self-inflicted failures. To understand the absurdity of the...

The United States launched fresh strikes against Iran on Tuesday, prompting retaliation from Tehran, which targeted a major US naval base in Bahrain and an airbase in Jordan. It came just hours after US President Donald Trump vowed to retaliate for what he described as the hostile downing of an American AH-64 Apache attack helicopter over the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The escalation tested a fragile US-Iran ceasefire that had taken effect on April 8 as both sides negotiate terms to end the...

The US Court of International Trade is pressing the Trump administration to speed up tariff refunds of billions of dollars to thousands of importers, following a partial roll-out after the US Supreme Court struck down its global tariffs in February. “The time has come to refund all the duties,” said Judge Richard Eaton on Tuesday, adding that the delay is leading to a “growing inequity” between big importers and small businesses. The judge did not issue any new order but noted that the...

A US prosecutor’s newly revealed diaries from World War II have laid bare the gruelling effort to document Japanese wartime atrocities in China and the unlikely bond forged between him and the people he helped. The diaries belonged to David Nelson Sutton, an American assistant prosecutor at the Tokyo Trial, or the International Military Tribunal for the Far East – a landmark international judicial effort. The tribunal drew upon a vast “evidence wall” comprising nearly 50,000 pages of trial...