Tributes have been flooding in for former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, the reformist statesman who played a leading role in integrating China’s economy into the global system and charmed neighbouring countries with his candid diplomacy. In a deeply personal tribute posted on social media, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim described Zhu, who died on Wednesday at the age of 97, as “a good friend”. The pair worked together to strengthen economic ties between the two countries, building a...

The Trump administration on Thursday released a sharply worded report accusing Chinese exporters of orchestrating a system of “illegal transshipment” through more than 40 third countries to dodge US tariffs, branding the practice “The Great Transshipment Scam”. The 25-page document claims Chinese firms have systematically diverted goods through lower-tariff jurisdictions since the US kicked off its trade war with China in 2018. It alleges that exporters use limited assembly, relabelling,...

The security pact signed on Friday by three of the world’s most powerful Muslim nations with a vow to enhance collective deterrence remains far from what many are calling an Islamic Nato, according to experts. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf’s top oil exporter, Nato member Turkey and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed South Asian state, would be challenged by diverging strategic interests and weak mutual defence capacity, they said. The Mecca pact’s statement that...

Ethiopia’s new US$12.5 billion mega-airport project has thrust the nation into the heart of a geopolitical tug of war between the United States and China. Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest carrier, is developing the massive Bishoftu International Airport, located 40km (25 miles) southeast of the capital Addis Ababa to serve as a primary hub for African trade and travel. The project has triggered intense competition between would-be contractors from around the world, but Chinese state-owned...

Welcome to Open Dialogue, a series from the South China Morning Post where we bring together leading voices to discuss the stories and subjects occupying international headlines. In this edition, we invited a leading Chinese scholar of South Asian affairs and a former Indian foreign secretary and ambassador to China to reflect on the deep fault lines in India-China relations. They debate whether the biggest barrier is history or politics, clash over the border, Pakistan and India’s ties with the...

US prosecutors have charged 11 people over an alleged decade-long network that arranged more than 1,000 sham marriages, primarily for Chinese nationals seeking green cards, including matches with at least 14 active-duty American soldiers. About 11 of the soldiers, who were stationed at a US Army base in Kentucky, were paired with Chinese citizens between May 2023 and August 2025, according to a 21-page indictment unsealed on Wednesday in federal court in New York. The indictment did not identify...

China said on Wednesday it would help Colombia recover from the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck the country’s west on Monday, killing more than 200 people. Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Beijing would do what it could in suitable ways, in line with what Colombia requested, in response to questions from Xinhua and Telesur at a briefing in Beijing. Guo said no Chinese nationals had been reported killed or injured in the disaster, and that the embassy in Bogota was “working to...

As President Xi Jinping prepares for summit talks with Donald Trump in Washington next month, the United States is closing one of the few remaining openings between the two countries by targeting scientific research. This field has been one of the most durable links in the US-China relationship, but a series of new security-related restrictions on federally funded collaborations with Chinese institutions mark the latest, and arguably most consequential, step in a years-long shift away from...