Disciplinary authorities in central China are investigating a county-level Communist Party chief following a coal mine gas blast that killed 82 people and left two missing. Zhao Yongjin, party secretary of Qinyuan county in Changzhi, was “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law”, the Shanxi provincial discipline inspection and supervisory commission, an anti-corruption watchdog, said on Tuesday night. The blast at the Liushenyu Coal Mine on May 22 was China’s deadliest mine...

Chinese authorities have praised the return of Tianya – which was one of the country’s most popular internet forums in the pre-algorithm, pre-short-video era – while cautioning that freedom of speech must be balanced with responsibility. The pioneering web portal was launched by Tianya Community Network Technology Co in 1999, when the internet was in its infancy in China, but suddenly closed in April 2023 due to financial problems. On Sunday, the company announced that the forum would come back...

Aerodynamics expert Gu Songfen has died at 96. He was the chief designer of China’s J-8 fighter jet family – the first home-grown supersonic fighter jet to counter US high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. Gu was an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering as well as a researcher at the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). He died in Beijing on Sunday night, according to a statement from AVIC. A farewell ceremony is scheduled for Saturday in...

Chinese authorities praised the decision of Taiwanese actress and model Lin Chi-ling to quit her position as a new board member of the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), after her appointment drew backlash. Chen Binhua, a spokesman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said at a press conference on Wednesday that the TAICCA had orchestrated and funded films and television productions in recent years that “distort history and hype the ‘mainland threat’”. “It serves as a political tool for...

A Chinese aerospace engineer has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for espionage, according to state media, with the report underscoring official warnings that the aerospace industry is a cornerstone of national technological strength and defence security. The engineer, surnamed Zhu, graduated from a top university with a PhD in 2018, state broadcaster CCTV said on Monday. He then worked as an engineer in multiple aerospace research institutes and handled classified documents in the aerospace...

A gas explosion that killed at least 82 people in central China – the country’s worst mining disaster in more than a decade – was the result of systemic safety failures across multiple parts of the production chain, according to miners and industry insiders. The Friday blast at the Liushenyu Coal Mine in Shanxi province also left two people missing and 128 survivors in hospital, including two in critical condition. Miners interviewed by the South China Morning Post said several workers had not...

The owners of a Chinese coal mine where at least 82 people were killed have been accused of “serious violations of the law” by the local government. As search and rescue operations continued through the night, Chen Xiangyang, the deputy Communist Party secretary of Changzhi in Shanxi province, said that all four mines operated by the Shanxi Tongzhou Group had been “immediately” ordered to suspend operations. “Preliminary assessment indicates serious legal violations by the coal mine enterprise...