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...

Two Western defence companies appear to have Chinese warships in their sights, with promotional videos of their weapons systems targeting vessels that look a lot like those belonging to the PLA Navy. London-based BAE Systems posted videos on social media on Wednesday for “game-changing naval weapons and launching systems” it said it was showcasing at a US defence industry conference last week. One animated video simulated a naval base under attack. The base then launches missiles from containers...

Chinese nuclear scientists have developed a world-class “microscopic scalpel” essential to various forms of chipmaking, potentially unblocking a bottleneck in the country’s efforts to fortify key supply chains. The China Institute of Atomic Energy said on Saturday that it had developed the nation’s first high-energy hydrogen ion implanter called the POWER-750H, saying it performed on a par with advanced international standards. Ion implanters are a critical part of some forms of semiconductor...

The latest developments in Venezuela are interpreted as part of a broader US strategy to secure access to major oil resources. They are much more than that: the US raid signals a transformation in the global economy wherein a country’s power is increasingly determined not by its political actions, but by its capacity to embed resource wealth within a self-sustaining production system. These deeper processes did not begin today, but rather around 2008-2009 when, according to an integrated...

A tiny but destructive invader is threatening South America, and Uruguay’s iconic palm trees are on the front line. Since 2022, the National Emergency System in coordination with agricultural agencies and with operational support from the air force, has struggled to contain the red palm weevil outbreak, prompting them to call scientists to help. Experts from the Technological University of Uruguay (UTEC) stepped in with an innovative detection strategy using drones and aerial imaging, but...

Researchers at Tencent Holdings are looking to collaborate with other major artificial intelligence developers to improve how most generative AI services, such as chatbots, interact with the elderly, left-behind children and other vulnerable users in society. Specialised data sets can make AI services more helpful to vulnerable users who have become progressively reliant on them for emotional support and health assistance, according to Lu Shiyu, a senior researcher at Tencent Research Institute...

The People’s Liberation Army said it sent a drone into airspace near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island on Saturday, as Beijing ramps up military pressure amid soaring cross-strait tensions. The deployment was “a routine flight training in the airspace around China’s Dongsha Island, which was completely legitimate and lawful”, the PLA Southern Theatre Command, which oversees the South China Sea, said in a statement on Saturday. It came hours after the Taiwanese defence ministry reported that a...

A giant airship launched in a densely populated area of southwestern China earlier this month has set social media on fire. Footage of the S2000, the world’s most powerful flying wind farm, in the skies above Yibin, Sichuan province, prompted comparisons with an alien spaceship or the airships that featured in the animated film Big Hero 6. The white airship – measuring 60 metres (200 feet) in length and a width and height of 40 metres – was filled with helium on the ground before ascent,...

More economy and mid-range hotel operators in China are leasing office buildings for conversion to guest accommodation, and such flexible, mixed-use approaches are expected to increase amid a continued weakening of the office market. In some Chinese cities, the practice of multiple hotel brands co-leasing separate floors within a single building has become more prevalent, fuelled by interest from both property owners and hotel operators. In Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China’s Zhejiang...

Last week’s naval drills involving China, Russia, Iran and host country South Africa signalled a shift for Brics beyond its traditional focus on economic cooperation, analysts said, as the US noted it had closely monitored the exercise. However, observers also described the high-profile exercise as largely symbolic, calling it a diplomatic statement of intent rather than a step towards a formal military alliance. The “Will for Peace 2026” drills were launched at a port in Cape Town on January 9...

Like many of her classmates, Xie Roumei, a 28-year-old accountant from China’s Fujian province, started using South Korean cosmetics in high school – a preference she carried into her twenties. Most of the eye make-up and beauty products she uses are still Korean, Xie said – a loyalty that has helped turn its cosmetics industry into a global powerhouse, with exports rivalling those of semiconductors and cars. Fuelled by the global appeal of K-pop, K-dramas and the “glass skin” ideal, the...

America’s military action in Venezuela and President Donald Trump’s talk of owning Greenland are stoking concerns that the United States is dismantling the rules-based global order. But this could also be a diplomatic opening for China as it tries to portray itself, in contrast, as a more responsible and stabilising power. Analysts said while this aligned with Beijing’s push to strengthen ties with its neighbours – a strategic move as its rivalry with Washington has intensified – concrete...

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has warned against external “interference” in Iran’s governance, offering support to Tehran in a thinly veiled rebuke of Washington. In a statement issued on Friday, the security bloc led by China and Russia expressed “grave concern” over the “recent tragic events in the Islamic Republic of Iran”, saying they had caused “casualties among civilians and law enforcement officials”. “The SCO opposes interference in the internal affairs of the Islamic...

Chinese researchers and Japanese activists have renewed calls for Japan to return a Tang dynasty relic looted over 120 years ago. The effort to recover the Tang Honglu Well Stele comes amid rising regional tensions and Beijing’s ongoing national campaign to reclaim cultural heritage. Shanghai University’s Research Centre for Chinese Relics Overseas and Japanese cultural groups issued a joint declaration on Friday urging Tokyo to “correct historical errors” and return the stone monument, Chinese...

The United States’ decision to withdraw from dozens of UN and other international organisations may have dealt another blow to Taiwan’s efforts to raise its global profile amid mounting pressure from Beijing. While Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te’s government has sought to play down the impact, observers have warned that Washington’s retreat could further squeeze the island’s already narrow international space. US President Donald Trump on January 7 ordered the US to exit 66 international...

China’s total electricity consumption hit a record high of 10.4 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2025, more than double that of the US, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Saturday. The 5 per cent jump from the previous year marked the first time in China’s history that annual electricity consumption had surpassed 10 trillion kWh – the highest in the world and more than the combined total of the European Union, Russia, India and Japan, state broadcaster CCTV said, citing NEA...

US President Donald Trump’s call for American credit card interest rates to be capped at 10 per cent for a year has sparked a debate in China about whether Beijing should impose a similar limit on online loans. The discussion comes as many in China – especially younger people – are being enticed by credit offers amid a weak job market and a boom in online loan services. “Apps now keep luring young people into borrowing,” a finance blogger with nearly 500,000 followers wrote in a social media...

For 26-year-old Tianjin office worker Celine Wang, it is an extra cup of milk tea. “One for me and the other for lao ji,” she said, placing the double order on a workday afternoon in January. “After going through all the difficulties from trying to be the best performer at school to surviving at my workplace, I feel tired. “I’ve decided to treat myself well … ai ni lao ji,” she said, using a buzzword that took off in the gaming world and has become a mantra for personal wellness in China. The...

Beijing is urging Phnom Penh to broaden its crackdown on Cambodia’s online fraud industry, keeping up pressure following the arrest and extradition to China of alleged fraud kingpin Chen Zhi. In a meeting with Phnom Penh’s interior and foreign ministers, Chinese ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wenbin said criminal acts of online fraud, illegal detention and related transnational crimes “posed a serious obstacle” to deepening cooperation between the two countries. “Recent incidents involving Chinese...

The seizure of enormous cryptocurrency caches in two high-profile criminal cases in China – a former head of the central bank’s digital currency research institute accused of corruption, and an alleged scam centre kingpin linked to about US$15 billion in bitcoin – have sparked questions in the country about the safety and future of virtual money. But analysts said the long-term trend for the assets, especially bitcoin, depended on institutional capital, interest rate expectations and the...

Chinese scientists have found a way to recycle lithium batteries using only carbon dioxide and water – eliminating the need for harsh, polluting chemicals to extract the lithium and upcycle cathode materials. The team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Institute of Technology said they used a “three-in-one” strategy to improve lithium recovery, upgrade transition metals like cobalt and nickel, and sequester carbon to eliminate waste by-products. Their method achieved a lithium...

US President Donald Trump on Friday brushed aside concerns over a Canada-China trade deal involving Ottawa agreeing to reduce tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, saying it was “a good thing” for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to pursue the deal. “That’s OK. That’s what he should be doing. It’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, you should do that,” Trump said, when asked about the agreement announced earlier in the day. The remarks not only...

It took the United States less than three hours to stun the world with its abduction of the sitting leader of a sovereign state, but the strategic ramifications of that dramatic operation are likely to reverberate for decades. In laying bare the limits of China’s economic-centric diplomacy towards third countries in its competition with the US, the Venezuela crisis has delivered a stark reminder that spheres of influence continue to shape global politics in this new era of great power...

Hua Chunying, China’s foreign vice-minister, beamed this week as she presented a leading Czech lawmaker with a decorative porcelain plate – a gift that signalled a possible thaw in ties between Prague and Beijing. The image sent tongues wagging in Europe: a symbol that a new Chinese charm offensive towards a Europe jilted by its erstwhile ally across the Atlantic had reached even its most hawkish capitals. China has spent the opening weeks of the year courting European governments, offering...

We have selected seven of the most interesting and important news stories covering US-China relations from the past few weeks. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. BYD’s win, Tesla’s defeat, Ford’s pivot: the widening gap in US-China EV markets After years of competing head-to-head with China in electric vehicles, the United States is now widely seen as falling behind – a reality increasingly acknowledged even within Detroit. Read the full story...

China’s state-owned power grid giant has pledged to increase fixed-asset investment by 40 per cent over the next five years, at a time when some analysts view electricity capacity as a strategic asset in the US-China rivalry amid soaring demand from artificial intelligence (AI) and other power-hungry industries. The State Grid Corporation of China expects the investment amount to reach 4 trillion yuan (US$574 billion) through 2030, a company record, as it accelerates efforts to build a “new-type...

Taiwan has secured a US deal slashing export tariffs to 15 per cent after more than nine months of talks, with Taipei hailing the result as a “home run” that will put the island on an equal footing with Japan and South Korea. But observers and opposition parties have raised sharp concerns over Taiwan’s commitment to invest up to US$500 billion in the United States in exchange for the tariff cut. The arrangement could hollow out Taiwan’s industrial base – particularly its prized semiconductor...

China trimmed its holdings of US Treasuries in November to the lowest level since 2008, diverging from a global trend that saw total foreign ownership of the debt instruments hit a record high. Analysts say the prospect of a politicised Federal Reserve chairmanship under Donald Trump’s presidency has deepened Beijing’s concerns over its exposure to American debt, with more cuts expected. Beijing’s stockpile fell to US$682.6 billion in November, down from US$688.7 billion in October, according to...

Kenya has reached a preliminary trade deal with China for duty-free exports of key products including coffee, tea and cut flowers – a major step towards narrowing the East African nation’s long-standing trade gap with Beijing. The “early harvest” framework grants duty-free access to the Chinese market for 98.2 per cent of Kenyan exports, as announced by the Kenyan Ministry of Trade on Thursday – less than a month after negotiations closed on December 19. While the deal provides an immediate...

Chinese scientists have made the first direct observation of a quantum effect that was proposed almost 90 years ago and could help detect dark matter, the universe’s invisible “glue”. Soviet physicist Arkady Migdal developed a theory in Leningrad in 1939 about what would happen when a neutral particle – such as dark matter – collided with an atomic nucleus. Migdal believed that the collision would cause the nucleus to recoil and trigger a secondary electronic recoil, generating a detectable...

Days after the operation that abducted then Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, President Donald Trump’s nominee to command US forces in Latin America dodged pressure from senators to endorse a military-first plan to counter China’s growing influence in the region. Lieutenant General Francis Donovan, who is nominated to lead US Southern Command (Southcom), repeatedly declined to say whether Washington should rely mainly on force projection to push back against Beijing’s expanding footprint. The...

Chinese President Xi Jinping has refocused national anti-corruption efforts on illegal villas and “private resorts”, luxury developments that have come to symbolise excess and graft over the past two decades. According to newly released excerpts of a speech, Xi singled out the developments for special mention at the central urban work conference in July, highlighting them as examples of the need to improve governance, combat corruption and promote sustainable urban development. “[Officials must]...

China and Canada have agreed to remove the triple-digit tariffs imposed on each other’s imports – a major thaw in relations after years of icy diplomatic and trade ties – as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney wrapped up his state visit in Beijing. Canada will remove the additional 100 per cent in tariffs it had levied on Chinese electric vehicle (EV) imports – imposed in 2024 following a similar move from the United States – while China will lower its tariffs on Canadian canola, Carney said on...

China accounted for more than four out of five humanoid robot installations globally in 2025, driven by domestic start-ups AgiBot and Unitree Robotics, as mass production and commercialisation accelerated, according to a report by Counterpoint Research. A total of 16,000 humanoid robots were installed globally in 2025, mainly for data collection and research, as well as in the logistics, manufacturing, and automotive sectors, according to Counterpoint data released on Wednesday. The market was...

How to beat the United States in gene editing? A research team from Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences had struggled with this question for three years, with no results. Then they decided to draw inspiration from an ancient woodwork tradition and cut DNA like wood. It led to a gene-editing tool with unprecedented efficiency. In the Chinese mortise-and-tenon joint technique known as sunmao, no nails or glue are used. Instead, a protruding “tenon” on one piece fits securely into...

Chinese state security authorities have warned of the risk of “honey traps” in the defence and technology sectors, saying that in one case a public official was blackmailed into surrendering state secrets following a trip abroad. In an article published on Wednesday, a social media account affiliated with the National Administration of State Secrets Protection said defence industry personnel were becoming targets of honey traps set by foreign intelligence agencies. According to the account...

China’s top diplomat in the United States delivered a sharply worded rebuke on Thursday over US President Donald Trump’s tumultuous approach to global relations, laying out a stark choice between a world informed by China-led stability and one battered by Washington. Chinese ambassador Xie Feng’s comments to the 1,000-member China General Chamber of Commerce come two weeks into Trump’s second year of his latest term in the White House. The past fortnight has already seen the Trump administration...

China and Canada have embarked on a new strategic partnership, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in the Chinese capital on Friday as he announced a series of deals and suggested that Beijing was a “more predictable” partner than Washington. After talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Carney, whose four-day visit to China ends on Saturday, said the two countries made “significant progress” on key issues during a “historic and productive two days”. He said bilateral ties had been...

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Chinese military says it is developing over 10 quantum warfare weapons The People’s Liberation Army said more than 10 experimental quantum cyber warfare tools were “under development”, many of which were being “tested in front-line...

Shares of Chinese electricity and grid equipment makers surged after State Grid unveiled a 4 trillion yuan (US$574 billion) plan to upgrade the country’s power networks, as surging demand and the global race in artificial intelligence drive investment in energy infrastructure. Transformer makers Sieyuan Electric and Shanghai Guangdian Electric triggered the trading halt mechanism after surging 10 per cent on Friday morning. At least 11 mainland-listed companies rose 10 per cent or more in the...

Chinese scientists have unlocked a revolutionary supercooling innovation in semiconductor technology, paving the way for a 40 per cent leap in the performance of gallium nitride-based radar systems, which are widely used in China’s most advanced stealth aircraft. The new Chinese-made chips can handle extreme power loads in the X and Ka bands – frequencies critical for advanced radar systems, satellite communications and next-generation wireless computer networks. “This is the most significant...

America’s ambassador to China, David Perdue, will visit Hong Kong at the end of January to speak at a business conference, according to sources. Perdue will address the Goldman Sachs Global Macro Conference Asia-Pacific 2026 on January 27, several people familiar with the matter told the South China Morning Post. They said the envoy was expected to spend “several days” in the city. The US consulate in Hong Kong, the Commissioner’s Office of the Chinese foreign ministry in Hong Kong and the Hong...

United States President Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda is helping to make China great again and ushering in a “truly multipolar world”, according to a survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations. “A year on from Trump’s return, in countries across the globe, many people believe China is on the verge of becoming even more powerful,” the think tank said after surveying 25,949 people from 21 countries, including the US, China, Russia, Britain and Brazil. Most respondents thought...

Concerns about China’s slowing economic growth and “strained” Beijing-Washington relations rank as the top two concerns among members of the American Chamber of Commerce in China this year, according to a chamber survey released on Friday. The growth concern was raised by 64 per cent of the 368 respondents, making it the leading issue, the annual China Business Climate Survey found. Fifty-two per cent of respondents reported being profitable or very profitable last year, 6 percentage points more...

One of China’s latest Earth observation satellites operating in low orbit could feature an optical aperture at a two-metre scale with “global leading” remote sensing capabilities, according to a China Science Daily report on Thursday last week. The report refers to the Yaogan-47 satellite, which was launched aboard a Long March 4B carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on December 9. For comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope and likely the US KH-11 spy satellite have main...

China’s move to raise margin requirements for leveraged stock trading signalled regulators’ push to steer clear of boom-and-bust cycles, while strengthening the stock market’s role in funding the country’s tech self-sufficiency efforts, according to analysts. “The signal from regulators was crystal-clear: guide the market towards a stable transition to a slow bull run,” said Wang Jun, a strategist at BOC International in Shanghai. “Investors should reduce their leverage levels to guard against...

Blending economic nationalism with geopolitical leverage, US President Donald Trump’s top trade official delivered a pointed message to Taiwan shortly after Washington announced an ambitious deal on Thursday to bring critical technology manufacturing, including semiconductors, back to the United States. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick framed the massive reshoring initiative as not just a business transaction, but as a strategic imperative for Taiwan to maintain favour with the “America...

A US spending bill approving US$300 million in cash assistance for Taiwan’s military has passed the House of Representatives and is expected to become law. On Wednesday, the House passed a two-bill government spending package that would fund the Departments of the Treasury and State through September, along with other federal agencies, bringing the total to eight of 12 annual spending bills needed by January 30, to avoid a government shutdown. The bills must now clear the Senate before they can...

China’s eastern tech powerhouse Zhejiang, home to giants like Alibaba and the humanoid robotics start-up Unitree, has set clear targets to develop cutting-chips and chipmaking equipment over the next five years. The province is the latest locality to prioritise innovation under its new five-year plan. It joins other hubs, including Shenzhen and Shanghai, that have thrown their weight behind Beijing’s nationwide strategy to develop indigenous technologies amid an intensifying rivalry with the...

If you were asked which middle-income country has one of the lowest levels of educational attainment, very few would say China. We continually hear stories about mass university expansion, record numbers of annual graduates and elite institutions that rank among the world’s best. Despite these impressive strides, gaps in education remain a large roadblock for China’s further economic development. The country remains largely undereducated for its level of economic development: only about 31 per...