A raw, handcrafted Chinese animation has become an unlikely box-office sensation despite being widely panned by critics and social media users. Niu Lai, or The Arrival of the Ox, has been criticised for its “rough” and “broken” style and a plot that many viewers found hard to follow. But the film has generated some of the loudest online discussion in recent days, despite the competition from two Hollywood blockbusters: Christopher Nolan’s epic version of The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New...

A leading Communist Party research group has invoked the legacy of China’s former leader Jiang Zemin in a call to rally round President Xi Jinping. The article by the Institute of Party History and Literature, published on Sunday in the party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily, formed part of the commemorations of the centenary of Jiang’s birth and highlighted the importance of supporting the leadership in the face of economic or geopolitical difficulties. “Under the party’s third-generation leadership...

China should speed up plans to commandeer civilian ships for wartime operations, drawing lessons from Britain’s use of commercial vessels during the 1982 Falklands conflict, according to a defence researcher at Beijing’s top economic planning agency. As maritime security threats and great-power competition grow, Beijing should make greater use of civilian ships to support military operations, according to an article published last month in Defence Industry Conversion in China. “As China’s...

Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji will be cremated in Beijing on Tuesday, with flags across the country – including in Hong Kong and Macau – flown at half-mast, state media reported on Sunday. Zhu, who served as premier from 1998 to 2003 and played a pivotal role in transitioning China towards a market-based economy, died of an illness in Beijing on Wednesday at age 97. According to state news agency Xinhua, national flags will fly at half-mast on Tuesday at sites in Beijing, including Tiananmen...

Chinese scientists have developed an AI model they say could be used to predict the risk of depression up to four years in advance. Major Depressive Disorder affects over 332 million people worldwide, according to the researchers at Shenzhen University, and is notoriously difficult to treat. The ability to predict the risk of depression and take preventive measures could prove a significant public health benefit. The model was built using data from two clinical trials on adolescent depression...

Tensions between Beijing and Manila appear to have spilled over from the South China Sea to immigration, just as Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr indicated he wanted to “reset” ties. Manila on Sunday dismissed Beijing’s criticism of Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr over his role in the arrests of Chinese workers at a steel plant in Misamis Oriental in May. A Chinese embassy official in Manila late on Saturday accused Teodoro of carrying out “anti-China activities” to “disrupt”...

Africa is emerging as fertile ground for Beijing’s drive to make the yuan a major international currency and reduce reliance on the US dollar, as an increasing number of financial institutions deepen their integration with China’s payment network. Following talks in Beijing between Central Bank of Libya Governor Naji Issa and People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng last month, the country’s banks are set to join China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), an alternative to the...

Electric eels hunt in pitch-black, murky waters by generating electric fields around their bodies. Now, Chinese scientists have mimicked this natural radar, giving robots the ability to “feel” objects without making physical contact. “We want the machine to sense an approaching target – distinguish its material and surface condition – before any physical contact,” said Zhang Weiqiang, a professor at Xidian University, in a video interview last week. The team’s work was published last month in...

During a crackdown on organised crime, Zeng Jianbin, a real estate developer in Mianyang, in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for being a “gang leader”. In 2023, the Mianyang Intermediate People’s Court convicted Zeng of nine offences, including provoking trouble, illegal lending at high interest and intentional destruction of property. His sentence was particularly harsh because of the organised crime accusations. But two years later, during his...

A China-led team has cleared the last major hurdle in the race to commercialise the most promising alternative to conventional silicon solar technology, paving the way for the next generation of low-cost, high-efficiency panels to be made on an industrial scale. Researchers from China and Canada, led by Nanjing University, have developed a super-stable coating for perovskite – an ultra-thin, lightweight material that can be printed onto large surfaces – suitable for patching the tiny defects...