China News

China finished the first high-speed railway tunnel under the Yangtze River on Friday, marking a major step forward in the construction of a line that will one day connect the inland of the country with the coast. The 11.9km (7.4-mile) Caiyuanba Yangtze River Railway Tunnel links two districts in Chongqing and will be a key link in a high-speed line between two key hubs in the southwestern megacity and Xiamen in the southeastern province of Fujian. The project had to overcome the challenges posed...

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On July 13, more than 200 leading economists and AI researchers, including 16 Nobel laureates, signed an open letter organised by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. Its warning was stark: artificial intelligence may drive an economic transformation “larger than the Industrial Revolution” compressed into a fraction of the time, and that we “must act now” to build the institutions to steer it. We agree with every word. Then we scanned the signatory list. Four in five signatories come from the...

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The United States imposed late on Thursday a fresh wave of tariffs against 60 countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, India and European Union member states, hours before a temporary 10 per cent blanket levy was due to expire. The tariffs, ranging from 10 to 12.5 per cent, are the outcome of a Section 301 investigation into forced labour, with Washington arguing that existing measures have failed to keep goods produced with forced labour out of supply chains. “Today’s action will begin...

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Nearly three decades after its return to Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong is once again at an important crossroads. The recent decision by the United States not to renew “The President’s Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization” has once again focused international attention on the city’s future. For some, it represents another chapter in the geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing. For Hong Kong, however, it should also serve as a reminder that its future cannot be defined...

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A group of American tech giants, including Nvidia, Palantir and Meta, signed a public letter on Friday calling for US leadership in open-weight AI models, an area that China currently dominates. The challenge comes amid growing speculation that the Trump administration might introduce restrictions on open AI models. These would aim to address national security risks of the fast-moving technology and combat the growing popularity of Chinese models, a move that critics say would instead hurt US...

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In 138BC, Chinese diplomat and explorer Zhang Qian was sent as an envoy to the western regions. The Han dynasty envoy failed to achieve his emperor’s goal of launching a pincer attack against the Xiongnu nomadic confederation, but he unexpectedly discovered a route. The land route started from Changan, present-day Xian, and passed through Gansu province and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, reaching Central and West Asia, and connecting various countries along the Mediterranean. Among the...

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Each year on July 27, North Korea commemorates “Victory Day”, marking what it presents as its triumph in the Korean war. While few outside the country accept that characterisation, the date underscores a reality: the war never formally ended. The 1953 agreement was an armistice that left the peninsula in a state of suspended conflict. Responsibility for the resulting instability is widely distributed. North Korea’s missile tests, expanding nuclear arsenal and escalatory rhetoric have undermined...

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South Korea has returned a pair of Qing dynasty (1644-1911) marble sculptures to China, a symbolic gesture as the two nations work to repair bilateral ties through cultural diplomacy. The male and female lions, each standing 1.9 metres (6ft) tall and weighing 1.25 tonnes, were officially handed over by the Kansong Art Museum at a ceremony in Seoul on Thursday and were set to depart for China on Friday, according to the Chinese embassy. Senior cultural officials and diplomats from both nations...

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One morning in February 1784, a converted privateer called the Empress of China sailed out of New York harbour. It was bound for a country almost no one aboard had ever seen – China, then ruled by the Qing dynasty. Six months later, it dropped anchor at Canton, the only port where the Qing government allowed Western maritime trade. At the time, the Declaration of Independence was less than a decade old, and the Treaty of Paris recognising American independence had been signed less than a year...

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More than one-third of Americans see China, and not the United States, as the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI), according to a Pew Research Centre survey released on Thursday, as US President Donald Trump confirmed the technology would be on the agenda when his Chinese counterpart visits the US later this year. The survey found that 36 per cent of Americans believe China is more advanced than the United States in developing artificial intelligence. By comparison, only 12 per cent...

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Beijing’s soft power drive to win African hearts through cinema was on display recently in Bujumbura, where Chinese dragon and lion dances merged with sacred Burundian drums to open Chinese Film Week. The Chinese embassy in Bujumbura, the economic capital of Burundi, said the July 15 event offered “a beautiful example of cultural exchanges between the two countries” and that both sides were determined to “make cinema a vehicle for Sino-Burundian friendship”. Zhu Kewei, China’s ambassador to the...

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A People’s Liberation Army helicopter’s unprecedented flight in the Taiwan Strait has raised concerns in Taipei that Beijing is rehearsing a new kind of operation for a potential cross-strait conflict. Taiwan’s defence ministry said it detected four PLA aircraft, including a helicopter and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), operating around the island on July 20 and the following morning. The helicopter and drone crossed the median line and remained east of it for nearly 9.5 hours in the “R9”...

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China and the United States’ agreement to pursue stability appeared to be holding, analysts said, even as President Donald Trump seemed determined to rock the boat ahead of the leaders’ second summit of the year in September. The assessment came as Beijing issued a measured response to his allegations of Chinese interference in the 2020 US elections. That restraint and recent tangible gestures – including Washington lifting sanctions on Hong Kong and the expected trip to the US this week by a...

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US President Donald Trump’s administration will redirect billions of dollars in federal research funding away from universities to individual scientists and AI-focused projects, arguing the overhaul is needed to help the US compete with China. The plan, outlined in a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy report released on Tuesday, comes as the administration warns that China has reached parity with the US in research and development spending over the past 20 years, “a situation...

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Two Chinese nationals pleaded guilty to shipping more than 500 turtles to Hong Kong in violation of American wildlife law, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday. Kin Keung Ho pleaded guilty on Thursday while Lihua Owen Ma pleaded guilty to a similar charge on July 1. Both are residents of Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City. “During the plea hearing, the government proffered that Ho shipped approximately 99 packages containing 578 turtles,” the agency said. “Ho...

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Chinese defence suppliers are hitting a wall when it comes to translating national strategic goals into effective enterprise-level actions, according to an analysis by industry insiders. The study, published in May by the academic journal Defence Industry Conversion in China, identified four major challenges that might undermine the implementation of Beijing’s 2026-2030 plan for the national defence industry. Authors Gao Xufeng and Wu Ke are strategic planning researchers from the Chengdu-based...

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Washington’s recent wave of trade, tech and visa restrictions on China appears to be a deliberate push to build leverage ahead of the presidential summit in September, according to Chinese analysts. However, they warn that such aggressive pressure tactics risk souring the political atmosphere ahead of the high-stakes meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. The assessment comes as the two powers seek to establish a new framework of “constructive strategic stability”, in line with the...

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US senators broadly agree that Chinese connected vehicles should be kept off American roads. But a bipartisan attempt to codify and expand existing restrictions has exposed divisions over whether the proposed ban could ensnare European carmakers and increase costs for American electric-vehicle producers. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation advanced the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, a bill that would prohibit the import, manufacture and sale of connected...

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Brazil that Beijing would continue to support its sovereignty, security, and development interests, hours after a 25 per cent US tariff on Brazilian goods took effect. Wang met Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira on Wednesday in Manila, on the sidelines of the 59th meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) foreign ministers, where Vieira is also attending the third Brazil-Asean ministerial. China would go on to “support Brazil in...

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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China have called for a lasting settlement to the current war in the Middle East and pledged further cooperation on energy security. A joint statement, released after a meeting between the bloc’s foreign ministers and their Chinese counterpart in Manila, came amid an ongoing energy crisis. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused prices to rise and led to shortages across Southeast Asia, prompting the Philippines to declare a national energy...

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Beijing is doubling down on overland trade routes across Central Asia as continued disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the wider region expose the vulnerability of global shipping chokepoints. A new link to Afghanistan via Uzbekistan offers a practical example of this long-term diversification push. However, observers caution that security concerns and capacity constraints could make a meaningful shift away from sea freight difficult. Officially launched in May with pilot shipments, the...

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Washington and Beijing’s top police officials met on Friday in the Chinese capital, the latest meeting by senior level representatives in advance of a much-anticipated summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, expected in the US capital in late September. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel met Wang Xiaohong, China’s state councillor and minister of public security, in Beijing on Friday, according to state news agency Xinhua. Wang said the two...

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Joseph Chang Yanfeng was ordained bishop of Chifeng in China’s northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Wednesday, highlighting the uneasy diplomatic engagement between Beijing and the Vatican on the sensitive issue of Catholic appointments. According to Vatican News, Pope Leo XIV approved Chang’s appointment on June 15, under the terms of the 2018 provisional agreement between the Holy See and Beijing. The ordination fills a vacancy for the Catholic diocese of Chifeng that had lasted nearly...

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing mounting domestic backlash over a potential trade deal with the United States that would place India at the centre of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to redirect agricultural exports displaced by the US-China trade conflict, raising fresh questions about New Delhi’s broader strategic alignment with Washington against Beijing. Thousands of farmers from the northern state of Punjab marched towards Delhi on Tuesday to oppose what they described as a...

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Simon Johnson is a professor of entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he won a joint Nobel Prize for economics in 2024 for his research into how institutions shape national prosperity. On June 8, the British government announced Johnson as chair of its new AI Economics Institute. In this interview, conducted on the sidelines of the UBS Asian Investment Conference in Hong Kong, Johnson discussed the...

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