A congressional advisory panel focused on China has returned from a trip to Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou with commissioners pledging to make the visits an annual event to strengthen engagement and inform their work on US-China relations. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), an independent advisory body established in 2000, provides annual reports and recommendations to lawmakers on trade and national security-related policies. “We are committed to seeking to return at...

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva agreed on Sunday night to accelerate negotiations for a trade agreement between China and Mercosur, a striking reversal for Brasilia, which for years led resistance to such a deal in the South American bloc. The two leaders spoke by telephone for more than an hour, according to a statement from the Brazilian presidency, and “coincided on the importance of speeding up the talks for a Mercosur-China agreement that...

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Two days after the Financial Times warned darkly of China’s “AI diplomacy” in the Global South, here is what that supposedly sinister campaign consists of in practice. The Xinhua News Agency reports on China–Ethiopia cooperation in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, centred on something relatively unglamorous yet genuinely life-saving: weather forecasting. The Ethiopian Meteorological Institute …

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Chinese President Xi Jinping took a phone call from Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on July 27. President Xi noted that in recent years, China and Brazil have made good progress in building a community with a shared future and synergising development strategies. This has played an important role in promoting respective national …

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With less than three months to go until Brazil’s presidential election, China is closely watching a high-stakes political duel between a Beijing-friendly incumbent and his pro-Washington challenger. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who maintains close ties with Beijing, is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term. His rival, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro – son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was jailed last year for attempting a military coup – was confirmed on Saturday as the...

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Chinese researchers have completed trials of a new rare earth-based synthetic rubber production facility, industrialising a major raw material for manufacturing electric vehicle and heavy-duty vehicle tyres. High-quality synthetic rubber, most of which uses metal as a catalyst during production, is vital to the transport industry, manufacturing and national defence. The unit, built by Xinjiang-based PetroChina subsidiary Dushanzi Petrochemical with support from the Changchun Institute of Applied...

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South Asia is undergoing a gradual but important shift. Smaller states now command a widening array of options, and India’s primacy is quietly giving way. The lesson is clear. Regional leadership can no longer rest on geography and must be sustained through credible and mutually beneficial engagements that compare favourably with the alternatives. China’s challenge begins at India’s border. Both countries fought in 1962, continue to dispute a frontier of roughly 3,500km and had their deadliest...

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Taipei mayor Wayne Chiang Wan-an has emerged as the biggest political winner from an opposition protest against the government’s handling of a food safety scandal that drew what organisers said were more than 200,000 people onto the streets of the city. The unexpectedly large turnout on Saturday appears to have given the island’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, fresh momentum ahead of the local elections in November, and could reshape the race to become the party’s candidate in the next...

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Alleged scam-network mastermind Chen Zhi could face the death penalty, with Chinese prosecutors adding intentional injury to the list of charges against him. Chen, 38, was extradited from Cambodia to China six months ago and formally arrested on July 6, according to Chinese business magazine Caixin. He founded the Cambodian conglomerate Prince Group, which authorities say was linked to a sprawling online scam network. Caixin reported on Monday that prosecutors dropped a previous count of...

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After decades of fighting desertification with straw, plants and plastic, Chinese researchers have turned to bamboo – one of the most resilient and sustainable materials on the planet. The fastest-growing plant on Earth has the potential to help overcome challenges with current sand-fixing methods including short lifespan, ecological risks and health issues. Beijing on July 22 released a five-year conservation plan for the country’s forests and grasslands, which includes projects to be...

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Beijing has stepped up its global messaging campaign over East China Sea islets that Tokyo also claims by rolling out a five-part documentary to tell its version of history, as the countries’ relationship continues to be fraught. The state broadcaster’s English-language channel, China Global Television Network (CGTN), released the first part of Diaoyu Dao: Small Islands, Big Stakes on Monday to “examine the history, legal debates and contemporary realities” surrounding the group of small,...

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Following his appointment on July 20 as Britain’s foreign secretary by new prime minister Andy Burnham, Ed Miliband attended meetings around the ASEAN Regional Forum, held this year in the Philippines’ capital Manila, later in the week. Among Miliband’s bilateral meetings was that with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, held on the morning of July …

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The United States has spent decades trying to blunt China’s strategic rise. Yet in the Middle East, sanctions and the war against Iran are now dismantling one of the few assets built to constrain Beijing’s influence in the region. The Iranian port of Chabahar has received strong backing from India, which hoped it would gain both a trade corridor into Afghanistan and Central Asia that bypassed Pakistan and a strategic counterweight to the Chinese-operated Pakistani port of Gwadar. Both Washington...

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China’s agriculture sector needs more advanced technology and innovation to boost yields and improve food security – not more farmland and crops, according to a rural policy expert. The remarks came after a state media investigation alleged that officials in central China had inflated the size of mandatory rice crops to hit their targets. CCTV programme Focus Report aired its investigation on July 14, claiming officials in Jianghua Yao – a county in Yongzhou, Hunan province – had misreported the...

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When Zhou Yuxiang, founder and CEO of Shanghai-headquartered Black Lake Technologies, wanted to sell his artificial intelligence (AI) automation solutions to millions of family-run factories across China, he came up with an unconventional strategy: hiring food delivery workers to make sales. His entire sales team, hired from various industrial cities, survived a gruelling five-day boot camp on articulating how AI can solve specific manufacturing pain points. “They are very street-smart,” the...

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Chinese scientists have developed a way to create clothing and textiles from a fungus that can self-clean and regenerate. The fabric can also be customised – for example to add colour or protect the wearer from ultraviolet (UV) rays – with the help of other microorganisms, according to a study published on Friday. A persistent challenge for engineered living materials (ELMs) has been scaling up microscopic living cells into large, durable structures that remain alive and functional. A research...

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Beijing student Lulu Lu was just preparing for bed when she was startled by loud banging at her door. When she opened the door, a man pushed his way inside, shone a flashlight in her face and shouted: “Get down. Give me your phone.” Lu froze. Moments later, she came to her senses and did as she was told, burying her face in the mattress and raising her hands above her head. The intruder blindfolded Lu, tied her hands and finally made her record a phone message for her parents – begging them to...

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A leading Chinese scientist is under investigation by his university after a six-year-old girl reportedly died following experimental gene-editing therapy. The girl, named Mei, died days after receiving a treatment designed to correct a genetic mutation affecting her neurodevelopment in March last year, according to a report published by Science following a joint investigation with Retraction Watch, a non-profit organisation that monitors retracted research. Her parents said she had suffered a...

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Search and rescue teams continued searching for 17 missing sailors on Sunday after a Vietnamese cargo vessel sank in the South China Sea, Chinese state media reported. The Khoi Nguyen 18 had 62 crew members on board when it ran into difficulty and sank near Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands on Saturday evening. As of Sunday afternoon, 45 survivors had been rescued and the search for the others was continuing, state broadcaster CCTV reported. All those on board were Vietnamese...

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Minutes after a Berlin court sentenced a Chinese man to five years in prison for aiding and abetting aggravated rape and sexual coercion, two women who had sat through the trial hugged each other and cried. But the case left one of those women, named Kristina, balancing mixed emotions as she struggled to reconcile her desire to see the perpetrators punished and questions about what justice really meant in a case of this nature. The 32-year-old accused, who was studying medicine, was jailed for...

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In an unprecedented move, China has placed a Polish university alongside defence contractors on an export control list targeting entities linked to the European security sector. Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (PWr) was among 14 European Union entities added to a dual-use export control list by the Chinese commerce ministry on Friday. The ministry said the additions, effective immediately, were in response to EU sanctions imposed on Thursday against 14 mainland Chinese and Hong Kong...

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As Typhoon Noul barrelled into southern China on Sunday with winds reaching 160km/h (99mph), violent gusts ripped a cot from indoors and flipped it over several metres away, sending the child inside flying to the ground. Hongxing News, a Chinese media outlet, reported that a six-year-old girl lying in her cot in the southern city of Shenzhen was blown from inside a building onto the grass verge outside. Footage released by Hongxing showed a ground-floor grocery shop being battered by the gale,...

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A team of Chinese scientists says it has developed an alloy that retains strength at ultra-high temperatures using tantalum – a very hard and flexible metal. For applications in aerospace, hypersonic vehicles and nuclear reactors, materials must endure both extreme heat and heavy loads. But most metals fail above 2,000 degrees Celsius (3,632 degrees Fahrenheit) – they either melt or soften to a putty-like consistency. New research is challenging that limit. According to a paper published last...

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China’s biggest technology companies gave a US congressional delegation the cold shoulder during a recent visit. Analysts said this decision – which denied the visitors a rare insider’s view of one of the world’s fastest-moving artificial intelligence ecosystems – reflected Beijing’s increasingly selective approach to AI diplomacy. It also highlights a paradox: while the two powers continue to pursue dialogue on AI safety, many of the channels that once helped them understand each other are...

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The future of a mainland Chinese film calling for reunification with Taiwan has been thrown into uncertainty as it faces a surprising backlash from nationalistic voices. The Belief tells the story of how in 1683, Emperor Kangxi of the Qing dynasty ordered Shi Lang, the admiral of the Fujian navy, to lead the Qing army to a major victory over the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan, which considered itself part of the then-overthrown Ming dynasty. The battle, known as the Battle of Penghu, ultimately...

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