China News

China plans to complete a geological map of Mars by the end of 2028, as the red planet increasingly features in its space rivalry with the United States. Hou Zengqian, chief scientist of China’s next Mars mission known as Tianwen-3, on Monday said the map would cover the entire surface of the planet and it aimed to be the global standard for the Martian geological ages. State news agency Xinhua reported that the map would be the first AI-driven geological map of Mars and would be an important...

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The official opening of the Pinglu Canal on September 16 is a milestone in modern Chinese history. More than an infrastructural feat, it signals a strategic recalibration of how China’s inland economies connect with the sea and Southeast Asia, and augurs the next phase of regional growth. Designed for vessels of up to 5,000 tonnes, the 134.2km (83.4 mile) waterway stretches from the Xijin reservoir in Hengzhou, an emerging city in Guangxi, to the Gulf of Tonkin (known as the Beibu Gulf in...

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A Chinese team has set a world record for the most autonomous underwater drones operating at the same time, deploying more than a hundred of the small robots in a swimming pool test. The Guinness World Record for “most autonomous underwater vehicles operating simultaneously” was set by a team from Northwestern Polytechnical University in collaboration with Xian Tianhe Maritime Technologies. The trial involved a swarm of 116 autonomous underwater vehicles – called TH-618s, the university said in...

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US soybean farmers have described the exclusion of US soybeans from China’s import list under the newly announced Board of Trade mechanism as a “missed opportunity”, even as Beijing ramped up purchases of the crop ahead of last week’s summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump. The trade forum, unveiled by both sides on Sunday, covered a range of US agricultural products for export to China, including meat, dairy, corn, wheat, sorghum and vegetable oils, but...

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The US-China AI competition faces a dilemma. Both countries see artificial intelligence as a source of economic, scientific and strategic power, so neither has much incentive to slow down. Yet the more capable and autonomous AI becomes, the more important the question of human control. Last week’s summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping brought that tension into the open. Trump wants to leave AI “exactly where it is” rather than add new guardrails, while Xi...

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China will stand by Cuba in defending its sovereignty and resisting outside interference, foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Monday as Washington stepped up its campaign to force political change in Havana. Guo made the remarks at a regular press briefing in Beijing on the 66th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. “No matter how the international landscape evolves, China will firmly support Cuba in exploring the socialist development path suited to its...

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A heavily redacted police report has deepened the mystery surrounding the death of a young Chinese semiconductor researcher at the University of Michigan, who took his own life soon after what US federal agents described as a routine and voluntary interview. On the cold morning of March 18, Wang Danhao, 31, spoke with two Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers for about 10 minutes outside his rented home in Ann Arbor. When one officer offered to end the interview because of the weather,...

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China’s top state research body has put artificial intelligence and other frontier technologies at the heart of its new five-year plan, unveiled on Monday, as global competition in science and technology heats up. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s highest academic institution, laid out a detailed blueprint for research and technology development aligned with the country’s 15th five-year plan covering 2026 to 2030. The plan focuses on innovation in areas including artificial intelligence...

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President Xi Jinping has ordered China’s security and legal apparatus to relentlessly eliminate risks and build a “safer” country a year ahead of the pivotal 21st Communist Party congress, which will usher in a major leadership reshuffle. The latest instruction, published by state news agency Xinhua on Monday night, is also the Chinese leader’s first major domestic directive since his state visit to Washington last week, signalling a pivot back to the domestic agenda – especially stability. In a...

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In a first, a Chinese company has achieved high-parameter hydrogen-boron plasma control, marking a “significant and valuable” advance in research into neutron-free magnetic confinement fusion. ENN Group, based in Langfang, Hebei province, announced on Monday that its EXL-50U spherical device – a compact tokamak that uses a magnetic field to confine charged gas, or plasma, for nuclear fusion research – had successfully achieved hydrogen-boron fusion reactions. “This marks the first time a...

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The global electronics industry is entering a structural transition. For over two decades, China served as the dominant manufacturing centre, with an unmatched concentration of suppliers, skilled labour, infrastructure, logistics and engineering capabilities. That concentration is being diluted. But interpreting this as the decline of Chinese manufacturing would be a mistake. China is exporting parts of its manufacturing process while retaining the industrial capabilities that matter...

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Beijing deployed its advanced WZ-7 high-altitude reconnaissance drone in the South China Sea for the first time during drills near the disputed Scarborough Shoal on Sunday. The People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theatre Command announced on Sunday that it had conducted joint air and naval exercises in the waters and airspace around the shoal earlier in the day. In recent years, Scarborough Shoal – known as Huangyan Island in China and Panatag Shoal in the Philippines – has been a major...

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China agreed to import at least 10 million tonnes of US coal in each of the next two years, marking one of the few concrete results from President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States. The country will also lower tariffs on 1,619 US products, including coal, under a deal to reduce levies on US$30 billion of non-sensitive goods shipped in each direction, according to a White House statement. Other items include agricultural goods, cosmetics and medical devices. The US will cut levies on...

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Chinese and US embassies in the Philippines exchanged sharp accusations on Sunday following Washington’s defence of its treaty ally after Thursday’s stand-off in the South China Sea. In a written statement issued on Sunday, the US embassy in Manila backed the Philippines and said Beijing’s “dangerous blocking and irresponsible manoeuvres” had threatened a collision and prevented a lawful resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal, one of the flashpoints in the South China Sea disputes. The...

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Donald Trump asked President Xi Jinping whether Beijing wanted to buy American weapons, the US ambassador to China said on Sunday, prompting the State Department to quickly rule out any such deal with Washington’s principal strategic competitor. “He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point,” the ambassador David Perdue said on Fox News after Xi’s state visit to the White House last week. He did not say when Trump raised the question, what prompted it, or how the...

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China has produced an electron beam using a cutting-edge electron gun, taking a step towards building a “super microscope” that could help drive breakthroughs in everything from Alzheimer’s research to advanced microchips. The Hefei Advanced Light Facility (HALF) in central China’s Anhui province fired its first electron beam on September 20. Bunches of electrons generated by the gun were accelerated by a 192-metre (630-foot) linear accelerator until they reached 2.2 billion electron volts,...

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China has unveiled an overhaul of its university system, urging institutions to develop distinct roles as demographic change, a tighter job market and industrial upgrading alter the country’s skills needs. The general offices of the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee as well as the State Council, China’s cabinet, jointly issued guidelines for higher education reform, state news agency Xinhua reported on September 20. The document said universities must adapt to “changing trends in the...

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Scott Kennedy is a senior adviser and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. His areas of focus include China’s hi-tech drive, US-China relations and global economic governance. Open Questions first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. How would you characterise the outcomes of the China-US summit compared to expectations going in? Is it largely a continuation of that track or do you...

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For all the solemnity of the B-2 flyover with four F‑22 Raptors and a silent South Lawn drill, the real business of US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week was narrower than the choreography. The Chinese readout reiterated the concept that should frame the relationship’s next phase: constructive strategic stability – cooperation as the primary track, competition kept within bounds, differences managed, conflict avoided. Stripped of banquet rhetoric, the...

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Scott Kennedy is a senior adviser and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. His areas of focus include China’s hi-tech drive, US-China relations and global economic governance. SCMP Plus readers get early access to articles in the Open Questions series. How would you characterise the outcomes of the China-US summit compared to expectations going in? Is it largely a continuation of that track or do you see it moving the relationship...

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Two giant pandas have arrived in Atlanta to take up residency at the southern US city’s zoo. The pandas, male Ping Ping and female Fu Shuang, left Chengdu in China’s southwest on Sunday, within days of Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapping up his three-day state visit to the United States. During the visit, Xi said the pandas would arrive “in a few days”. Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, whose names mean peace and double blessings, arrived at Atlanta International Airport on a chartered flight, state...

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Last week, the president of the United States stood at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly and asked aloud whether he should “annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly”. Donald Trump then turned to Venezuela’s oil and declared: “To the victor belong the spoils, you’ve all heard that …” He spoke as the Iran war neared its eighth month, a week after the UN Human Rights Council found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the US had committed war crimes. In the same speech,...

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Washington’s proposed military bases and expanded defence presence in Greenland will be akin to a “keep out” sign against potential Arctic military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow, according to analysts. The US, Denmark and Greenland signed a defence deal on Tuesday that allows Washington to build two new military bases on the world’s largest island, while reaffirming Denmark’s sovereignty over it. The deal – which updates and amends a 1951 defence agreement between Denmark and the US –...

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While foreign leaders and their families walk the iconic restored sections of the Great Wall around Beijing, the ancient stones of a remote Ming-era stretch of the structure in northern central China have been sacrificed for cheaper dumping of coal-mining waste. For nearly 20 years, a section of the wall in Ningwu county, Shanxi province, was used as a short cut to dump slag, despite whistle-blowers repeatedly raising the alarm to officials, according to a report by Chinese state broadcaster...

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US President Donald Trump has sought to play down exchanges with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Taiwan independence, saying on Saturday that they touched on the subject only briefly. “We didn’t talk about it too much. Right now, it’s fine. It’s just moving along,” Trump said. “We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about Taiwan. He understands very much how I feel.” During the summit in Washington last week, Xi pressed Trump to take an explicit position against Taiwan independence – a...

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