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Reincarnation must follow Chinese laws and be endorsed by Beijing, Tibetan Buddhist leader Panchen Lama has said in an apparent reference to the succession of the Dalai Lama. Speaking at an official symposium in Shigatse on Monday, the Panchen Lama – the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism after only the Dalai Lama – stated that reincarnated “living Buddhas” must be identified within China and approved by the central government. This must be done “without any interference or control from...

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The US central bank announced on Wednesday it would slash the benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, though this year’s third cut has long been criticised by President Donald Trump as too late and too little. The cut decision made by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the monetary-policy organ affiliated to the Federal Reserve, was broadly in line with market expectations, but fell short of Trump’s demand of a larger cut. The benchmark interest rate after the...

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The United States is striving for a more “constructive” relationship with China after this year’s trade war and will continue to pursue a “managed” bilateral trade relationship, its chief trade envoy said, despite concerns lingering over China’s grip on critical minerals and pushback over the White House’s recent approval of H200 AI chip sales. The comments by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer came after Beijing and Washington fought fiercely throughout the year for the tariff war. The...

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Chinese artificial intelligence pioneer SenseTime is betting that its roots in computer vision will help it lead the next phase of AI, as the industry shifts towards multimodal systems and embodied intelligence in the physical world, according to co-founder and chief scientist Lin Dahua. In an interview with the Post on Wednesday, Lin said the company’s long-standing expertise in vision-based AI put it in a strong position to become a leader in embodied intelligence, robotics and AI agents...

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A bipartisan commission focused on the rule of law and human rights in China is recommending that the US Congress scale up immersion programmes for Mandarin and other languages spoken on the mainland in American high schools and universities. The recommendation, made as part of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s (CECC) annual report, comes as Washington has scaled back funding for cultural exchange programmes since the start of US President Donald Trump’s second administration. It...

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A joint patrol by Chinese and Russian nuclear-capable bombers near Japanese airspace is a serious national security concern, the country’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has said. In a social media post on Tuesday, Koizumi wrote that two Russian Tu-95 bombers had rendezvoused with two Chinese H-6 bombers over the East China Sea. These aircraft then conducted a joint flight around Japan from the airspace between Okinawa’s main island and Miyako Island in the Ryukyu chain to the waters off...

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The Simandou mountain range in southeastern Guinea, once a dense forest where exploration teams relied on GPS and helicopters to navigate, has yielded vast reserves of its sought-after high-grade iron ore after decades of delay. Workers struggled to define the layout of the thick forest before clearing the trees and brush at the site set for the Simandou Iron Ore project, “as it was nothing but darkness”, according to Chris Aitchison, the managing director for Rio Tinto’s Simfer joint...

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China’s flagship sovereign wealth fund has revealed that it opened a representative office in London shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in last year’s US presidential election, a move made amid increased scrutiny of Chinese investments in the United States. The London office was officially registered in December 2024, with the mission of “advancing the company’s overseas investment business” and “promoting cross-border investment cooperation”, China Investment Corporation (CIC) said in its...

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China and the US are “peer powers” in Asia, as Beijing closes the gap in the region with Washington and records the highest diplomatic influence score among countries measured, according to an Australian think tank’s latest annual gauge. The 2025 edition of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index showed that the United States remains the most powerful nation in the region but its comprehensive power score fell to 80.5 out of 100 – the lowest since its rankings began in...

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A former Nasa administrator has warned that America’s plan to return astronauts to the moon is technically unworkable, urging a much simpler approach – similar to China’s – as the only realistic way to stay ahead. Mike Griffin, a 76-year-old aerospace engineer who led Nasa during the George W. Bush administration, told Congress that the Artemis programme “cannot work” because it relies on an overly complex design and many unproven technologies. Under the current plan, the Artemis III mission...

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Chinese supercomputer maker Sugon and chip designer Hygon Information Technology have called off a planned mega-merger that had been under discussion for months, in a surprise move that could complicate the country’s tech self-sufficiency efforts in the semiconductor and high-performance computing sectors. The two Shanghai-listed companies late on Tuesday said they cancelled merger talks because “the market environment has changed significantly since the initial planning stages of this...

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Alibaba Group Holding named its cloud unit’s technology officer Zhou Jingren, who also leads its artificial intelligence lab Tongyi and the development of its Qwen AI models, as a new member of the group in charge of steering the business empire, according to people briefed about the decision. Alibaba has not updated the information on its official website. The Alibaba Partnership had 17 members before the addition, including co-founders Jack Ma and Joe Tsai as permanent ones. Alibaba did not...

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Beijing and Washington will continue to circle each other warily in 2026 even as China’s leadership struggles to balance economic growth against its control fixation, according to a report on next year’s outlook for China released Wednesday by the Asia Society. “As we look towards 2026, the story is not one of rises or triumph. It’s not black or white,” said Lizzi Lee, a fellow at the Society’s Centre for China Analysis and one of the report’s co-authors. “It is a story of transitions,...

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French President Emmanuel Macron’s three-day visit to China last week signals a recalibration in how China and Europe engage at a moment when technological competition, trade disputes, climate imperatives and geopolitical fragmentation threaten global stability. Macron met enthusiastic students at Sichuan University; French first lady Brigitte Macron visited the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. The trip fostered economic collaboration between the two countries and deliberately...

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China is willing to work with Southeast Asian countries to manage maritime disputes in the South China Sea and build a fair and just maritime order, a senior Chinese diplomat said. Speaking in Sanya on the southern island province of Hainan, Sun Weidong, the vice-minister of foreign affairs, also hit out at the recent remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who suggested last month that an attack on Taiwan by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might qualify as a “survival-threatening...

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China has promised no-strings-attached aid to Latin American and Caribbean countries as it positions itself as a key voice of the Global South and seeks to expand its influence in a region also actively courted by the United States. In an updated policy framework for deeper economic cooperation with the region, Beijing highlighted what it described as a “significant shift in the international balance of power”, with the Global South gaining greater influence. The strategy paper, the third of its...

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China’s economy is projected to grow by 5 per cent in 2025 before slowing to 4.5 per cent in 2026, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday, offering a slightly more upbeat outlook that underscores its view of resilience despite trade frictions. The annual assessment released on Wednesday showed an upwards revision of 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points from the IMF’s October forecast, as the world’s second-largest economy rolled out stimulus measures and faced lower-than-expected tariffs on...

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1. China reveals radio clip heard before mid-air stand-off with Japan fighter jets China on Tuesday released more details about Saturday’s mid-air stand-off between Chinese and Japanese fighter jets, as the two sides traded barbs over the radar lock-on incident amid rising tensions.
2. How China pulled off a critical mineral tech revolution in just 10...

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Chinese who came of age during the country’s economic boom are less supportive of liberal democratic values than older generations, contradicting the predictions of Western policymakers and academics. A study by scholars based in China and Britain found that Chinese people born after 1990 were “less likely to support democratic values than the older generation”, despite greater economic security and “a higher level of post-materialist values”. The paper, published online by the Journal of...

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China has activated what may be the world’s largest distributed AI computing pool alongside a high-speed data network that has been planned for more than a decade, according to an official state newspaper. It said this optical network linked computing centres separated by distance so they could work together almost as efficiently as a single giant computer. The computational efficiency of a 2,000km (1,243-mile) wide computing power pool formed via this network could reach 98 per cent of that of...

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Lawmakers from both parties are warning that Chinese criminal groups have helped build what officials call a “Silk Road of crime”, a global network that launders Latin American cartel profits and supplies the chemicals used to make fentanyl bound for the United States. At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, members of the Caucus on International Narcotics Control said Chinese money brokers and Latin American cartels have merged their operations into a system that blurs the line between trade and...

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China’s consumer prices rose for a second straight month in November, with inflation hitting its highest level in nearly two years, in a tentative sign that the country’s persistent deflationary pressure may be starting to ease. The national consumer price index (CPI), a major gauge of inflation, rose 0.7 per cent year on year last month, the largest increase recorded since early 2024, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. The reading was slightly above...

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There are few truly global hubs in the world. London is one. New York is another. But neither of them connect East and West quite like Hong Kong. I visited the city last week as part of the inaugural UK Investment Conference and saw first-hand the energy and resilience that define this city. That makes the recent tragedy in Tai Po all the more heartbreaking. My message to the people of Hong Kong after this deadly fire is this: we offer our profound sympathy to all those whose lives and...

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At least 12 people have died in a fire at a residential building in southern China, the first major incident of its kind in the mainland since last month’s Hong Kong blaze. The fire broke out at around 9.20pm on Tuesday in Shantou in Guangdong province and was put out about 40 minutes later, according to state news agency Xinhua. The building was a four-storey reinforced concrete structure and about 150 square metres (1,600 square ft) were affected by the fire, local authorities said. An...

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US pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer has agreed to pay up to US$2.1 billion to Shanghai-based Fosun Pharma’s unit Yao Pharma for an experimental oral obesity drug, underscoring the growing trend of Chinese drug makers selling early-stage assets to global multinationals. Under the licensing agreement, Yao Pharma would grant Pfizer an exclusive worldwide licence for the development, use, manufacturing and commercialisation of oral small-molecule drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, including...

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