Month: August 2023

The former chairman and chief executive of Ningbo Semiconductor International Corp (NSI), an affiliate of top Chinese chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), is facing criminal charges that include embezzlement and bribery, more than a year after he was kicked out of the company he founded in eastern Zhejiang province in 2016. Herb Huang He, a former US citizen who was once widely lauded for his contributions to China’s semiconductor industry, and NSI ex-financial chief Wang Ying have been put “in the criminal judicial judgment process” on suspicion of…

1. Raimondo in China US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo completed a four-day trip to China, meeting the likes of Premier Li Qiang, Vice-Premier He Lifeng, her Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao, and tourism minister Hu Heping. Li said that only through dialogue could both sides “learn about each other’s concerns and find a middle ground”. Following the meeting with Wang, Washington and Beijing took a step toward managing bilateral tensions by setting up a joint economic working group for the first time in nearly three years of Joe Biden’s presidency. 03:03…

Given the history and context, this attempt to deliver supplies was a challenge to China. A confrontation seemed imminent. Something had to give – and it did. Two Philippine coastguard vessels accompanied the boats carrying the supplies. A Chinese coastguard radio operator warned the Philippine coastguard vessels to leave or “bear full responsibility for all the consequences”. This threat was ominous because China’s coastguard is now authorised to “use all necessary means”, including weapons, to enforce China’s maritime claims. Advertisement The Chinese coastguard ships repeatedly crossed the bows of the…

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to skip the Group of 20 meeting in New Delhi next week, media outlets reported, citing anonymous sources within several governments. The decision, if confirmed, comes amid deep-seated tension between the two Asian giants over their de facto border, site of deadly clashes in 2020 in a steep section of the Galwan Valley. While there was some expectation that Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would meet on the sidelines of the recent Brics summit in South Africa, their contact was limited to…

China’s richest county for the past 17 years, Kunshan boomed as Taiwan’s money flowed in. In total, 30 per cent of the county’s gross domestic product (GDP), 50 per cent of industrial output, 60 per cent of foreign investment, and 70 per cent of its imports and exports are directly tied to Taiwan-funded enterprises. As of 2020, there were more than 5,300 Taiwanese companies and around 100,000 Taiwanese people in Kunshan, according to the People’s Daily party mouthpiece. With mainland China not doing well, Taiwan ups South Asia, Asean investments…

The US military intends to field thousands of drones within the next two years, a programme analysts called a significant move for possible conflicts in the Taiwan Strait, where the low-cost and mass-deployed unmanned systems could put pressure on Beijing. This week, the Pentagon announced a new initiative dubbed Replicator, which aims to field “attritable autonomous systems” at scale of “multiple thousands in multiple domains” within the next 18 to 24 months. “Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC [People’s Republic of China]’s biggest advantage, which is mass:…

Virologist Shi Zhengli – dubbed China’s “bat woman” for her research on coronavirus in the mammals – has been nominated to join the country’s top scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The 58-year-old director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases was on a list of 583 candidates announced by the academy on Thursday. Seventy-nine will be elected by CAS members later this year. Shi Zhengli heads the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases. Photo: Baidu Shi – who became a member…