Day: January 17, 2024

China launches military manoeuvres around Taiwan in wake of election

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. China has staged its largest military manoeuvres around Taiwan in three weeks, in its first active response to the election of Lai Ching-te as the country’s president last weekend. The People’s Liberation Army conducted joint air and naval combat patrols near Taiwan on Wednesday night, with 24 PLA aircraft and five PLA Navy vessels operating in the area, Taiwan’s defence ministry said. According to the ministry, “11 of the aircraft…

The delicate dance: Taiwan’s new path with China amid economic strains

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When choosing the independent-leading incumbent vice-president as their new leader, the Taiwanese people not only affirmed their commitment to their current political discourse but also voiced a strong desire for improved economic ties with the Chinese mainland.  This optimistic vision, however, is not without its complexities, suggesting that the journey ahead could be more arduous than initially hoped.  China is Taiwan’s biggest trading partner, but tension between Beijing and the island’s ruling party, the Democratic People’s Party (DPP), which the President-elect Lai Ching-te belongs to, has been high in the…

Malaysian Filmmakers Charged with Offending Religious Feelings in Banned Film

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia —  The director and producer of a banned Malaysian film that explores the afterlife were charged Wednesday with offending the religious feelings of others in a rare criminal prosecution of filmmakers, slammed by critics as an attack on freedom of expression. Mohamad Khairianwar Jailani, the director and co-scriptwriter of Mentega Terbang, and producer Tan Meng Kheng pleaded not guilty to having a “deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of others” through the independent, low-budget film. If found guilty, they could face up to a year in…

Macron calls for de-escalation in China-US tensions, backs ‘de-risking’ strategy

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Talks about “decoupling” from China, which emerged during the US-China trade war from 2018, have grown stronger in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and increasing geopolitical tension. A day earlier, in his speech at Davos, Chinese Premier Li Qiang criticised attempts to “disrupt or undermine” the current global industrial supply chain and called for “effective safeguarding of the stability and smooth flow” of the current system. 01:49 Premier Li Qiang plays up China’s economic prospects at World Economic Forum’s ‘Summer Davos’ Premier Li Qiang plays up China’s economic prospects…

Russia, N Korea further beef up ties amid arms trade allegations

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has met North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in Moscow, and vowed to “closely collaborate and coordinate their efforts to jointly ensure peace and stability both regionally and globally,” marking the latest efforts between two countries to bolster their bilateral relations. During their meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, the two agreed to “drive the dynamic development of overall bilateral relations,” the North’s state-run daily Rodong Sinmun said Thursday, labeling their relationship as “strategic” and “traditionally friendly.”  Choe made a visit to Moscow from Monday through…

India’s brewing coffee battle pits Starbucks against Pret for share of growing market

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India’s biggest billionaires are on rival sides of a battle by international coffee chains to convince one of the world’s largest tea-drinking nations to spend on flat whites and Frappuccinos. Starbucks announced last week that it planned to nearly triple the number of outlets in India, where it opened its first café more than a decade ago, to 1,000 by 2028. The chain, which operates a joint venture in India with the country’s Tata conglomerate, says it planned to expand beyond large metropolises into smaller cities, in a country where…

Will China let Japan forget its 1980s bubble?

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. After a dog-off-the-leash start to the year, Japan’s Nikkei 225 Average has advanced to within striking distance of the once untouchable-looking “bubble” high of 38,915 points reached on December 29 1989.  At one time on Wednesday, the difference between current trading levels of the Nikkei and a history-making stride into the unknown shrank to just over 7 per cent — a distance that, with the market in this mood, could…

Starbucks and Pret battle for share of India’s growing coffee market

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India’s biggest billionaires are on rival sides of a battle by international coffee chains to convince one of the world’s largest tea-drinking nations to spend on flat whites and Frappuccinos. Starbucks announced last week that it planned to nearly triple the number of outlets in India, where it opened its first café more than a decade ago, to 1,000 by 2028. The chain, which operates a joint venture in India with the country’s Tata conglomerate, says it planned to expand beyond large metropolises into smaller cities, in a country where…

China hopes for ‘dragon babies’ as population decline gathers pace

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The year of the dragon has historically augured a spike in births in China and other countries in east Asia as potential parents try to time the births of their offspring with an auspicious zodiac sign.  But experts said this demographic idiosyncrasy was unlikely to come to Beijing’s aid in this dragon year — which begins next month — after a gloomy economic outlook, ageing society and the coronavirus pandemic…

Chinese scientists clone first rhesus monkey to live into adulthood, with tweak to process behind Dolly the sheep

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The scientists also said that the extra step added to the cloning method could have future applications in human assisted reproduction. Retro is the first of his species – and only the second primate species ever – to be successfully cloned. He was just over two years old when the team – from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ (CAS) neuroscience and genetics and developmental biology institutes – began writing a paper on their achievement. It was published in the peer-reviewed, open access journal Nature Communications on Tuesday. Cloning could help…