Day: May 27, 2025

The Trump administration’s top officials have urged a US court to uphold the president’s sweeping tariff powers, warning that a legal setback could upend an “asymmetric” trade truce with China, embarrass Washington and reignite conflict between India and Pakistan. Advertisement The officials claimed that Trump used his tariff power to broker a ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad earlier this month and bring about a fragile peace. They further cautioned that trade negotiations with dozens of countries remained in a “delicate state,” with a July 7 deadline to finalise deals…

As the United States faces renewed concern over unsustainable debts and its deficit outlook, ignited by the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and new tariff threats from US President Donald Trump, China’s yuan is being hailed by analysts for its resiliency during the ongoing trade war, with some pointing to a “renaissance of the renminbi”. Advertisement Concerns over the sustainability of US debt levels intensified after the US House of Representatives last week passed a sweeping tax and spending bill, which is more than 1,000 pages and contains a range…

Donald Trump’s shake-up of the US National Security Council may be a sign he is increasingly relying on his instinct over expert advice, potentially increasing the unpredictability in Washington’s approach to China, diplomatic observers have said. Advertisement The shake-up could also be “bad news” for Taiwan, which may find it harder to speak to key people in the White House, they added. The White House dismissed around 100 staff from the council last week – many from the China team – as part of Trump’s wider overhaul of the federal…

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. China’s industrial profits grow in April despite US trade war China’s large industrial enterprises posted modest but accelerating growth in April, despite an unprecedented trade war with the United States that drove up tariffs on both sides and intensified economic uncertainty. 2. China’s Xinjiang woos foreigners for 1 trillion yuan tourism haul amid sanctions China’s Xinjiang – an ethnically diverse region that still faces…

China has stepped up the protection of its military-industrial facilities from espionage and sabotage with new rules issued on Monday. Advertisement The Regulation on the Protection of Important Military Industrial Facilities highlights the importance Beijing attaches to its defence industrial bases amid increased global and regional tension. Facilities engaged in the research, production, testing and storage of important weapons and equipment for national defence research, and production enterprises and institutions will be deemed “protected areas”. The designation is intended to guarantee their safety, secrecy and functioning, according to the regulation,…

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s decision to skip Moscow’s Victory Day parade in Red Square on May 9, along with the fallout from last week’s failed warship launch, has prompted fresh questions about Pyongyang’s alliances with China and Russia. Advertisement For Kim, it was a rare, almost once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as no North Korean supreme leader has ever attended such a high-profile international event. Moreover, his attendance would have been justified – at least from his perspective – given his efforts over the past year to strengthen Pyongyang’s alliance with Moscow…

After spending 35 years in the United States pioneering research on the neural circuits that govern sleep and executive brain functions of the frontal cortex, neuroscientist Dan Yang has returned to China to join the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART) as a senior principal investigator. Advertisement Dan was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2018 in recognition of her “contributions to understanding the microcircuits underlying cortical computation, cellular mechanisms for functional plasticity, and neural circuits controlling sleep”. Last month, she was elected to…

An explosion at a chemical plant in Shandong province in eastern China on Tuesday has killed five people with a further six still missing, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Advertisement The explosion, which occurred at a site owned by Shandong Youdao Chemical in Gaomi city just before noon, also left 19 people injured. The local emergency management bureau said on-site search and rescue operations and clean-up work had continued into the night. The cause is yet to be determined. The accident created a large fireball and sent clouds of smoke hundreds…