Day: June 3, 2025

Parts of China that are rich in critical minerals are stepping up enforcement of tighter export controls as the country doubles down on its dominance of world supplies in the face of increasing pressure from the United States. Advertisement China, the world’s biggest producer of critical minerals, supplies 92 per cent of the refined rare earth elements that are essential in the production of consumer electronics, electric vehicles and hi-tech defence systems. Its export controls mean companies must obtain regulatory approvals from Chinese authorities before shipping such minerals overseas. Authorities…

The idea that China has stolen millions of American jobs in recent decades, causing a collapse in the manufacturing labour market, has long been a staple anti-Chinese narrative on both sides of US politics. Advertisement Even economists and media pundits who grudgingly acknowledge that cheap Chinese goods have made life easier and more affordable for the average American would complain about these alleged mass job losses. And the blue-collar voters most severely affected by sectoral lay-offs and the decline in regional manufacturing make up a fair segment of Donald Trump’s…

Near the edge of the Sahara Desert, in Egypt’s West Minya, Chinese drillers bore deep into the earth, tapping groundwater to irrigate a once 500-hectare stretch of desert – now home to the world’s largest beet sugar factory. Advertisement China’s Zhongman Petroleum has drilled 193 wells over the past three years to irrigate the farm, which supplies Canal Sugar – a joint venture backed by investors from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt – with an annual capacity of 900,000 tonnes, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. To tackle…

As Russia-Ukraine peace talks resume this week, the former US ambassador to China said that while any possible role for Beijing should be welcomed, its participation must be taken with a grain of salt. Advertisement Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Tuesday, Nicholas Burns, the ambassador during the Joe Biden administration, cautioned that Beijing’s growing interest in Ukraine’s reconstruction was less a goodwill gesture than a strategic manoeuvre by a government that has aided Moscow throughout the war. “They’re not neutral – they’re in Russia’s corner, diplomatically, economically…

Emotional remarks by a Chinese student who delivered this year’s Harvard University commencement speech have sparked a debate in China about barriers to elite education. Advertisement The speech by Yurong “Luanna” Jiang, the first Chinese woman chosen as Harvard’s student commencement speaker, called for global unity amid US President Donald Trump’s plan to “aggressively” revoke Chinese student visas. Internet users have since raised questions about a lack of access for many ordinary students who have struggled to be considered for prestigious universities, citing an uneven distribution of financial and educational…

In the recent Chinese blockbuster Operation Leviathan, an American nuclear submarine uses hi-tech acoustic holograms to bamboozle Chinese torpedoes and their human operators. Advertisement Months after the film hit cinema screens, military researchers in China revealed they were working on an artificial intelligence system designed to cut through exactly this type of underwater deception. In a peer-reviewed paper published in Chinese-language journal Command Control & Simulation in April, the team from the PLA Navy Armament Department and China State Shipbuilding Corporation said their system had unprecedented accuracy for torpedoes travelling…

Middle and major powers are using trade, investment and technology as weapons of influence in pursuit of triangular diplomacy, a stratagem of Cold War realpolitik. However, the strengths of this approach – agility, ambiguity and tactical scope – hide the dangers of entanglements that escalate instability. Advertisement A nation triangulates by balancing and manoeuvring between two other powers, building leverage, reducing dependency and becoming indispensable to multiple sides without fully committing to any. Triangular diplomacy is now a prominent approach for leaders negotiating a world where post-war institutions are in…