Day: June 19, 2025

At a high-level summit this week, China and its Central Asian partners voiced their shared security concerns and showed a united front amid a turbulent global landscape. Advertisement The close ties between Beijing and the five Central Asian countries – whose leaders met at the China-Central Asia Summit in Kazakhstan on Tuesday – have sparked questions about whether Russia’s regional dominance is waning as it remains preoccupied with the Ukraine war. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed this possibility on Monday, saying there was “no reason for such fears”. “China is…

Hunan has become the first province in China to use the proceeds of special-purpose bonds to guarantee government payments to enterprises, with 20 billion yuan (US$2.78 billion) allocated for this year. Advertisement The inland province made the adjustment to its annual fiscal budget last month, marking the first time the bonds – typically earmarked for revenue-generating construction projects – will be used to cover government arrears. Proceeds will be distributed based on eligible outstanding debts from existing investment projects, according to a statement from the province’s department of finance issued…

In a soulless conference room in Brussels in November, officials and experts from around Europe and the United States were locked in a technical debate over a cryptic bit of economic jargon: global non-market overcapacity. Advertisement Beneath the geography-free legalese so common in Brussels, China was undoubtedly the subject. The conference, organised by the European Commission, was designed to thrash out solutions to the problem of overcapacity in China’s economy and the second-order effects Europe fears. Decades of overinvestment and state subsidies in China, weak domestic consumption, an addiction to…

Just four months ago, US President Donald Trump was lecturing a surprised Volodymyr Zelensky on how the Ukrainian leader was “not winning” because he did not “have the cards”. As commander-in-chief of a superpower, Trump unabashedly brandished his geopolitical capital – apparently more interested in negotiating agreements with traditional US rivals such as Russia and Iran to bolster his “art of the deal” credentials. Advertisement Today, the strategic picture looks dramatically different. Following the spectacular success of Operation Spider’s Web, which saw Ukrainian forces launching devastating drone attacks from within…

China has set out to lead the construction of the world’s most comprehensive space weather monitoring and warning network, an ambitious ground-based system comprising the largest chain of observatories on Earth, passing through more than 10 countries and regions. Advertisement The International Meridian Circle Programme (IMCP) is aimed at building a matrix of surveillance stations to better understand and forecast solar activity such as solar storms, which can severely disrupt satellite communications, navigation and power grids on Earth. The programme covers a huge section of the Earth – extending halfway…