Month: June 2025

China’s top audit watchdog has revealed that tens of billions of yuan in funding were misused by localities amid a roll-out of stimulus measures and flagship projects that the nation adopted last year, as Beijing injected trillions to boost China’s economy. Advertisement The revelation – resulting from an assessment of the central government’s budget execution last year, as well as of other fiscal revenues and expenditures in 2024 – was spelled out in a report submitted by National Audit Office auditor general Hou Kai to the top legislature last week.…

The expertise of Chinese researchers in artificial intelligence (AI) is in the spotlight, as US tech giant Meta Platforms has recruited four leading scientists from OpenAI to enhance its competitive edge in the global AI race. Advertisement Meta’s hiring of Zhao Shengjia, Ren Hongyu, Yu Jiahui and Bi Shuchao, reported by US tech news outlet The Information, was partially confirmed by Alexandr Wang, head of Meta’s AI unit and former CEO of Scale AI, in a social media post over the weekend. Wang expressed enthusiasm for collaborating with the four…

Scientists have discovered a key mechanism behind age-related hearing loss, and they say a common oral medication could delay its progression. Advertisement In a study of crab-eating macaques, the team from China and the United States found that a gradual deficiency in a protein vital to receptor cells in the ear was a characteristic of cochlear ageing in primates. The researchers also found that it was possible to slow down age-related hearing loss in the monkeys by using a common diabetes medication called metformin, which they said had potential as…

Funds from Hong Kong’s initial public offerings (IPOs) soared eightfold in the first six months of 2025 from last year, propelling the city to the top of global rankings for the first time since 2019. Advertisement A total of 42 companies raised US$13.5 billion on the Main Board of the Hong Kong stock exchange during the first half, according to data released on Monday by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Nasdaq was second with US$8.85 billion, while the New York Stock Exchange ranked third with US$7.52 billion, according to…

China’s Communist Party had more than 100 million members by the end of 2024, an increase of about 1 per cent from the previous year, according to official data released ahead of the party’s 104th anniversary. Advertisement However, the rate of membership growth has continued to slow, with one insider attributing this to stricter screening by the Central Organisation Department (COD), the party’s top personnel office. In keeping with tradition, the membership data for the previous year was released a day ahead of the July 1 celebrations marking the party’s…

Advertisement Yet among the leading economies in the region, the performance gap between China and India is far and away the most palpable divergence in Asian real estate. That the region’s two biggest emerging markets, and the world’s most populous countries, are expected to play a bigger role in driving global growth in the next five years makes their diverging fortunes all the more striking. In China, the housing crisis has damaged confidence to such an extent that the government has considered scrapping the discredited pre-sales model and forcing developers…

A China-led international deep-sea cooperative exploration project has won United Nations approval, paving the way for Beijing’s increased participation in global science and technology governance. Advertisement The Global Hadal Exploration Programme (GHEP) aims to penetrate the mysteries of the deepest waters, in response to the UN goal of protecting and sustainably developing the oceans. The multi-country initiative, spearheaded by the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was selected earlier this month for inclusion in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development,…