Month: June 2025

June 9 marks the 50th anniversary of Philippines-China relations, ties steeped in history but marred by friction in recent years. Sadly, an overemphasis on the intractable sea dispute has polluted broader connections, stunting economic cooperation and stigmatising people-to-people exchanges. This is irrational and unproductive. Advertisement For Manila to make the sea row front and centre of ties is a tragedy of its foreign policy. For China to see its smaller neighbour as a mere pawn in its great power competition with Washington is a recipe for misunderstanding; it lets down…

In 2017, tired of supporting other people’s entrepreneurial dreams and watching e-commerce take off, Matt Rollens started Dragon Glassware in his garage with US$10,000 from savings and a small inheritance. A tea drinker, his first idea was a glass vacuum flask. But the prototype fell short, so he settled on drinking glasses as the US microbrewery craze exploded. Advertisement Over the next eight years, he built ties with skilled Chinese factories and expanded into licensed Barbie and Wicked drinkware as annual revenue grew tenfold to US$5 million. The future looked…

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a slate of China-focused measures on Thursday, including bipartisan bills to counter Beijing’s overseas military expansion and bolster Taiwan’s role in global finance while advancing the nomination of a former ambassador to lead US diplomacy in East Asia. Advertisement The Counter Act of 2025, co-authored by Senators Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, and Pete Ricketts, Republican of Nebraska, calls on the US government to develop a strategy to respond to the People’s Republic of China’s efforts to establish military bases overseas. The bill…

The European Union’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic has warned China that its “impressive rise must not come at the expense of the European economy” as the bloc continues to push for Beijing to loosen export controls on rare earths and act on trade diversion. Advertisement Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, two days after meeting Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, Sefcovic stated that “China has a responsibility to match its support for multilateralism with full respect for the rules meant to ensure fairness and equity”. “Hence, our calls on China to…

Advertisement Jiang was the first Chinese woman selected as the student speaker at a Harvard graduation ceremony. 03:40 Absurd, anxious, concerned: Students react to US revoking Chinese student visas Absurd, anxious, concerned: Students react to US revoking Chinese student visas While her success was initially praised by the Chinese media, it soon drew criticism from social media users who questioned whether her “privileged” family background truly represented the broader Chinese student population. As the controversy escalates, some academics and commentators have begun to examine how it reflects the Chinese public’s…

While the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is set to mitigate an expected shortage of labour in China in the long run, market observers differ on its impact on deflationary pressures in the near term. Advertisement The wider adoption of AI in China could exacerbate “China’s prevailing deflationary pressures” by disrupting an already-weak employment market, as the labour displacement effects of the technology might dominate in the short term, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a research report published last month. “In China, the AI-induced labour market disruption could potentially prove…