Day: July 2, 2025

The US said on Thursday it had lifted export controls on certain chip design software to China, according to statements from Siemens, Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems. Advertisement Three of the world’s largest electronic design automation (EDA) software developers have been informed by the US government that sales of their products to China would no longer require special approval, signalling a further easing of bilateral tensions. San Jose, California-based Cadence said in an email that the US Bureau of Industry and Security, under the Department of Commerce, “has rescinded the…

Armenia is looking to deepen ties with China with no limits, its foreign minister said, as the South Caucasus republic intensifies efforts to diversify its foreign policy away from Russia following the Nagorno-Karabakh war five years ago. Advertisement “Not only is there no impediment and any obstacle on the way of deepening our relations, but also there is openness and readiness to deepen these relations without any limitations,” Armenia’s top diplomat Ararat Mirzoyan told the South China Morning Post in an exclusive interview in Beijing. Unlike Georgia and Azerbaijan, Armenia…

China is ready to install a large impulse turbine at the Datang Zala Hydropower Station in Tibet autonomous region, according to the official Science and Technology Daily. Advertisement The home-grown turbine, with a maximum capacity of 500 megawatts, has the world’s largest single-unit capacity, according to the report on Wednesday. Two turbines will be installed at the station. The 80-tonne turbine left its developer plant at Harbin Electric Machinery Company in northeast China on Wednesday after four years of design and testing. The Datang Zala Hydropower Station is located on…

A Beijing-based fintech services provider, which has provided billing systems for China’s digital yuan, has signed a strategic partnership with a Hong Kong firm to tap stablecoin and virtual asset business opportunities, in the latest sign of mainland interest in the city’s recent moves to license cryptocurrency issuers. Advertisement Shenzhen-listed North King Information Technology said on Wednesday that it had struck a deal with Hong Kong-listed GoFintech Quantum Innovation to develop infrastructure to support the ecosystem for stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies, as well as tokenised real-world assets (RWAs). The mainland…

America’s view of China as a “pacing threat” has shaped its defence priorities as the military seeks to maintain an edge over a rapidly modernising PLA. In the last of a three-part series on how US budget tensions will affect efforts to deter China, we look at Trump’s massive funding request aimed at turbocharging naval construction. Read the rest of the series here. Advertisement US President Donald Trump aims to invest tens of billions of dollars to revitalise American shipbuilding, as China’s rapidly expanding naval fleet and commercial shipbuilding industry…

A new book contending that Apple Inc went too far in consolidating its operations in China is prompting debate among analysts of the country – some of whom say the company may have had no realistic alternatives. Advertisement “If they were to have it to do over again, would they have done anything differently?” asked Meg Rithmire, a Harvard Business School professor, during an event Wednesday at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. Probably not, she said. There has been “this huge wave of innovation…

Brics country leaders are meeting for the bloc’s annual summit in Rio de Janeiro this week, as questions loom about the group’s effectiveness as a voice of the Global South and counterweight to the Washington-led coalition of developed economies. Advertisement Against the backdrop of relentless tension that US President Donald Trump has injected into America’s trade policy, this year’s gathering on July 6 and 7 will test whether the bloc can present a unified front capable of countering Trump’s efforts to revamp global economic engagement on his terms without antagonising…