Month: July 2025

Beijing has criticised Taiwan’s failed recall vote as a “political manipulation” that was “completely contrary” to the will of the people. Advertisement In Saturday’s vote, all 24 lawmakers from the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) survived the recall attempt backed by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Chen Binhua, a spokesman for mainland China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, criticised the DPP for “repeatedly provoking political strife” at the expense of Taiwanese people’s well-being, state news agency Xinhua reported. Chen also said the DPP wanted a one-party monopoly and “real authoritarianism”, while resorting to…

In a discovery that could reshape the global balance of strategic mineral supply, Chinese geologists have uncovered a huge zirconium deposit in the Kubai Basin, on the northern fringe of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang – a deadly stretch of arid land that may now become a new driver of China’s hi-tech military ambitions. Advertisement The newly identified deposit, embedded within Cenozoic continental sedimentary layers dating to the Paleogene and Neogene periods, represents the first super-large zirconium resource ever discovered in a terrestrial, non-marine basin in China. Unlike traditional zirconium…

Chinese and American negotiators will gather in Stockholm for a much-anticipated third round of trade talks on Monday, putting the Swedish capital in the spotlight and prompting questions as to why the Scandinavian country was the venue of choice for the world’s two biggest economies. Advertisement It began at a meeting of finance chiefs from the Group of 20 countries in South Africa earlier this month, where Sweden had been invited for the first time. Both China and the US approached the delegation from Stockholm about holding the talks in…

World leading Chinese scientist Guo Zaiping, who specialises in the field of batteries, has taken up a prestigious new role at City University of Hong Kong after a two-decade career in Australia. Advertisement The university said she had beenappointed as chair professor of energy materials earlier this month. The university’s materials science programme is ranked number one in Hong Kong and number seven in the world, according to the latest USNEWS University Rankings. Before her move to Hong Kong, Guo was a Professor and Australian laureate fellow in the School…

A high-level American business delegation will visit China this week on a trip that coincides with the latest round of US-China trade talks, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Advertisement The trip to Beijing will be organised by the US-China Business Council and led by FedEx chief executive Rajesh Subramaniam, the council’s board chair. The full list of visiting business leaders and schedule is not known but both sources said that Boeing executives and the president of the council Sean Stein were certain to be part of the…

A provincial Chinese official’s call for clarity on the history of three ancient kingdoms could revive a diplomatic row between China and South Korea and test the recent thaw in relations between the two Asian neighbours, experts said. Advertisement At the heart of the issue is a contested view of the kingdoms that arose in today’s northeastern China and the Korean peninsula in the second century BC and lasted more than 1,120 years. Huang Qiang, party chief of Jilin province – which covers the area that once comprised what Chinese…