Day: August 1, 2025

A study led by scientists in China has found a link between the sun’s 11-year cycle and summer rain in the country, identifying why drought conditions in the south and flooding in the north intensify during high solar years. Advertisement The team studied precipitation patterns during the East Asian summer monsoon – particularly the intense mei yu or “plum rain” period – and found that the solar cycle influenced summer precipitation by modulating climate patterns and shifting the rain belt north. “The summer precipitation pattern on a decadal timescale ……

When Indian pilgrims set foot in Tibet again this summer, their arrival heralded a new beginning for India and China, five years after a deadly Himalayan clash plunged the two bitter rivals into a diplomatic deep freeze. Advertisement But with the machinery of engagement whirring once more amid flaring global trade wars and shifting strategic alliances, hopes have sprung anew that Asia’s two largest economies might finally move past the years of suspicion and silence. Late last month, New Delhi resumed issuing visas to Chinese citizens across a number of…

Social media giant ByteDance, owner of TikTok and its Chinese sibling Douyin, says the median service length of existing employees was 2.9 years, while their average tenure was three years, the Beijing-based company disclosed at an internal meeting. Advertisement According to two sources briefed on Thursday’s town hall meeting that was led by co-founder, chairman and CEO Liang Rubo, about half of the firm’s 120,000 employees have spent more than three years there. The median service length of former employees was estimated at 2.6 years, while their average tenure was…

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that meetings with his Chinese counterparts this week “advanced our talks”, but stopped short of confirming that US President Donald Trump approved the consensus that Beijing claimed they had reached. Advertisement “This week’s negotiations in Stockholm have advanced our talks with China, and I believe that we have the makings of a deal that will benefit both of our great nations,” Bessent wrote on X. “Thanks to the powerful bond between @POTUS and President Xi, I am optimistic about the path forward,”…

A young woman expelled from university for having sex with a foreigner. A man jailed for raping his fiancée after paying her the bride price. And a video game portraying women as gold diggers. Advertisement These are among the cases fuelling heated debate, and outrage, on Chinese social media in recent months over sexism, misogyny and gender stereotypes. The discussion started in April when a court in Datong, Shanxi province upheld the guilty verdict and three-year prison sentence of a man who had raped his fiancée the day after they…

Scientists in northwest China have doubled the service life of high-temperature, high-pressure artillery barrels by refining a chromium plating technique first used by the Chinese military before 200BC. Advertisement Bronze swords buried with the Terracotta Army of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, remained sharp and untarnished after more than 2,000 years underground. Microscopic analysis revealed a thin layer of chromium salts – just 10 to 15 micrometres thick – on their surfaces, protected by an underlying oxide film that had all but halted corrosion, seen as evidence of a…

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Beijing denies threat as FBI opens new office in New Zealand to ‘counter China’ Claims by the head of the FBI that China is a threat to the Indo-Pacific are groundless, Beijing said as the American security agency opened its first permanent office in New Zealand. 2. Trump administration sends mixed messages on China trade pact The US government sent mixed messages on Thursday…

In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s latest tariff blitz on dozens of economies, China has reiterated a stern warning against protectionism amid growing concern that it will “harm the interests of all parties”. Advertisement “China’s position against the arbitrary imposition of tariffs has been consistent and clear: there are no winners in tariff or trade wars,” Guo Jiakun, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a press conference on Friday. Beijing’s latest admonishment came after Trump, by executive order, imposed widespread tariffs targeting 69 trading partners,…

US climate scientists are increasingly looking abroad as a result of cuts to research funding, according to a Hong Kong-based professor, signalling a possible shift in the centre of scientific gravity. Advertisement He said that out of 20-plus candidates for assistant professorships at CityU, half were working at leading US universities, including Columbia, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford and Yale. Horton said he had approached colleagues he knew in the US about job openings in hopes of supporting young scientists who might relocate to Hong Kong as a…