Day: September 7, 2025

Beijing has sanctioned a conservative, opposition Japanese lawmaker, saying that he spread falsehoods on issues involving Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, undermining Chinese sovereignty. Advertisement In a rare move, the Chinese foreign ministry announced the sanctions on Monday morning against Seki Hei – known in China as Shi Ping – a 63-year-old China-born political commentator who was elected to the House of Councillors this year on the Japan Innovation Party’s ticket. According to the ministry’s statement, Seki has “long spread fallacies on issues including Taiwan, the Diaoyu Islands, history, Xinjiang,…

China’s exports continued to rise in August, though at a slower pace, as global markets watch to see whether the world’s two largest economies can reach a lasting and durable trade deal. Advertisement Outbound shipments rose by 4.4 per cent year on year to US$321.8 billion last month, according to customs data released on Monday. The figure was lower than the 7.2 per cent recorded in July and fell short of the 5.4 per cent forecasted by Chinese financial data provider Wind. Imports in August, meanwhile, rose by 1.3 per…

Advertisement By analysing seismic waves from marsquakes recorded by Nasa’s now-retired InSight lander, the team discovered a solid core about 600km (373 miles) in radius, or roughly 18 per cent of Mars’ radius, a similar proportion to Earth’s inner core. The findings, published this week in Nature, helped to fill a major gap in our understanding of Mars’ deep interior, wrote Nicholas Schmerr, a planetary seismologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, in a commentary accompanying the paper. This might also revive the long-debated idea that Earth was not…

It’s rare to find an opinion piece that embodies nearly all the false premises and presuppositions that underpin the American empire, now in undeniable retreat. But Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff to Barack Obama, mayor of Chicago and until recently US ambassador to Japan, has managed to do just that. Advertisement Writing in The Wall Street Journal on August 31, Emanuel claims that the question today for Americans is: “Can China be the external threat that restores internal cohesion to our politics?” He goes on, of course,…

Investors are looking beyond US equities for the first time in a decade amid a weakening US dollar and likely easing of US monetary policy, moving capital into Asia as they chase the artificial intelligence boom in the region, according to the head of global research at Bank of America (BofA). Advertisement Ahead of the three-day BofA Securities Asia Pacific Conference starting on Monday, Candace Browning said that US equities had been exceptional from the first half of 2020 to the end of 2024, attracting US$1.2 trillion from global investors,…

Stargazers enjoyed a “Blood Moon” on Sunday night during a total lunar eclipse visible across Asia and swathes of Europe and Africa. Advertisement When the sun, Earth and moon line up, the shadow cast by the planet on its satellite makes it appear an eerie, deep red colour that has astounded humans for millennia. People in Asia, including India and China, were best placed to see Sunday’s total eclipse, which was also visible on the eastern edge of Africa as well as in western Australia. Stargazers in Europe and Africa…

Ian Goldin is a professor of globalisation and development at the University of Oxford. Before his time in academia, he worked at several development lenders, including the World Bank, where he served as director of development policy and vice-president. His latest book, The Shortest History of Migration, was published in July 2024. Advertisement This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. Where do you think globalisation is heading? Is globalisation dead? Globalisation is not dead. It’s alive and well in Asia.…