Day: September 9, 2025

China reviewed two legislative proposals on Monday as the country ramps up a drive to promote further ethnic integration through the use of standard Mandarin – both the spoken and written language – among minorities. Advertisement The draft “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress”, submitted to China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, is “an urgent requirement to foster a strong sense of community among the Chinese nation and advance the construction of a unified national identity”, state news agency Xinhua reported on Monday. In…

China’s consumer prices slipped back into decline in August, highlighting persistent deflationary pressures, while a narrower drop in factory-gate prices suggested Beijing’s “anti-involution” campaign may be starting to take hold. Advertisement The national consumer price index (CPI), a key gauge of inflation, fell 0.4 per cent year on year last month, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. The reading fell short of market expectations after a poll by financial provider Wind forecast a 0.2 per cent drop. In July, the CPI remained unchanged from…

For cities around the world, hosting the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games is often seen as both a prestigious honour and a daunting economic burden. The need to construct sports complexes, modernise transport networks and expand accommodation capacity can saddle hosts with debt and infrastructure that often falls into disuse post-Games. Advertisement But what if the host has the DNA for hosting a successful Olympics and can surmount this financial strain? What comes to mind is the Greater Bay Area – a vibrant region encompassing Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau and…

Apple unveiled a panoply of updated gadgets at this year’s biggest product launch on Tuesday, with its ultra-thin iPhone Air grabbing much of the limelight. Advertisement Customers in mainland China, one of Apple’s most lucrative markets, however, may be less inclined to join the scramble for the new model because of regulatory uncertainties related to the new phone’s adoption of eSIM technology in place of physical SIM cards. The release of the iPhone Air may be limited or staggered in the country in its initial few weeks or months, as…

China’s largest government-backed research funder has begun accepting applications for the study of stablecoins and their cross-border monitoring systems, a move indicating Beijing’s growing interest – and wariness – towards the emerging digital asset. Advertisement In a circular posted on its website last week, the National Natural Science Foundation of China – an affiliate of the Ministry of Science and Technology that manages hundreds of billions of yuan in annual funding – solicited proposals for the project, which it characterised as addressing an issue critical to the country’s economic development.…

A Chinese team has unveiled what it calls the world’s first “brain-like” large language model – an artificial intelligence system designed to use less energy, perform better and operate without Nvidia chips. Advertisement Developed by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Automation in Beijing, SpikingBrain 1.0 mimics how the human brain fires only the neurons it needs. So instead of activating an entire network like ChatGPT and other mainstream AI tools, it selectively responds to input, saving power and speeding up response time. Thanks to this design,…