Day: November 7, 2025

The ferocity of China’s biopharmaceutical investment boom this year – fuelled by record-breaking licensing of commercial rights to global giants after a three-year slump – may have surprised casual observers. Advertisement But according to Helen Chen, one of the most respected analysts and advisers in China’s life sciences space, the supercharged sector’s real renaissance came two years earlier. In December 2022, US drug maker MSD agreed to license global (excluding China) rights to develop and commercialise seven preclinical antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) cancer candidates from Sichuan Kelun-Biotech Biopharmaceutical, paying US$175 million…

Recycling sand and gravel aggregates from construction and demolition waste could meet half of China’s demand for the materials essential for building skyscrapers, roads and railways by 2050, a Chinese-led study has found. Advertisement By embracing a circular economy strategy, some provinces could achieve aggregate recycling rates as high as 65 per cent, the team led by researchers from Tsinghua University found. This could significantly ease China’s annual aggregate demand, which is projected to halve by the middle of this century to a mass equivalent to 1,500 Great Pyramids of…

Restoring confidence and stabilising the property market are “significantly more important” for China than the ramifications of tariffs, a Nobel laureate in economics said while warning of financial risks to Chinese households. Advertisement Michael Spence, who won the Nobel Prize in 2001, made the remarks at the Hongqiao International Economic Forum in Shanghai on Thursday, during a panel discussion on China’s pathway to revitalise consumption. While acknowledging that Beijing needs to “seriously” address tariff frictions, the 82-year-old Canadian-American said such external factors were of “secondary importance with respect to restoring…

China now has the largest naval fleet in the world, and its growing numbers of nuclear-powered submarines are an integral part of its efforts to project power beyond its coastal waters. But the view from Beijing is growing more complex as a handful of US allies in the Pacific also ramp up deployment of nuclear-powered subs. Advertisement According to analysts, these US allies face many challenges in building nuclear-powered submarines, which could take several decades to complete, but these developments could complicate Beijing’s calculation of naval deterrence in the region,…

The fight against a Florida law restricting property purchases by Chinese citizens may hinge on finding new challengers – and on persuading a conservative judiciary unlikely to reverse course, legal experts say. Advertisement In a 2-1 decision on Tuesday, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld two provisions of the 2023 law – requiring buyers to register their property and attest to their eligibility by affidavit, and ruled that the plaintiffs lacked the right to challenge the main purchasing restriction. The primary obstacle going forward is that…

China will join a Brazil-led coalition to link carbon markets across major economies, one of the key environmental proposals set to be adopted at Cop30 in Belem on Friday. Advertisement The so-called Open Coalition for the Integration of Carbon Markets was created to align standards and make it easier for countries to trade carbon credits. Developed by Brazil’s Ministry of Finance, it is part of the government’s Ecological Transformation Plan, a broad strategy to combine economic growth with social inclusion and environmental protection. The move, first reported by Bloomberg, has…

Beijing has lodged a protest with the European Union following a surprise speech by Taiwan’s No 2 leader Hsiao Bi-khim at the European Parliament in Brussels on Friday. Advertisement Organisers said she was the most senior official from Taiwan to have spoken at a foreign legislature in which the island did not have diplomatic recognition. Hsiao spoke at an unofficial conference of lawmakers from around the world who advocate for tougher China policies. She told the gathering that “cross-strait stability is not only a regional concern … it is a…