Day: December 20, 2025

Beijing and New Delhi have taken another step towards normalising economic ties after a five-year rift, as China moves to introduce a simplified visa process for Indian nationals that could help it tap India’s fast-growing travel market. The Chinese embassy in New Delhi said earlier this month that Indian citizens would be able to apply for visas online from December 22, sparing them time-consuming initial in-person visits to the embassy or other consular offices in the country. The move follows the resumption of direct flights between India and China in…

00:00 00:00 1.25x South China Morning Post

Chinese archaeologists unearthing the ruins of the earliest known settlement in the Yangtze River Delta say water management may have been the origin of ancient “cities” in the area. Researchers began large-scale excavations of the Doushan site in Wuxi in the eastern province of Jiangsu in July last year, dating the city to about 6,000 years ago. Previously, the oldest urban site in the delta area was the Liangzhu culture site near Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, dating back about 5,300 years. Advertisement More than two dozen experts gathered at the…

Stand-alone flagship stores with distinctive architectural facades, long prevalent in global metropolises like Tokyo, Seoul and New York, are gradually gaining traction in China, as the country’s retail landscape undergoes a broader shift from enclosed malls towards open-air and street-facing formats. More luxury brands are setting up such flagships in places like Beijing’s Taikoo Li Sanlitun North, a trendy open-air commercial block developed and operated by Hong Kong’s Swire Properties. Multiple new stand-alone flagship stores, including those of Dior, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany, recently opened or are set to open…

China has boosted its armour steel production speed by 30 per cent with continuous investment in tech upgrades, while a major American steelmaker that provided military-grade steel for tanks, ships and mine-resistant vehicles ceased operation for financial reasons. Chinese military supplier Inner Mongolia First Machinery Group said it had solved key technical challenges to allow large-scale production of high-performance armour steel, which has been deployed for manufacturing tanks and armoured vehicles, the official Science and Technology Daily reported this month. In the United States, steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs announced in May the…

China has pulled far ahead in the race to build humanoid robots, issuing five times as many related patents as the United States over the past five years, Morgan Stanley said in its latest Robot Almanac. In “Robot Almanac, Volume 3: Humanoids & Industrial Robots”, released on Tuesday as part of a six-volume series, Morgan Stanley said China recorded 7,705 humanoid patents over the past five years, compared with 1,561 in the US. Japan ranked next with 1,102, followed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with 1,100. WIPO is…

A recently leaked Pentagon report has projected heavy US losses should it intervene in a Taiwan conflict, highlighting Washington’s growing anxiety over Beijing’s rapidly improving capabilities, according to defence experts. In a classified assessment known as the Overmatch brief, the Pentagon has catalogued the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to destroy American fighter planes, large ships and satellites and identified the US military’s supply chain choke points, according to a December 8 opinion article by The New York Times. The brief is a comprehensive review of US military power prepared by…

It has been a turbulent year for the fraught US-China relationship. In the fifth part of a series looking back at the events of 2025, we examine how Trump’s strained relationship with farmers in America’s rural heartland may impact the 2026 midterm elections. As a bruising 2025 draws to a close for America’s Democratic Party, the caucus is spotlighting mounting challenges facing farmers in the country’s rural heartland. In a series of mini-documentaries released late this year, the lush green rows of the Midwest are replaced by a stark, dust-blown…

The air defence system – inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome and America’s proposed Golden Dome – was unveiled in October. Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te said T-Dome would guard against “hostile threats” and aimed to intercept aircraft, drones and missiles before they could strike the island. Lai did not offer many technical details, but Defence Minister Wellington Koo Li-hsiung later suggested the system would focus on integrating the detection and fire-control systems of existing air defence missiles with new technologies like AI, “rather than buying huge quantities of new missiles”.…

Two of China’s aircraft carriers, including its biggest and best, have docked at the same naval base near the Yellow Sea, raising suggestions that another dual-carrier exercise is on the horizon. In one of the images purportedly taken on Thursday, the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier, docked on the other side of the pier with the Fujian. Advertisement On Friday, maritime safety authorities in Dalian – about 320km (200 miles) from Qingdao – said a military activity would be held in the Bohai Strait and northern Yellow Sea for one…