Day: December 26, 2025

Lee Jae-myung is set to become the first sitting South Korean president to travel to China since 2019 with a visit scheduled for early January. Analysts said Lee was expected to engage Beijing on security issues, including North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and the enforcement of international sanctions, while seeking to build on his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in October. Neither side has confirmed the visit, but preparations are under way, highlighted by a recent strategic vice-ministerial dialogue in Beijing between Park Yoon-joo, South Korea’s first foreign vice-minister, and…

Foreign forces have used deepfakes and other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to create public panic and obtain sensitive information, posing a threat to China’s national security, the country’s top intelligence agency has warned. Deepfake technology, which uses AI’s deep learning algorithms to simulate and forge images, audio and video, can be abused or used maliciously to endanger individual legal rights, social stability and national security, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) said in an article on Friday. It said some “hostile foreign anti-China forces” had used this technology to generate…

From luxury handbags to vintage Bordeaux, China’s consumers have long associated French products with fine living. Now, France aims to hook the country’s expanding middle class on another local speciality: foie gras. China placed tight restrictions on imports of the iconic French goose liver pate amid Europe’s bird flu epidemic, but there are signs that things could change, with Beijing recently vowing to get more produce “from French farms to Chinese tables”. Paris and Beijing also signed a declaration on agriculture during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China earlier…

As 2025 draws to a close amid heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over new arms sales to Taiwan, analysts warn that the worsening atmosphere could weigh on the substance – if not the scheduling – of US President Donald Trump’s visit to China next year to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Washington’s announcement last week of a US$11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan, the largest to date, has sharpened frictions at a sensitive moment, making it less likely that Beijing will be inclined to offer concessions or deliverables…

President Donald Trump’s reluctance to authorise direct military intervention in Venezuela underscored the US dilemma of how to reassert dominance in its traditional sphere while managing escalation risks in multipolar rivalry with China and Russia, observers said. But they cautioned against seeing US hesitation as weakness, noting intensified sanctions, naval blockades and diplomatic pressure from Washington, alongside a recalibrated strategy to sustain influence without overcommitment against China’s growing economic footprint in Latin America. The Trump administration has pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro under “Operation Southern…

China has launched a national fund designed to channel state-backed money into early-stage bets on tech, a move officials said could ultimately steer trillions of yuan into preferred avenues of investment. Beijing’s National Venture Capital Guidance Fund was unveiled on Friday, at a ceremony which also introduced three investment vehicles covering major cross-regional agglomerations: the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster, the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area. At the ceremony, an official from the Ministry of Finance said the new fund differs from earlier programmes in three ways: more…

Images of a cargo ship in Shanghai carrying containerised vertical launchers, sensors and self-defence systems have spread online and prompted discussion for apparently showing China’s capacity to convert civilian cargo vessels to military purposes. The circulated images show vertical launch systems, rotary phased-array radars, over-the-horizon radars, close-in weapon systems and decoy launchers mounted atop containers on a cargo vessel. This configuration appears to be a temporary installation, seemingly aimed at converting the merchant vessel into a heavily armed surface combatant. 01:29 China’s first 076 ‘drone carrier’ amphibious assault ship begins…

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China science stories of the year. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. China unveils a powerful deep-sea cable cutter that could reset the world order A compact, deep-sea, cable-cutting device, capable of severing the world’s most fortified underwater communication or power lines, has been unveiled by China – and it could shake up global maritime power dynamics. 2. China tests non-nuclear hydrogen bomb, science paper shows Chinese researchers have successfully detonated a hydrogen-based explosive device…