Day: January 3, 2026

A plan by the chairwoman of Taiwan’s main opposition party to visit Beijing – where she hopes to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping – early this year carries hopes of improving communication amid high tension between the two sides of the strait. While supporters portray Cheng Li-wun’s trip as a potential opening to ease cross-strait tensions, critics warn it risks signalling political alignment with Beijing at a time of rising military pressure. Cheng, who was elected chairwoman of the Kuomintang (KMT) in October, has repeatedly said she hoped to visit…

Since 2020, Li Jiang, a veteran manufacturing entrepreneur from Guangdong, has been selling off his properties one by one – a move that once puzzled many of his friends. For decades, real estate had been the ultimate “anchor” for retirement planning and wealth transfer among China’s high-net-worth families. At his peak, Li concentrated much of his wealth in property, owning seven assets ranging from CBD apartments to high-end suburban villas. These were intended partly for retirement and partly to pass his wealth along to the next generation. Now, Li retains…

A groundbreaking Chinese innovation is turning one of climate policy’s oldest assumptions on its head: that cutting emissions inevitably hurts the economy. Critics including US President Donald Trump have long dismissed green regulations as a drag on industry, claiming they raise costs and cut production. Even the European Union is now reconsidering its phase-out targets for fossil fuel vehicles, using the negative economic impact as justification. But new research from a team led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University shows that slashing carbon emissions does not have…

A little over a decade ago, a diplomatic row with Japan would have been enough to bring people out into the streets in China or at least stir a patriotic retail boycott. In 2012, for instance, tensions boiled over after Tokyo bought and then nationalised three of the Diaoyu Islands, a group of eight uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that Japan calls the Senkakus. China and Japan have a long-running territorial dispute over the islands and authorities appeared to tolerate the anti-Japanese demonstrations that broke out in many…

In contrast to the United States, which innovates and influences, and the European Union, which regulates, China has become the world’s climate doer. Beyond the headlines of decoupling, tariffs and geopolitical rivalry, an underappreciated global transformation is quietly under way: China, often framed as the world’s factory and climate laggard, has, almost by stealth, become the world’s undisputed climate leader. This may sit uncomfortably with Western policymakers, and perhaps even with some Chinese officials themselves, but the numbers and pace of change are striking and demand recognition. Advertisement US retrenchment…

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States would maintain direct control of Venezuela to prevent “somebody else” taking it over after a military operation that captured President Nicolas Maduro, pledging to keep oil flowing to China even as Washington signalled it would manage the transition itself. Washington later confirmed that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been captured and removed from the country, and released photographs showing Maduro under US custody. Advertisement It was not immediately clear how US control of Venezuela would function in…

China’s first fixed-wing carrier-based early-warning aircraft may have sacrificed aerial refuelling to be able to operate from both ski-jump and catapult-equipped vessels, according to a Chinese military magazine. The KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft was designed for catapult-launched operations and made its debut at the Victory Day parade in early September, flying over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. 01:34 China’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, enters service China’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, enters service Later that month, video was released of its take-off and landing via electromagnetic…

Hong Kong-based entrepreneur Chan Shan Shan is a frequent traveller to mainland China. But rather than the usual activities or sightseeing spots that fill the days of most tourists, Chan has something else on her itinerary: horse riding. Over the past five years, Chan, 29, has left Hong Kong to canter across varied terrains in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai, all in neighbouring Guangdong province. She has mounted up in Yunnan province and western China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, as well as the populous city of Shanghai. The rides – she…