Day: January 24, 2026

After a months-long war of words between an online influencer and a restaurant chain owner, a Communist Party mouthpiece has taken the unusual step of direct intervention – underlining China desire to rein in internet celebrities and social media platforms. Since Sunday, People’s Daily has published four commentaries about the restaurant chain Xibei, which says it expects to lose 500 million yuan (US$71.8 million) following an influencer’s online complaints about pre-made dishes. “This is typical of the internet era,” the Sunday commentary said. “A prominent internet influencer dominates online public…

As the number of people living alone in China skyrockets, a wave of products and services is emerging to address the safety, social and mental health needs of the country’s solo-living population, analysts said. The issue was thrust into the public spotlight earlier this month, when a check-in app called Are You Dead? – or Sileme in Chinese – briefly surged to the top of paid app charts in mainland China and several other markets, revealing the scale of China’s vast and rapidly expanding solo economy. The app – which…

The opposition push to impeach Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te has entered a new phase after he refused to appear at related legislative hearings. The no-show has further deepened partisan strife and is likely to complicate governance ahead of year-end local government elections, observers warn, although most of them agree that the impeachment motion is unlikely to clear Taiwan’s high constitutional threshold. The impeachment motion – an unprecedented move against a sitting leader of Taiwan – was launched late last year by the main opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) and the…

Mainland China’s and Hong Kong’s birth rates fell to record lows last year, despite extensive government incentives to encourage larger families. In Hong Kong, registered births fell 14 per cent to a historic low of 31,714 in 2025. Notably, the increase in births in 2024 may have been due to the auspicious Year of the Dragon. It is believed that babies born in the dragon year will grow up to be smart and successful. This is likely to have affected the timing of births as seen in Hong Kong during…

When a film about an investigation into a phone scam in Cambodia debuted at the Busan International Film Festival in 2018, it was not the cast or the plot that drew attention in China. Instead, the focus was on the film’s executive producer, Chen Zhi – a billionaire Chinese businessman who has himself been accused of running a sprawling online scam network in Cambodia. In The Prey – touted as Cambodia’s “first million-dollar action movie” – an undercover Interpol operative ends up in jail. Advertisement But in real life, Chen…

In the US State Department’s catalogue of priorities for the next five years, Taiwan rates exactly zero mentions. The department’s Agency Strategic Plan does list peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific as a goal but its top focus after national security is the western hemisphere. The plan sets out the direction of US foreign policy and foreign assistance between 2026 and 2030 and in doing so, sidesteps the island entirely. Advertisement It is a contrast to the White House’s National Security Strategy (NSS) released a month earlier, which said that…