Day: February 20, 2026

US President Donald Trump will travel to China from March 31 to ⁠April 2, the White House has announced. Observers noted that the court’s decision could leave Trump with less leverage against China during negotiations. Advertisement It will be Trump’s first visit to China since coming to office for a second time – his previous trip to the country was in November 2017 during his first term. Xi is expected to visit the United States later this year. Advertisement Relations between the two countries have been rocky since Trump imposed…

The ecological health of China’s Yangtze River is undergoing a meaningful recovery, just halfway through a 10-year fishing ban to restore the ecosystem, a new study has found. As one of the country’s vital waterways – and among the world’s most biodiverse rivers – the Yangtze has long supported immense economic and social functions. At its peak, it contributed more than 60 per cent of China’s freshwater fisheries output. Yet from the 1950s, the river basin faced sustained ecological decline due to overfishing, dam construction, water pollution and heavy shipping…

For decades, China’s role in the global economy was easy to define. It made things cheaply and at astonishing scale. “Made in China” became shorthand for industrial capacity. It was often contentious, sometimes admired, sometimes feared. In the years after China joined the World Trade Organization, its firms were deeply embedded in global supply chains, mostly at the lower end of the value chain. They produced for others. Western and Japanese companies controlled the premium segments and brand recognition, while Chinese companies handled the unglamorous manufacturing work. That division is…

Chinese scientists have made a long-lasting, eco-friendly battery using organic electrodes and an electrolyte safe enough to be used as tofu brine. The team’s water-based battery is non-toxic and can be discarded without posing an ecological risk, unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries which require hazardous waste processing. Water-based batteries eliminate the flammability risk of conventional batteries and can be cheaper to produce, offering a safer alternative for applications like electric vehicles and large-scale grid storage. Advertisement “Compared with current aqueous battery systems … our system delivers exceptional long-term cycling stability and…

For overseas researchers, policymakers, businesses and casual users alike, access to China’s public information is quietly shrinking as a growing number of official websites go dark outside the country, a new study has found. The contraction is far from marginal. A number of Chinese government websites were inaccessible from outside the country, the findings showed, indicating the emergence of a “reverse Great Firewall”. This suggests a deliberate effort by Beijing to prevent foreign data mining and open-source intelligence gathering, according to research findings published this month. Advertisement The paper, published…

In a consequential decision that most of the world awaited expectantly, with billions of dollars on the line, the US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower-court ruling, striking down US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, paving the way for massive refunds of well over US$100 billion already paid and the likelihood of a tumultuous adjustment. The 6-3 decision in the nine-justice conservative majority of the High Court is the most significant legal setback yet for the administration that has broadly accepted Trump’s expansive view of executive power. “The judgment of…

As US President Donald Trump prepares for a possible visit to China in April, analysts say that one issue is likely to “cast a shadow” over his looming negotiations with Beijing: America’s need to maintain access to supplies of gallium and other strategic resources. With China’s suspension of a ban on exports of gallium and several other metals to the US set to expire in November, the Trump administration’s immediate goal in any trade talks would be to avoid escalating tensions over critical minerals – allowing America to buy time…