Day: March 9, 2026

The EU must decide whether the rules-based international order “is more a help or a hindrance to our credibility as a geopolitical actor”, the bloc’s top official said on Monday, in the strongest sign yet that it might break from decades of rigid adherence to global norms. In a speech to the European Union’s ambassadors, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her most forceful rhetoric to date to call time on the old system, urging the diplomats to quickly update their thinking or be left behind. “Europe can…

China has included several natural gas pipelines with Russia in the draft of its new five-year plan, raising market debate on whether the Power of Siberia 2 – a closely watched project viewed as symbolic of bilateral relations – could be on the fast track for construction. Along with language on two other pipelines, the draft said China would “advance preparatory work for the central route of the China-Russia natural gas pipeline” in the next five years, which some market observers interpreted as being related to the Power of Siberia…

Escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait remain Beijing’s foremost external security concern for 2026, fuelled by uncertainties surrounding the US midterm elections and the growing involvement of Japan, according to a prominent Chinese think tank. In its latest annual forecast of China’s external security risks, the Centre for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University framed this year as a pivotal moment in the profound reshaping of China’s outer defence environment. The CISS report, based on surveys and interviews with dozens of senior experts, identified three defining features of…

South China Morning Post

For mathematical genius Wan Daqing, life is no longer a competition between China and the United States. Instead, he has encountered the rivalry of universities from different provinces seeking to appoint him. Wan, winner of China’s highest mathematics prize, retired from the University of California at Irvine (UCI) in July and returned to China to take up his new role in December, he confirmed in an email to the South China Morning Post. The International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM) Medal is awarded every three years to individuals of Chinese…

China’s consumer prices rose during the first two months of the year as a longer-than-usual Chinese New Year holiday drove a surge in spending, though analysts cautioned that Beijing might need to implement stronger measures to boost demand to sustain the recovery. The national consumer price index (CPI), a crucial gauge of inflation, rose by 0.8 per cent year on year during the January-February period, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday. Readings for the first two months are typically grouped together to reduce…