Month: March 2026

US President Donald Trump’s war on Iran has not only exposed White House decision-making flaws but also “clear cracks” within the Republican Party and his political base, observers in China say, warning of the risks posed to the party’s midterm prospects. As the US-Israel war with Iran enters its fifth week, mixed signals from Trump and his administration continue to trigger questions about the trajectory of Operation Epic Fury and the exit strategy. Trump has repeatedly claimed victory, most recently on Tuesday, when he said that a deal on ending…

A string of Chinese analogue chipmakers have announced price increases in step with their international peers, as a broader pricing wave sweeps across the semiconductor supply chain – a shift that analysts say could hand China’s mature-node producers a rare window to gain ground. Novosense Microelectronics, SG Micro, Fortior Technology, Halo Microelectronics, Silan Micro and Kiwi Instruments are among the domestic firms recently raising prices, in line with global leaders including Texas Instruments (TI), Analog Devices, NXP, Infineon, Onsemi and STMicroelectronics. TI’s latest round, set to take effect in April,…

ByteDance has bolstered its controversial video-generation model Seedance 2.0 with “advanced” watermarking and intellectual property (IP) protection guardrails ahead of its global roll-out, the TikTok owner has said. The much-anticipated international release comes amid intense scrutiny from Hollywood studios over alleged IP theft after numerous Seedance-generated videos featuring famous Hollywood actors and characters went viral in February. On Wednesday, ByteDance said its global safety and intellectual property teams had worked with a third-party “red-teaming” partner to bolster the safety features of Seedance 2.0, which would become available to users of…

Beijing-based high-school teacher Jiang Xueqin may not seem like an obvious candidate for a geopolitical “prophet”. Dressed casually in a polo shirt, the greying Chinese-Canadian looks unassuming. But through his hugely popular Predictive History YouTube channel, Jiang has become known as “China’s Nostradamus”, gaining a following for his outlook on world affairs. Advertisement While most of his fans are outside China, his lectures and interviews have been translated and uploaded on Chinese social media sites, prompting a range of discussion about his programmes and perspectives. Jiang is best known for…

In January, a top Chinese AI researcher told an industry summit in Beijing there was less than a 20 per cent chance of any Chinese company surpassing a leading US artificial intelligence firm in the next three to five years. The remark by Lin Junyang, until recently a technical leader working on Qwen, one of China’s most capable open-source AI models under Alibaba (which owns the South China Morning Post), made headlines. But much of the commentary missed a more important question Lin posed: “Does innovation happen in the hands…

As the country with the world’s largest cohort of billionaires, China is no stranger to wealthy elites engaging in luxurious leisure activities, but one common pastime in the West does not seem to have attracted a commensurate level of interest across the Pacific – yachting. The JD.com founder’s launch of yacht brand Sea Expandary last month, with a planned investment of 5 billion yuan (US$723 million), signalled a potential transformation of yachting into a more accessible, mass-market activity in China, as its appeal fades among the affluent, they said. Advertisement…

For most people, ants are unwelcome guests at a picnic, but international demand for the insects is driving a new black market in East Africa, where it could threaten ant populations and the broader environment. In early March, 27-year-old Chinese national Zhang Kequn was detained at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, with more than 2,200 live queen ants packed in his luggage. Around the same time, Thai authorities seized a shipment of ants sent from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. The contraband insects were from the Messor…

Chinese researchers have introduced a new methodology for evaluating medical and life science journals worldwide that does not rely on the “impact factor” traditionally used in the academic world. Experts view this as part of China’s broader efforts to strengthen its “academic discourse power”. Two new Dongbi Index journal lists, covering 4,027 medical and 3,064 life-science journals selected from more than 40,000 worldwide, were unveiled in Shanghai on March 21. They were developed by the Shenzhen-based data technology firm, Dongbi Data, in collaboration with the Institute of Medical Information &…

As one of the biggest targets of wartime looting in centuries past, China is now positioning itself as a global pioneer in repatriating lost cultural artefacts. In this article, the second in a two-part series, Xinlu Liang looks at how China is wielding law, diplomacy and a Global South coalition to rewrite the rules of restitution, filling a void left by a retreating US. In January, as the United States was withdrawing from a raft of heritage and science bodies around the world, China was testing a new international model…