Month: April 2026

American views on China have softened ahead of a high-stakes summit between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in May, with positive sentiment nearly doubling since 2023, a survey by the Pew Research Centre has found. While a significant majority of Americans still regard China as a competitor to the US rather than a partner, fewer call the world’s second largest economy an adversary than in 2025, according to the survey, which was conducted in March and released on Tuesday. “Today, 27 per cent of Americans…

The official CAE website confirmed that Feng, one of its academicians, died on April 13. Although it did not give a cause of death, an article by state media outlet China Daily on Tuesday stated that he died of illness. With a career spanning nearly 40 years in military equipment research, Feng made “significant contributions” to developing both nuclear and conventional missile systems for the PLA Rocket Force, according to the CAE website. 01:07 Generals stripped of political advisory roles as China’s corruption clean-up continues Generals stripped of political advisory…

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has denounced proposed tolls in the Strait of Hormuz as a worrisome step in the wrong direction, while noting that several thousand stranded seafarers remain the international shipping community’s foremost concern. “Freedom of navigation has to be one of the pillars of free trade, and it would be a retrograde step – a really bad step,” said John Denholm, chair designate of the ICS, referring to the idea of charging vessels to transit the oil chokepoint. Speaking in Hong Kong on Tuesday, Denholm warned…

Not all scientists are willing to share why they returned to China. Most remain tight-lipped about their reasons for returning home and their specific experiences because of political or other non-scientific reasons. Zhang, who worked for many years in Cambridge, England, and Yale University in the United States, is one of the world’s top and most influential cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) scientists while harbouring further ambitious goals. Advertisement “The first time I really started thinking ‘should I go back to China’ was when a very good PhD student in my lab…

Taiwan’s political pendulum is reversing. The government led by Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) William Lai Ching-te is increasingly discredited, not least for selling out the jewel of its semiconductor industry to the United States under pressure from President Donald Trump. The Legislative Yuan is controlled by the opposition led by the Kuomintang (KMT). Party politics is now institutionalised into a sustained confrontation between the island’s presidency and its legislature. Now, budgets can’t pass, including funds for arms purchases from Washington. The constitutional court can’t intervene to resolve the budget dispute…

As the US imposes its own blockade on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz following the collapse of talks with Iran at the weekend, we take a look at how major economies in Asia and Europe could be affected by further restrictions on passage through one of the world’s most critical choke points for energy supplies. Who is most vulnerable in this energy crisis? According to a recent report by Japanese investment bank Nomura, the regions most exposed to the tensions in the Persian Gulf are Asian economies, excluding China,…

Russia and China’s top envoys met in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss the Iran war, Ukraine and Taiwan as Beijing stepped up its Iran war diplomacy and tensions with Washington increased. In a jab at Washington and US President Donald Trump that did not mention either by name, a Chinese readout of the meeting between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov noted that the world is increasingly marked by turmoil and instability. The two top diplomats also discussed plans for a meeting “within the year” between…

Brazil will require foreign partners to process rare earth minerals domestically as a condition for access to its reserves, a senior government official said this week, setting terms that could reshape how Chinese and Western firms compete for resources the country has long exported raw. “Our doors of Brazil to foreign investment are open, but our position has matured,” Leonardo Durans, a senior official at Brazil’s industry ministry, said at a press conference with international media on Monday. “The commitment we will demand from everyone is domestic technological development and…