Month: April 2026

On March 31, Africa Defence Forum magazine, a publication of the US Army’s Africa Command, ran an article called: “China’s floating fish factories plunder Guinea Bissau’s resources”. It detailed illegal operations by Chinese fishing trawlers in the West African country’s territorial waters, portraying the activities as part of a pattern of exploitation of African countries by China. Advertisement Meanwhile, over on the website of China Global Television Network’s (CGTN) Africa service was the headline: “Mahama warns of global impact of US ‘erasure’ of Black history”. It was a story about…

An open-source artificial intelligence project aimed at harvesting human capabilities into reusable AI “skills” has gone viral in China, gaining traction as a meme among the country’s uneasy young workers as they face growing job insecurity amid rapid AI advances. Supposedly, certain skills of luminaries such as Steve Jobs, spiritual figures like Gautama Buddha and ordinary office workers have been extracted into digital form and uploaded online, making these skills – such as Jobs’ product intuition – available for anyone to tap for free. The project, called Colleague Skill, was…

Chinese scientists say they have developed a wafer-scale 2D semiconductor growth method with 1,000 times faster growth, paving the way for industry advances. The surging demand for high‑performance, low‑power chips driven by AI and large-language models has intensified the search for next‑generation semiconductor technologies. Moore’s Law predicted a doubling of semiconductor capacity every two years but as chip dimensions continue to shrink, physical limitations make further performance scaling increasingly difficult. 01:46 AI rush turns everyday data storage into ‘digital gold’ for Hong Kong consumers AI rush turns everyday data storage…

When Su Shaojun launched an audacious plan to build a life-size replica of the Titanic, he felt he was on to a sure-fire winner. After all, James Cameron’s iconic 1997 film had been a worldwide hit – including in China, where it had grossed over US$200 million. At a press event to unveil the project in 2014, Su invited the actor Bernard Hill – who played the captain of the Titanic in the film – to appear alongside him as he told the assembled reporters in Hong Kong that his…

The 10-point measures, which also include a pledge to ease restrictions on individuals travelling to the island, were announced on Sunday as Kuomintang chairwoman Cheng Li-wun concluded her visit to the mainland. Her trip, which began on Tuesday, included a meeting with Xi Jinping – the first between the leaders of the Communist Party and KMT in nine years. Advertisement On Sunday, Cheng visited electronics giant Xiaomi’s factory in Beijing, where she met the group’s founder and chairman Lei Jun. During the tour, Lei presented her with a smartphone as…

Iran’s ability to sustain missile and drone strikes despite heavy US-Israeli attacks has sharpened a debate in Taiwan: if the island’s air defences were degraded in the early stages of a conflict with mainland China, could it still keep fighting? The answer from officials, lawmakers and analysts was cautious but clear. They said the island could be resilient – but only if it shifted away from a missile-heavy defensive mindset towards a more integrated, cost-effective and survivable system. Advertisement Even after suffering heavy strikes, Tehran continued launching attacks – showing…

Two months after the United States’ capture and forcible extradition of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro – and as the South American country attempts to settle into a state of relative normalcy in the aftermath of the military incursion – a cohort of Chinese migrants are relocating there in search of business opportunities. Not all are new arrivals. Mey Hou, a long-term Venezuela resident in her 40s who fled the country during Maduro’s tenure, said many people from her hometown in southern China’s Guangdong province were already on their way…

“We have been at it now for 21 hours, and we’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news,” the US vice-president told a press conference. “[The] bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran, much more than that, it’s bad news for the United States of America.” Advertisement He left, not responding to questions on whether the two sides would go to war again. Advertisement “We’ve made very clear what our red lines are:…