Day: June 17, 2026

Chinese ambassador to the United States Xie Feng on Wednesday proposed to increase the limit of tariff-free goods under the newly created US-China Board of Trade from the existing US$30 billion to US$300 billion – a 10-fold rise in non-sensitive trade covered by the mechanism. Addressing a gathering at the US-China Business Council gala in Washington, Xie said he shared the view of “many friends from American businesses” that the tariff-free basket was “far from big enough”. “I cannot agree more. If we take into account the scale of overall…

On a summer evening in 2011, two high-speed trains hurtling through the Chinese countryside met in a fireball of twisted metal and shattered glass. The Wenzhou disaster, as it came to be known, killed 40 people and injured nearly 200. The official inquiry traced the catastrophe to a lightning strike that had fried a trackside circuit, making one train “invisible” to the control centre, which then wrongly cleared the line for the train behind. However, could the “brain” of the railway ever be made so resilient that no single bolt…

China poses a threat to America’s senior citizens through drug supply chains, financial scams and data privacy, a congressional hearing highlighted on Wednesday, with lawmakers and witnesses framing it as a national security issue. “Fifty years ago, we never would have given the Soviets the kind of leeway we give China: the access they have to our economy and our information, the dependence they enjoy from our supply chains,” said Rick Scott, a Republican senator from Florida, adding that the US needed to “get serious about this before it’s too…

Iran and the US have signed a peace deal that will take immediate effect, with Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz and the US lifting its naval blockade, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced. “The Memorandum has been signed by honourable Presidents of both the countries and also endorsed by me as the mediator,” he wrote. Advertisement “The signing of this agreement at the highest level of the respective governments demonstrates the commitment of both sides to a diplomatic resolution of the conflict.” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Photo: Violaine…

The outline of the agreement, titled “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran”, was released following days of pushback over the Trump administration’s lack of transparency. US President Donald Trump told reporters in France on the sidelines of the Group of 7 economies that the 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) – reached on Sunday – “achieves everything we set out to accomplish, everything and much more”. Trump sets date for Hormuz Strait reopening, while Israel says it is not bound by…

As national EU leaders meet in Brussels to thrash out a possible new China policy, speculation is high as to where they all stand amid fluid member-state dynamics. In the last part of this three-part series, we look at whether the conventional wisdom will be fundamentally changed in the EU and how the bloc could forge a united front in dealing with China. Over dinner on Thursday, leaders from the European Union’s 27 member states will chew on one of their toughest courses in years: “global macroeconomic imbalances and their…