Day: June 22, 2026

For the first time since 1978, the Japanese government has decided to raise visa fees. The cost of a single-entry visa will increase from 3,000 yen (US$18.54) to 15,000 yen, while multiple-entry visas will jump from 6,000 yen to 30,000 yen. The new policy, which will come into effect on July 1, has been widely seen as Tokyo’s response to inflation and the yen’s depreciation. The change will bring Japan’s visa fees closer to the levels of its developed counterparts, including those in Europe. Advertisement Of Japan’s top five inbound…

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) appears sudden and revolutionary, yet its origins stretch deep into history, revealing a profound and forgotten intellectual exchange between China and the West. Long before Alan Turing, Claude Shannon, or even Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, there was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – the German polymath born exactly 380 years ago next week. Among his monumental contributions to science is the binary numeral system, which serves as the bedrock of modern computing, AI and even DNA biology. Leibniz developed a “new” form of mathematics that…

Japan seized the spotlight at last month’s Shangri-La Dialogue, stepping into a vacuum left by the Chinese defence chief – who skipped the forum for a second year – and using the stage to sharpen its warnings over Beijing’s military rise. Japan’s prominence was amplified when a scheduled session on China’s cooperative partnerships in the Asia-Pacific – a slot that would have offered Beijing a platform to present its vision for regional security – was cancelled. Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi delivers a speech during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore…

The US strike on an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman earlier this month did more than kill three Indian sailors and severely undercut US-India relations. It has also cast further doubt on the unity of the Quad, an informal bloc made up of the United States, Japan, Australia and India, and the group’s ambitious agenda aimed at loosening China’s dominant grip on critical minerals. Despite the persistent US-India fissures that could slow down the Quad’s momentum, however, a counter-unifying force may ultimately prove stronger, analysts said: shared anxieties…

China, which now conducts more clinical drug trials than the US, still lags in the quality and commercial reach of its biomedical science, according to a recent survey of senior US leaders in industry and academia. The ‌poll, conducted by Cure Innovation Index, found that China is seen as the clear leader in two out of six sectors: clinical development and supply chain. It found that the US leads in moving experimental products through to large-scale production, capital, and commercialisation and talent. The two countries were viewed as tied in…

Beijing’s latest restrictions on US rare earth companies, imposed in response to the Pentagon’s designation of leading Chinese firms, are testing the durability of the fragile US-China truce, analysts said. China’s export controls, targeting 10 US entities including national giants MP Materials and USA Rare Earth, mark one of the most significant escalations since Washington and Beijing reached a temporary truce last October in Busan – an understanding that was reaffirmed during the recent summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing last month. “Beijing’s…

Beijing congratulated Colombia on its presidential run-off and said it would work with the incoming government of Abelardo de la Espriella, the far-right lawyer who has promised to pull the country back towards the United States. Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun made the remarks on Monday, a day after a preliminary count put de la Espriella narrowly ahead of his leftist rival, Senator Ivan Cepeda. “China … congratulates Colombia on the smooth second round of presidential elections,” he said, adding that Beijing viewed the relationship “from a strategic height and…

European Central ⁠Bank President Christine Lagarde ⁠on Monday urged global leaders to discuss undervaluation of the Chinese currency as a facet of the imbalances endangering the global economy. China has ‌consistently denied that it manipulates its currency for trade advantage but its surging trade surpluses are one of several macroeconomic mismatches worrying leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations who met last week in ⁠France, along with chronic US deficits and Europe’s underinvestment. Europe has ‌struggled to compete with China in sectors it used to dominate, such as high-end…

Europe’s defence industry would gradually reduce its reliance on China during the continent’s ongoing rearmament drive, rather than decouple completely, analysts said. On Wednesday, during the Group of Seven summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, the leaders of France, Germany, the UK, Italy, the US, Canada and Japan signed a declaration on securing supply chains for critical minerals. Without naming China, the leaders agreed to “significantly reduce” their dependency on a “single supplier outside the G7” for rare earths and permanent magnets to below 60 per cent by 2030, with the ultimate…

Iran should use funds unlocked by Washington to buy US agricultural products, according to Vice-President J.D. Vance, who said on Monday it would help feed the country’s population while making American farmers richer. Iran has not indicated whether it would accept the terms. Vance credited US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner with the idea, which he described as a “very, very good, and very classic Trump deal”. Advertisement Advertisement He added: “If Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, they’re going to go to make American farmers richer and to feed…