Day: June 24, 2026

Hundreds of China’s top military officials have spent weeks at an unprecedented ideology training camp – studying President Xi Jinping’s speeches, reading corrupt cadres’ confessions and marching in formation – as the anti-corruption drive in the military deepens. The details of the training camp, which concluded last week, were published in the People’s Liberation Army Daily, the military’s official newspaper, on Wednesday. Xi personally decided to launch the exercise, which began on April 8, the PLA Daily reported. During its opening ceremony, he delivered a speech stressing that “leading officers,…

Southbound Stock Connect flows, through which mainland Chinese investors buy Hong Kong listed shares, hit a record high in the past year, reflecting strong confidence in the city’s market on the back of a booming pipeline of initial public offerings (IPO). In the 12 months to March this year, mainland investors snapped up HK$1.19 trillion (US$151.8 billion) worth of shares in Hong Kong, according to the Securities and Futures Commission’s (SFC) annual report published on Wednesday. Average daily turnover of southbound inflows jumped 84 per cent year on year to…

The market realignment over the past week starkly captures the self-defeating logic of America’s technology containment strategy. The momentum began on June 15, when the shares of Chinese artificial intelligence pioneer Zhipu AI, which trade in Hong Kong under Knowledge Atlas Technology, surged by 48 per cent intraday after it announced the open-source release of its GLM-5.2 foundation model. The rally continued this week, with Zhipu’s shares trading at an intraday high of HK$2,980 (US$380) in the morning of June 22, briefly driving market capitalisation past HK$1.2 trillion – a…

The United States did not send high-level officials to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) tourism ministerial meeting in Macau, citing China’s restrictions on American diplomats’ ability to provide emergency consular help. Washington did not send “high-level participants” to the meeting, which runs from Wednesday to Sunday in China’s Macau Special Administrative Region, according to a US State Department statement released on Wednesday. The US had repeatedly asked China to lift the “arbitrary and targeted” visa requirements it imposes on US government officials travelling to Macau to provide consular services to…

The war in Iran is effectively over. Although the dust has yet to settle, some lessons are already visible. First, US President Donald Trump has waged a personal war at the world’s expense. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu warned that arms are ill-omened tools, employed only as a last resort. Trump, who has admitted he doesn’t like to read, may not realise this. Few people know why he ordered a strike on Iran. Maybe kidnapping president Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela was too easy or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was too…

On a sunny day in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighbourhood, punters piled into the fifth floor of Time Out Market to Portugal House – part food court, part bar, full-blown World Cup party. The room was awash with Portuguese team jerseys, filled with fans sipping cold beer and soft drinks, proudly singing Portugal’s national anthem before their match against DR Congo. “Hopefully, one day I can sing the Chinese national song in a World Cup stadium,” said Zhai Yibo, a 20-year-old Chinese student studying in London who was watching the game in…

Song Zhongping, a military commentator and former PLA instructor, said the Fujian could be heading back to its home port in the southern island province of Hainan for a break before it headed out to the South China Sea for more training. Taiwan’s armed forces closely monitored the vessel throughout its passage using joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets and maintained full awareness of its movements, the island’s defence ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry released a photo showing the Fujian with an empty deck. Previously, Song said a lack…