Day: June 28, 2026

European Union leaders had a week to bask in their rare, relatively united stance on China policy before news broke to remind them of the urgency of their task: German car giant Volkswagen was reportedly planning up to 100,000 job cuts in the face of cutthroat Chinese competition. Seven days previously at a European Council summit in Brussels, leaders from the EU’s 27 member states had instructed the European Commission to accelerate its efforts to fight back against what is seen as a damaging surge in Chinese shipments, even while…

A Chinese farmer has generated a buzz online by planting a forest of more than 170 surveillance cameras on his land in the hope of boosting his compensation under a land purchase scheme. Footage circulating on social media – which showed the poles standing almost shoulder to shoulder on a hillside in Badong county, Hubei province – prompted rampant speculation about what could possibly warrant such heavy security for an ordinary orchard. On Friday, the local village committee explained the man was trying to increase his payout under a compulsory…

Chinese firms joined their global competitors at Eurosatory, the recently concluded arms fair, where the latest air defences were the centre of attention in a market made more important by the drone warfare seen in Ukraine and the Middle East. Experts said China could anticipate sales from the Global South thanks to its cost efficiency, but geopolitical constraints would continue to bar it from US-allied countries that were looking for combat-proven and interoperable systems. China’s largest ground-based arms maker, North Industries Group Corporation (Norinco) showcased its surface-to-air missile systems, including…

China has leapfrogged the United States in a few mighty important sectors of space technologies: GPS-style navigation, spy-in-the-sky reconnaissance and even the ability to knock satellites out of orbit, according to a report from a US think tank. The report from the Washington-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said China had rapidly built a powerful commercial space sector under strong state backing and was narrowing the innovation gap with the US. The warning comes as analysts project the global space economy could exceed US$1 trillion within the next decade. According…

The assembly comprises two coils: a toroidal-field magnet that acts as a magnetic cage, and a central solenoid that serves as the igniter. The results, achieved by researchers with the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, clear a major engineering hurdle on the path to confining a plasma hotter than the sun’s core, state news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday. The project – the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology – aims to create a miniature sun at over 100 million degrees Celsius (over 180 million Fahrenheit) and…

On June 4, at a packing facility in Limuru near Nairobi, Kenya, avocados were being prepared for the Chinese market. The scene may seem mundane, but the politics behind it is significant. China has removed tariffs on imports from 53 African countries. African exporters are beginning to think about Beijing less as a distant buyer than as a market that could reshape their margins. When the UN projected 4 per cent gross domestic product growth for Africa for 2026, the figure landed quietly. No summit was called. No special envoy…

Japan and South Korea scrambled fighter jets in response to a joint Russian-Chinese bomber patrol on Saturday. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force said the patrols passed over the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea and the western Pacific, adding that they showed the two countries’ resolve and ability to safeguard regional peace and stability. It was the 11th patrol of this kind since 2019, but the first this year. Japan’s defence ministry said it had tracked two separate flights involving Chinese H-6 bombers and Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers.…