Day: July 9, 2026

The heads of a US Congressional committee and a commission focused on China have called on the Justice Department to fully investigate a break-in and reported vandalism at a California museum commemorating the Tiananmen Square crackdown. “The Justice Department and FBI should investigate vandalism at the [June 4th Memorial Museum] to protect the inalienable rights of the Chinese diaspora seeking freedom in the United States,” said a three-page letter delivered to the agency on Thursday. The note was signed by John Moolenaar, a Republican from Michigan and chairman of the…

China’s reliance on imports for the most sophisticated scientific instruments could hold back the country’s use of AI in science, according to a leading Chinese researcher. Advanced equipment such as mass spectrometers was essential for generating the high-quality experimental data needed to develop, validate and improve advanced scientific models, Weinan E, a professor at Peking University’s mathematical sciences school, said at the “AI for Science” conference in Shanghai last week. “Without domestically developed precision instruments, it becomes difficult to obtain first-hand, high-quality experimental data, leaving AI ‘like cooking without rice’,”…

Flights have been cancelled and airlines are offering refunds in at least 10 airports, as a weakened Typhoon Bavi nears China’s coast, where it is expected to land between Fuqing in Fujian province and Wenling in Zhejiang. Zhoushan’s airport said in a social media post that 14 flights to and from the island city in Zhejiang province were cancelled for Friday. In Wenzhou, 17 inbound flights have been cancelled. Multiple airlines – including Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines – have activated special ticketing help…

Taiwan gained critical information about Beijing’s ballistic missile launch this week thanks to the island’s long-range early-warning radar system and intelligence sharing with Washington. The island’s AN/FPS-115 Pave Paws long-range early-warning radar detected the missile soon after it was launched from a nuclear-powered submarine in the South China Sea, the Liberty Times reported on Wednesday, quoting a senior Taiwanese official. The system tracked the missile’s trajectory during the initial phase of flight while it remained within the radar’s coverage, the official said. The giant radar is housed at the Leshan…

Two men from the US state of New Jersey have been sentenced this week for their roles in a drug trafficking organisation that imported fentanyl analogues from China, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday. The fentanyl crisis in the United States has killed tens of thousands of people annually in recent years. Washington previously characterised China as the primary source of precursor chemicals used to manufacture the drug, and Beijing felt unfairly targeted over the crisis. Sean Tighe, 50, and Juan Rodriguez, 51, were among nine individuals charged…

As Super Typhoon Bavi churns towards Taiwan and eastern mainland China, they offer a chilling timely reminder that the world needs to brace for impending disasters as the climate system nears a tipping point. For Benjamin Horton, the newly minted recipient of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society Axford Medal – the most prestigious honour in Asian climate and earth science – the world has entered a period of volatility in which historical weather patterns are no longer a reliable guide to future risk. “Look at what is happening to the…

US President Donald Trump’s negative portrayal of China’s achievements in renewable energy began at a White House meeting with oil executives on January 9 and was amplified at the World Economic Forum later that month. The story he told was shaped more by domestic politics than fact – a narrative that has lingered through subsequent debates over China’s alleged clean-energy “overcapacity”. While such rhetoric might rally support in the American Midwest, it does not withstand scrutiny. Trump’s jibes served a familiar political purpose: to undermine European net-zero strategies, defend fossil…

A Stanford University-led team including two Chinese researchers said they built the first general-purpose biomedical AI agent capable of working alongside human scientists, taking on complex tasks that once required groups of specialists. Jure Leskovec, a Stanford computer science professor who supervised the work, said the agent had been released as an open-source system with a web interface so that biologists could use it without writing code. “We have over 10,000 scientists all over the world using the system for their everyday tasks,” Leskovec said on Tuesday. In the journal…