Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur Chinese authorities in Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi on July 4 arrested two Uyghur sisters and their mother for sending goods to their eldest sister in Turkey, and a third sister was arrested a week later, the eldest told Radio Free Asia. Guzelnur Kamil said her family had been shipping ordinary household goods, including clothing, footwear, hats, daily necessities, seasonings, and packaged food items to support her business in Turkey. “They were simply miscellaneous everyday items,” she told RFA. “My mother said, ‘Even…
Day: July 16, 2026
China hits out at British Steel nationalisation
China has hit out at the nationalisation of British Steel, saying it “firmly opposes and is strongly dissatisfied with the British government’s decision”. On Thursday, the UK government said that taking the loss-making firm into public hands would protect jobs and safeguard a “vital national capability”. The UK took control of British Steel’s operations in Scunthorpe last year, though it was still owned by China’s Jingye Group, limiting the government’s ability to steer its future. China’s commerce ministry said on Friday that the moves “seriously infringed upon Jingye’s legitimate rights…
Trump’s China election claims mark new front in the rivalry, analysts say
US President Donald Trump’s prime-time attack on China over alleged election interference marks a significant escalation in the rivalry between Washington and Beijing, elevating the issue from a cyber dispute to a broader national security confrontation, analysts say. “This speech is significant not simply because it criticises China. It is significant because it elevates alleged Chinese election interference to the level of a central national security narrative, comparable to how Russia was treated after 2016,” said Denis Simon, an expert on US-China relations at the Quincy Institute, a Washington-based think…
China, elections and Iran: the takeaways from Trump’s White House address
In a fiery prime-time address to the nation, US President Donald Trump delivered an unprecedented broadside against China, accusing Beijing of orchestrating the “largest compromise of election data in history” and declaring an end to complacency in the face of “Chinese interference”. The speech, which blended escalating tensions over Iran with sharp domestic warnings ahead of this year’s midterm elections, is one of the most confrontational White House addresses of his second term, directly targeting Beijing while pressing election integrity changes and defending US military actions. Here are some of…
‘Even Politburo members can be touched’: what the latest purge says about Xi Jinping’s China
On Tuesday, China expelled Ma Xingrui, one of the ruling party’s most senior officials, making him the third politburo member to be purged since 2022 as Xi Jinping deepens his years-long anti-corruption campaign. Ma, a former Communist party secretary for China’s north-western region of Xinjiang, was accused of corruption, abuse of power and trading political favours for sex. The announcement came after Ma was placed under investigation in April for suspected “serious violations of discipline and the law”. He has not responded to the claims against him and has not…
Trump ends national address with focus on Chinese interference in US election data
US President Donald Trump will deliver a prime-time “Speech to the Nation” on Thursday at 9pm Eastern Time, or 9am Hong Kong time on Friday. Such addresses are typically reserved for major national moments. During his second term, Trump has used them to highlight key priorities, including a year-end address in December, and a speech in April focused on the Iran conflict. The White House has not released the full agenda, but the timing has drawn attention. The address comes soon after Trump announced the reinstatement of a US naval…
Chinese scientists have bad news on having babies in space. But there is a silver lining
If the future of humanity lies in the vast expanse of space, could humans actually perpetuate the species beyond Earth? As a team of Chinese scientists has discovered – the outlook is not very positive. The researchers used two of China’s Tianzhou cargo spacecraft missions to culture and study the differentiation of human reproductive cells in space. Early-stage human reproductive cells did not grow or develop nearly as well in space as on Earth, the team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics and Beijing’s Tsinghua…
North Korean buildings near DMZ could be rocket infrastructure, experts say
North Korea has constructed at least 21 identical drive-through structures near its border with South Korea that could potentially aid in the operation of truck-based missile or rocket weapons systems, satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia suggests. The buildings, each roughly 52 meters (171 feet) long, began to appear in satellite imagery between 2023 and early 2025 at small North Korean Army bases south of Kaesong, just a few kilometers north of the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, and only 52 kilometers (32 miles) from Seoul, the capital of South…
Anthropic, China and why Pax Silica architect thinks the US can keep the AI lead
The struggle between the US and China over who will lead in artificial intelligence is one of the defining competitions of our time. In this first part of our exclusive interview with a key player defining Washington’s policy on AI, US undersecretary of state for economic affairs Jacob Helberg discusses the ban on foreign access to Anthropic models and how the US can maintain its edge. The head of the US administration’s global initiative to exclude China from artificial intelligence supply chains has defended Washington’s sudden restrictions on foreign access…
Chinese foreign vice-minister Ma Zhaoxu set for US visit in ‘temperature test’ for Xi
Chinese foreign vice-minister Ma Zhaoxu is expected to head to the United States next week on a trip likely to lay the groundwork for President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington later this year, the South China Morning Post has learned. Sources familiar with the matter said Ma, who has played a prominent role in overseeing US-China relations, would be in Washington next week. According to the sources, a stop in Miami – host city of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in December – was also likely to be on…