President calls for ‘positive’ use of technology as Beijing seeks to strengthen influence over standardsFinancial Times
Day: July 16, 2026
Chinese police arrest Uyghur sisters and mother in Urumqi for sending goods to Turkey
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…
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…
Chinese AI start-up Moonshot launches model challenging Anthropic’s lead
Kimi K3 shows narrowing gap between US and China on frontier AIFinancial Times
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…
US to toughen up visa regulations for Chinese journalists, foreign students
The White House moved on Thursday to tighten visa rules for foreign students, media and those on exchange programmes, including stricter limits on Chinese journalists, in the latest push by a government increasingly focused on cracking down on both legal and illegal immigration. In one of the most sweeping changes to these visa categories in decades, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a final rule establishing fixed periods of admission for F student, J exchange visitor, and I media visa classes. The administration of US President Donald Trump argues…