Day: July 19, 2026

China’s first planetary defence mission appears to be far more ambitious than Nasa’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart), according to a new paper outlining its plan to slam a spacecraft into an asteroid before 2030. Unlike Dart, a proof-of-concept that nudged one asteroid’s orbit around another, China is aiming for a more realistic planetary-defence test. It aims to directly alter an asteroid’s orbit relative to Earth, “or even break up its structure”, according to a team led by Li Mingtao, chief scientist for planetary defence at the China National Space…

Delegates representing a United States congressional advisory panel are making their first trip to China in seven years to investigate how the two countries’ economic and trade relationship affects national security. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has requested meetings with Chinese government officials, academics and industry leaders in key technology sectors such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology and robotics. It said it would also meet with US diplomats and American companies operating in China during this week’s fact-finding trip. “We are not travelling to reset the relationship. We are…

With its vast strategic mineral reserves and land corridors to Southeast Asia, China’s southwestern province of Yunnan is vital to the country’s preparedness to counter geopolitical risks, according to researchers specialising in civil-military fusion. Yunnan’s “nationally leading resource reserves” – including gallium, rare earths and other strategic minerals essential for advanced weapons development – made the province indispensable to China’s push for “defence industry mobilisation”, they said, referring to efforts to secure reliable domestic resource supplies for arms production. Their study was published in the academic journal Defence Industry Conversion…

Meite Siaka wears many hats. By day, he is a senior tax official, a lecturer at the National School of Administration and deputy mayor of Kani in northern Ivory Coast. But outside government, he serves as the founding president of the Ivorian Federation of Chinese Martial Arts (FIAMC), a group he established in 2008. He also works as a master and instructor, running several martial arts clubs. Now he is a central figure in standardising the practice of kung fu, a Chinese martial art, and promoting its growth. Siaka, who…