In Taipei, the streets swiftly empty as air raid sirens ring out and alerts ping on mobile phones. Police officers usher any stragglers into shelters, leaving the capital suddenly deserted. In cities across Taiwan, these kinds of drills are a fact of life every year, amid the growing threat posed by China across the strait, but this time there is something different. Internet speeds were drastically cut on Thursday, simulating a coordinated attack for the first time. Data-heavy services such as video calls, streaming and mobile payments became difficult or…
Day: August 13, 2026
Did Aristotle exist? China targets pseudo-history myths claiming West stole civilisations
In a post on Wednesday, “Zhejiang Propaganda” – a social media account affiliated with the Zhejiang provincial publicity department – warned about the rise of the “pseudo-historical school” online. The school promotes conspiracy theories that deny Western history and claim key achievements of Western civilisation actually originated in China. “[The] pseudo-historical school of thought has become a negative ideological trend that spreads through the internet and fractures social cognition,” the post cautioned. “Such claims appear to promote national confidence, but in reality they reflect ignorance of exchanges between civilisations. In…
US accuses 9 Latin American countries of helping China avoid Trump’s tariffs
Three Latin American governments that moved against Chinese commercial interests over the past year were named in a White House report on Thursday, which accused Chinese exporters of routing goods through third countries to evade US tariffs. Mexico, Panama and Colombia now join Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic among more than 40 countries the report says carry elevated risk of illegal transshipment, the practice of moving goods through an intermediate country so they enter the US under a different origin and a lower duty. Previously,…
China’s STEM students turn to Singapore as Western study options shrink
For generations, China’s brightest science and technology minds followed a well-worn path: board a Westbound flight and claim a seat at a globally renowned university. That once-reliable trajectory has fractured. Escalating US-China tech competition and tightening immigration policies across the “big four” study destinations – Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States – have redrawn the map for global student mobility. As Western nations impose ever-stricter access controls and security protocols on their laboratories, a less conspicuous but significant shift is gathering momentum. A growing number of China’s…
What the Mecca military pact means for China
When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Mecca defence agreement, they executed a structural overhaul of the Middle East’s security architecture. The pact codifies a defence commitment, where an armed attack on one is treated as an assault on all. Building upon September’s Saudi-Pakistan defence agreement, this tripartite arrangement bridges the financial capital of the Gulf, the industrial-military muscle of a Nato member and the operational capacity of a South Asian nuclear-armed state. For Ankara, it is…
Trump Gives Green Light to U.S. Companies to Aim Hacks at Cybercriminals
The Trump administration is encouraging American companies to conduct their own cyberattacks against criminal hackers, a move that White House officials say will help address digital scourges like ransomware but that some former officials and security experts warn could lead to chaos. Under a national security memorandum that President Trump signed late Wednesday, select companies would work with the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to strike foreign cybercriminal groups with hacks under certain conditions. The attacks would allow both surveillance of the criminal networks and specific types of hacking operations…
The west turns a blind eye to Xi Jinping’s repressive regime in China | Letters
In his article on China’s latest tool for suppression of minorities, the “ethnic unity” law, Simon Tisdall seems to take it as read that western governments will continue to pay lip service to notions of human rights in China while pursuing short-term economic goals, ultimately destructive to their own productivity (President Xi never wastes a good crisis. As Iran, Ukraine and Palestine distract the world, he tightens his grip, 8 August). This has been the pattern since June 1989, the Tiananmen Square massacre. His faint hope that the young urban…
Why Is Everyone Playing Mahjong?
Mahjong is having a global moment. From designer tile sets and “mahjong parties” to growing numbers of clubs and classes, the centuries-old Chinese tile game is becoming trendy once again. But its resurgence raises questions about cultural exchange, commercialization, and what happens when a tradition rooted in Chinese history becomes a “lifestyle trend.” Mahjong emerged in eastern coastal China in the mid 1800s, towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. Although its exact origins are debated, historians agree the game developed from earlier Chinese tile-based games. In the early 1900s,…
Chinese missile AI tracks F-22, F-35-like heat signatures with over 90% accuracy
When heat-seeking missiles lock onto aircraft, fighters release flares to confuse infrared sensors and break missile tracking. But the infrared signals produced by fighters, including heat from engine exhaust and air friction over the fuselage, are different from those generated by flares. These heat signatures could provide valuable infrared information for target detection and recognition in future air combat, while making flares useless. Chinese researchers have created a lightweight artificial intelligence (AI) system that could help heat-seeking air-to-air missiles identify advanced fighter jets, and they demonstrated its high accuracy in…
Satellite images show 50 per cent boost to China’s Type 054B missile capacity
China appears to be adding capacity to the vertical launch system (VLS) of its most advanced guided-missile frigate Type 054B under construction in Shanghai, satellite images show, allowing it to have a larger missile reserve and stronger anti-air defence capabilities. According to satellite images taken by US intelligence company Vantor on June 28, the VLS at the bow of a Type 054B vessel had a different shape compared to the first two Type 054B vessels that have already entered service. China calls nuclear submarine missile test ‘routine’ as Australia, Japan…