Day: August 19, 2026

This past week, another unlikely film went viral in Chinese cinemas. On its August 5 debut, the animated film Niu Lai, or The Arrival of the Ox, only earned 3,420 yuan (US$507) at the box office. About 10 days later, it suddenly saw a spike in viewers and generated six figures of revenue. On Saturday, its box office climbed to 717,000 yuan and reached more than 11 million yuan on Monday. Its accumulated earnings placed it in the top 10 of China’s domestic animated film box office charts for this…

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing welcomed South and North Korea moving towards peaceful coexistence and called on Washington to change its “hostile policy” on Pyongyang. In talks with his counterpart Cho Hyun in Seoul on Wednesday, Wang said China was “always committed to playing a constructive role in the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula”, according to a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry. But he sidestepped a reporter’s question after the meeting about whether Beijing could help broker a summit between US President Donald Trump and…

A new study from China has warned Beijing of the danger of defence contractors having too much influence over defence policy, pointing to the profit-driven expansion of the US military-industrial complex as a salutary example. In the study published on Monday, researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s National Institute of Strategic Studies said Washington’s “iron triangle” – linking the Department of Defence, private contractors and congressional committees – had hijacked US national security policy. Defence contractors, the military, and politicians formed a mutually reinforcing alliance where profits, expanded budgets, and…

A Chinese national was charged in the United States on Wednesday with committing voter fraud during the 2024 presidential election for allegedly impersonating a fellow countryman and later submitting anonymous tips about him to immigration authorities. Yupeng Sun, a Massachusetts resident, was arrested this week for allegedly submitting a fraudulent voter registration and ballot under the name of another Chinese national in the 2024 election that returned US President Donald Trump to the White House. Sun and the other Chinese national’s family, whom he’d lived with, had a history of…

Just weeks before Chinese leader Xi Jinping is due to visit the White House, tensions have flared between Washington and its allies after one of the administration’s sharpest rebukes yet. Speaking in Manila on August 10, Elbridge Colby, undersecretary of defence for policy, pressed regional partners to increase defence spending and align more closely with American priorities. He said Washington sought “partners, not protectorates” and cautioned against “the delusion of fashionable but superficial ideas like middle-power alliances designed to exclude America”. The remarks reinforced the message Colby laid out in…

US President Donald Trump’s ambitious plan to build a national missile defence system, dubbed the “Golden Dome”, may not be able to fully protect America but could accelerate the global arms race involving China, Russia and North Korea, according to experts. “If we expand these missile defences further, we can expect additional responses,” said Steve Fetter, a professor at the University of Maryland. Speaking during a discussion at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday, Fetter noted that the current expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, including the estimated construction of 350 new…

A survey from Stop AAPI Hate, a self-reporting platform formed during the pandemic, paints an even more worrying picture, with almost half of individuals indicating they have been targeted but many decline to report it to authorities for fear of repercussions. According to FBI data released in mid-August, reported anti-Asian hate crime incidents fell 10 per cent nationwide, from 379 in 2024 to 339 in 2025. While that is a positive sign, advocates caution that the figure remains far above pre-pandemic norms. South China Morning Post