Month: August 2026

A reported trip to China next week by a cross-party group of Japanese lawmakers could carry “pronounced” symbolic weight but is unlikely to herald a thaw in ties between the two neighbours, Chinese experts suggest. For the first time since bilateral relations succumbed to a bitter chill 10 months ago, a delegation of Japan’s parliamentary members will visit Beijing from August 24 to 27, according to reports by multiple Japanese outlets on Wednesday. Those legislators – including some from the lower chamber of Japan’s National Diet such as Gaku Hashimoto…

The US State Department said on Thursday that it had determined after a detailed investigation that Min Zin, an American political analyst of Chinese descent detained by Beijing last month, was being improperly held. That formal designation shifts the case from a State Department consular issue to one handled by its presidential office dealing with hostage affairs. Thursday’s terse statement, which said the decision was made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, adds another irritant to the fraught… South China Morning Post

Much of the Western debate about China begins with a category error. “Communism” is often treated as synonymous with a monolithic command economy, limited private enterprise and bureaucratic control over every commercial decision. Modern China does not fit that model. It is better understood as a mixed, state-led system in which private enterprise, foreign investment and fiercely competitive markets coexist alongside public ownership and state control in strategic sectors. This is more than… South China Morning Post

Peru’s new government has pledged to bring its free-trade agreement with Hong Kong into force this year as part of an effort to position the country as a commercial bridge between South America and the Asia-Pacific, even as its first comprehensive policy programme made no direct mention of mainland China or the Chinese-operated Chancay megaport. Prime Minister Luis Galarreta told lawmakers on Thursday that commercial openness would remain a state policy under Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori’s… South China Morning Post

China rejected a White House report on Thursday that accused its exporters of routing goods through Mexico and other countries to avoid US tariffs, hours after word emerged that Mexico was preparing to restrict Chinese products further. He Yadong, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce, told a regular press briefing in Beijing that the report “ignored facts and distorted reality by treating normal international trade and investment as fraud”. He called it a “typical exercise in… South China Morning Post

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday urged China to join Washington’s latest efforts to economically pressure and isolate Iran after negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the six-month conflict collapsed. “Keep in mind, the Chinese get 50 per cent of their energy from the Gulf. So, it would do them a big service to get with the programme,” Bessent told CNBC when asked whether the new economic sanctions would include China. Bessent also said that “many conversations are… South China Morning Post