Day: October 9, 2026

Will Taiwan issue derail Washington and Beijing’s latest reset? Analysts are sceptical

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Recent interactions involving the US and Taiwan are not expected to derail the current momentum in relations between Washington and mainland China, according to diplomatic analysts. Beijing was taking a pragmatic approach to navigating the complexities of the Taiwan issue, they said, but the fate of a US$14 billion arms package for the island remained a key concern. During President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to the United States, Xi urged his hosts to “adhere to the correct position of opposing… South China Morning Post

Why a Communist Party boss had a coffee shop date with Chinese content creators

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The setting may have been casual but the choice was not when the Communist Party boss of a northeastern Chinese province sat down with digital content creators at a coffee shop on Wednesday. Jilin province party secretary Huang Qiang invited the influencers to the relaxed setting of the Songyuan Coffee Shop in Changchun to encourage them to “actively promote mainstream values and spread positive energy”. According to a local government statement, Huang and the participants also exchanged views… South China Morning Post

China agrees to ‘halve’ hybrid car exports to EU in landmark deal

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The EU said it has reached a landmark deal with China to “halve” its sales of hybrid cars in the bloc amid fears surging sales could kill off parts of the European car industry. Trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said the deal was the first of its kind and the result of “intense” negotiations with China since June to curb a trade deficit of €1.18bn (£1bn) a day, which has caused mounting tensions between the two economic powers. The deal “opens the prospect of cutting China’s export [of hybrids] by more…

Mao’s Last Dancer Li Cunxin on his long-awaited follow-up: ‘I don’t think my publisher expected it to take 14 years!’

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Some people live such extraordinary lives that a single autobiography simply won’t suffice. Li Cunxin has now written two. The renowned ballet dancer and former artistic director of Queensland Ballet had hoped he was finished writing his story after the phenomenal international success of his 2003 memoir, Mao’s Last Dancer. But life had other plans. “Actually, I had signed a contract with Penguin Random House for a follow-up,” Cunxin says, from his home in Brisbane. “It was going to be about the lives of my brothers and friends in China,…

EU ‘pulling out all stops’ with minerals projects as it tries to avert China trade war

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The EU is “pulling out all the stops” to fend off an imminent potential trade crisis with China, the industry commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, has said, as the bloc announced its backing for a string of critical materials projects. Séjourné said on Friday that the EU would support 46 new strategic projects to accelerate supplies of critical raw materials by 2030 across the bloc. “We could face a crisis in the coming months,” he said. “We may face trade tensions that could also trigger a crisis in a number of sectors.…

Why Is China Proposing Reciprocal Nuclear Laboratory Visits?

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On October 6, CNN reported that the United States and China are engaged in informal, preliminary discussion on reciprocal visits to nuclear facilities. According to the report, the idea was first raised by the Chinese side in meetings with U.S. officials this year, during which the two sides discussed U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories and their Chinese counterparts. The same source also indicated that the U.S. side is willing to discuss visits to nuclear test sites.  At the China-U.S. leaders’ summit held in September, the two sides agreed to…

‘It gave me a superpower – question everything’: ​as punk turns 50, bands from China to Greenland explain how it fires up their lives

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Ukraine: ‘I was lucky not to die. I had guitars with me on the frontline’ Andriy Zholob, vocalist/guitarist, Beton: When MTV arrived in Ukraine, I heard Nirvana, the Offspring, Bad Brains, Social Distortion and thrash metal, and realised that all this started from punk rock. Our drummer and I were in a ska-punk band first, but when our vocalist became pregnant we started Beton in 2017 and played lots of festivals. Everything changed with the invasion. In 2022, I started military service as a surgeon on the frontline. We were…