Category: BBC

The US has called for the release of 30 leaders of one of China’s largest underground church network who were reportedly detained over the weekend in overnight raids in various cities. The list includes several pastors and Zion Church founder Jin Mingri who was arrested in the early hours of Saturday after 10 officers searched his home, said US-based non-profit ChinaAid. The Chinese Communist Party promotes atheism and tightly controls religion – still, some Christian groups are calling this the most extensive crackdown against the faith in decades. Christians have…

Donald Trump’s latest threat to impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods is “a typical example of US double standards”, China’s government has said. A commerce ministry spokesperson also said China could introduce its own unspecified “countermeasures” if the US president carries out his threat, adding it was “not afraid” of a possible trade war. On Friday, Trump hit back at Beijing’s move to tighten its rules for rare earths exports, accusing it of “becoming very hostile” and trying to hold the world “captive”. He also threatened to pull…

The Dutch government said on Sunday that it had taken the “highly exceptional” decision to intervene at Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia over a potential “risk to Dutch and European economic security.” The Netherlands-based firm’s owner Wingtech said on Monday that it will take actions to protect its rights and will seek government support. The development threatens to raise tensions between the European Union and China, which have increased in recent months over trade and Beijing’s relationship with Russia. Nexperia was forced to sell its silicon chip plant in Newport, Wales after…

China has tightened its rules on the export of rare earths – the elements that are crucial to the manufacture of many high-tech products. New regulations announced by the country’s Ministry of Commerce formalise existing rules on processing technology and unauthorised overseas cooperation. China is also likely to block exports to foreign arms manufacturers and some semiconductor firms. Rare earth exports are a key sticking point in the months-long negotiations between Beijing and Washington over trade and tariffs. The announcement comes as China’s President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart…

Watch: We told China that Australia is our ‘partner of choice’, says Papua New Guinea PM Australia will gain access to Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) military facilities and troops under a new deal that will see both nations come to each other’s defence if either is under attack. Australia’s leader Anthony Albanese and his PNG counterpart James Marape signed the security pact in Canberra on Monday. It comes as China’s influence in the Pacific grows. But Marape said the pact was not born out of geopolitics “but out of geography,…

India and China will restart direct flights between the countries this month, India’s foreign ministry has said, in another step towards ties being gradually normalised. There have been no direct flights between the two countries since 2020, following deadly troop clashes on their shared Himalayan border. But over the past year or so, Delhi and Beijing have been working towards re-building ties, including taking steps to de-escalate tensions at the border. On Thursday, India’s biggest budget airline IndiGo said that it would restart direct flights between the cities of Kolkata…

A Chinese national has been convicted of playing a key role in what is believed to be the single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world, worth more than £5.5bn ($7.4bn). Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, pleaded guilty on Monday at Southwark Crown Court, London of illegally acquiring and possessing the cryptocurrency. Between 2014 and 2017, she led a large-scale scam in China by cheating more than 128,000 victims and storing the stolen funds in bitcoin assets, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. The Met said the 47-year-old’s…

A pro-democracy campaigner who fled Hong Kong said he was denied entry to Singapore even though he had been granted a visa. Nathan Law, who lives in exile in the UK, said he arrived in Singapore on Saturday to attend a “closed-door, invitation-only” conference but was detained at the border for four hours. “I was not asked questions and they did not give reason for the denial,” the 32-year-old told the BBC. In a separate statement, Mr Law said he believes it was for “political” reasons. “I am unsure whether…

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order, approving a proposal that would allow TikTok to continue operating in the US under American ownership. But details of the deal have not been confirmed by China, or the app’s Chinese owner ByteDance. The BBC’s Suranjana Tewari explains everything we know so far about how the deal might work. BBC

Two teenagers who peed into a pot of broth at a hotpot restaurant have been ordered to pay 2.2m yuan ($309,000; £227,000) to two catering companies in China. The incident, which happened in February at a Shanghai branch of China’s biggest hotpot chain Haidilao, sparked widespread criticism after the 17-year-olds posted a video of their drunken act online. There is no suggestion that anyone consumed the contaminated broth but Haidilao had offered to pay thousands of diners who dined at the restaurant in the days following the incident. In March,…