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Two people from mainland China were arrested six days after illegally landing in Taiwan by inflatable boat, raising fresh concerns over the island’s coastal security amid its biggest annual military drill. The timing of the incident has drawn scrutiny. The two men arrived just before the 10-day Han Kuang exercise, which began on August 5, and remained at large for nearly a week before being arrested. The case only came to light on Monday after an angler reported finding an abandoned inflatable boat on July 24 at Bali Beach near…

Having marked its 99th anniversary on August 1, the People’s Liberation Army is now just a year away from its centenary goals, with its evolution highlighting the past, present and future of China’s military strategy. In the sixth part of a series, Gabriel Dominguez looks at Beijing’s evolving aircraft carrier doctrine. Debate over China’s aircraft carrier ambitions has long centred on how many carriers it will build, with the Pentagon last year estimating that Beijing planned to expand its fleet to nine by 2035. Yet behind the high-profile ship launches,…

The White House has formally lifted the ban on TikTok on US government devices after the Justice Department determined that the version operated by the platform’s new US joint venture is no longer covered by a 2022 prohibition targeting applications controlled by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in a memo dated Monday, rescinded a 2023 directive that barred the use of TikTok on government devices over national security concerns arising from its links to China. The move formally implements a July…

The United States has stepped up scrutiny of China’s overseas lending, warning that the lack of transparency surrounding Chinese loans could increase the risk of unexpected defaults and debt restructuring in emerging markets. In its 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report released on Tuesday, the US State Department said China had failed to meet its minimum transparency requirements, citing deficiencies in both its domestic finances and the disclosure of claims against foreign borrowers. “China’s lack of transparency related to its foreign claims – including loans and other obligations held by state-owned and…

Facebook owner Meta Platforms is set to fully unwind its acquisition of Chinese-founded artificial intelligence platform Manus, more than three months after Beijing blocked the deal on national security grounds, capping off another high-profile decoupling between the US and China in the critical area of AI. On Tuesday, Manus wrote in a note to users that it would delete data by “certain users” generated on or after December 29, when Meta acquired the start-up, as part of the company’s transition back to independent operations. Affected users were asked to back…

The Trump administration’s export-control licensing regime is achieving little strategic benefit while costing the United States billions of dollars in lost exports and undermining American companies’ global market share, according to a new business survey. “Months-long licensing delays are costing the United States billions of dollars in exports and eroding American market share globally,” the US-China Business Council (USCBC) found in a flash survey of companies conducted in July. The survey also found that most of the pending export licences are for items that are “already available in China from…

When Manli Ho saw her father’s name being used to advertise US$40,000 houses in his hometown in China, she was outraged. “He Saved 18,000 Jewish Lives in WWII. His Hometown Has Homes for $40,000,” one headline on the now-removed English-language webpage read. Manli Ho, 75, is the daughter of Ho Feng-shan, the Chinese diplomat widely known in the West as the “Chinese Schindler” for issuing thousands of visas to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution while serving as China’s consul-general in Vienna, Austria, from 1938 to 1940. The “Schindler” comparison refers to…

China’s hypersonic weapons can now use the stars for guidance when satellite systems like GPS or BeiDou are jammed or fail, according to a project led by the Guangdong Aerospace Research Academy that passed its final expert review on Monday. According to a report published by the academy on August 10, researchers set out to tackle the challenge of developing a star-based navigation system that would be able to function at the extreme speeds of hypersonic flight – Mach 5 and above. Hypersonic weapons are difficult to intercept, making them…