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Fifty years ago, Christian Social Union in Bavaria chairman Franz Josef Strauss visited Beijing, becoming the first West German politician to meet Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Advertisement According to German media reports, the late conservative politician sent a postcard to Helmut Schmidt, Germany’s chancellor at the time and head of the rival Social Democratic Party, saying “Beijing is worth a trip.” Schmidt became the first German leader to visit China later that year. A half-century later, the roles have been reversed; China has come to Bavaria. Despite rising tensions between…

When Mary Wang, a 27-year-old Chinese woman living in the West Australian capital of Perth, heard that thousands of anti-immigration protesters would be marching across the country late last month, she immediately cancelled plans to leave the house. Advertisement Wang, who works in IT, was planning to continue her volunteer work teaching the elderly how to use smartphones, but the disturbing rallies gave her pause. “I just feel insecure,” Wang said. “I’m already in an environment I didn’t grow up in, and I don’t fit in. When something like this…

Since April, mainland Chinese consumers have been spoiled for choice, as instant commerce competition brought dazzling promotional subsidies and speedy deliveries right to their doorsteps. Advertisement Instant commerce – a turbocharged combination of online shopping and swift dispatch – had already made a typical lunchbox order cost around US$1 or US$2, which covered the food and the delivery fee. On-demand delivery giant Meituan’s “Grouping for Good Meals” campaign, for example, offered a four-dish set meal – with a portion of rice and a drink – for 6.9 yuan (US$0.97) and…

Republicans in the US House of Representatives are escalating their targeting of US-China joint institutes and degree programmes, identifying dozens of such partnerships as “high-risk” for the first time in a report released on Friday. Advertisement In a 39-page report, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce argued that joint degree programmes – particularly those in science and technology – provided China “sustained access to US expertise” and that joint institutes operate “under the thumb of the [Chinese Communist…

Chinese scholars have criticised US-led sanctions over Xinjiang, saying their research showed the measures had resulted in long-term economic damage, including job losses. Advertisement The findings, presented at an academic seminar in Hong Kong last month, offered one of the first aggregated assessments of the impacts of US sanctions imposed on Chinese companies over alleged human rights abuses in the far western Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Beijing has denied those accusations and condemned the sanctions as “intending to create unemployment” in the region. The sanctions, first imposed in 2019 during…

The US government is set to dispatch a group of American growers and exporters of agricultural products to China in the coming fall for exchanges with Chinese officials in Beijing, followed by a high-profile presence at a key import fair in Shanghai. Advertisement This will mark the third year that the US Department of Agriculture has organised an annual trip to China, the largest overseas market for American farmers. But this year’s journey, likely in November, will take on extra significance and urgency, as both countries seek to stabilise ties…