China’s Answer to ChatGPT Gets an Artificial Debut and Disappoints

Almost six years ago, a Google computer program toppled the best player in China — and the world — at Go, an ancient Chinese board game. The defeat catalyzed China’s revolution in artificial intelligence. Beijing unrolled a monumental A.I. plan, and investors poured record sums into new projects. Now, a similar moment has arrived: The rise of ChatGPT has kicked off another A.I. arms race, this time in the realm of machine-generated content. On Thursday, China’s first major rival to ChatGPT was unveiled in Beijing by the search giant Baidu.…

China Says U.S. Flew Balloons Over Xinjiang and Tibet

China accused the United States on Wednesday of flying high-altitude balloons over the western Chinese regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, pointing the finger at Washington amid growing scrutiny over Beijing’s global surveillance efforts. China’s claim comes two days after it first accused the United States of illegally flying balloons in its airspace, saying American airships had flown over China more than 10 times since the beginning of 2022. The United States denied the claim. In another apparent tit-for-tat move, China said it would “take countermeasures” against “relevant American entities” in…

A Spy Balloon and a Reporting Trip to China, Up in the Air

The Chinese diplomat behind the window at the visa office called me and the other journalists up to the desk, one by one, to hand us our passports. I flipped through mine until I saw the entry visa for China, good for four days. It seemed an auspicious way to kick off the Year of the Rabbit, which promised to be a busy one for United States-China relations, a subject I cover as a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. The other reporters and I were set to board…

In Hong Kong, 47 Democracy Leaders on Trial for Security Charges

The political candidates represented the vanguard of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Numbering in the dozens, they had planned to run for the city’s legislature in 2020, after months of turbulent protests calling for greater freedom from China. By the time the election was held, more than a year later, none of the candidates could run. Most were in jail, where many still languish today, charged with subversion in the largest case yet involving the national security law Beijing imposed on the city in 2020. Their arrests laid bare the lengths…

Is This How a Cold War With China Begins?

Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ There are few issues on which the dominant consensus in Washington has changed as rapidly in recent years as it has on China. Donald Trump made taking on China a core pillar of his campaign and presidency. And while Joe Biden has toned down the harsh anti-China rhetoric of his predecessor, many of his administration’s policies have gone even further than Trump’s did. In October the Biden administration unveiled sweeping controls on advanced chip exports to China — a move that former Trump officials…

There’s Been a Revolution in How China Is Governed

Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ There are few stories that are more crucial to the world’s future than what’s happening in China. Take any of the most important issues of our time — climate change, geopolitics, the global economy, advanced technologies — and China is at the center of them. American politics itself has increasingly come to revolve around competition with China. In other words, what happens in China doesn’t stay in China — it reverberates through the global economy, the American political system and the international order. And…

China’s Economy Stumbled Last Year With Covid Lockdowns Hobbling Growth

The Chinese economy stumbled in 2022, numbers released Tuesday show, in one of its worst performances in decades as growth was dragged down by numerous Covid lockdowns followed by a deadly outbreak in December that swept across the country with remarkable speed. China grew 3 percent for the year — less than half what it was in 2021 and far short of Beijing’s target of 5.5 percent. Other than 2020, it was the most disappointing showing since 1976, the year after the death of Mao Zedong when the economy declined…

China Denounces Covid Testing Rules Imposed on Its Travelers

The Chinese government on Tuesday denounced Covid testing requirements imposed by other countries on travelers arriving from China as unscientific or “excessive,” and threatened to take countermeasures. As China prepares to open its borders later this week, allowing its citizens to travel abroad for the first time since the pandemic began, countries like Canada, the United States, France, Spain, Japan and the United Kingdom have moved to restrict travelers arriving from the country. The countries have cited concerns about a surge in Covid-19 infections in China, the potential risk of…

Book Review: ‘Ghost Music,’ by An Yu

GHOST MUSIC, by An Yu Not much is known about the inner life of mushrooms, but we can guess at the presence of a sort of subterranean sociality from the extensive networks of underground filaments that link individual organisms to a vast community of plants, tree roots and other fungi. Although the mushroom’s cap and stalk are its most obvious features, they are only the visible signs of a deeper life — the way that the tip of an iceberg hints at the bulk obscured below, the white and black…

China’s Abrupt Covid Pivot Leaves Many Without Medicines

When demand for fever-reducing drugs more than quadrupled the price of ibuprofen, a city in eastern China began rationing sales by selling the pills individually. When a popular Chinese online pharmacy offered the antiviral drug Paxlovid, it sold out within hours. And when word of the medicine shortages in China reached friends and relatives in Hong Kong and Taiwan, they quickly bought vast quantities of drugs from local sellers to ship to the mainland. As Covid rips through parts of China, millions of Chinese are struggling to find treatment —…