Cost of raising children in China second-highest in world, thinktank reveals

China is one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, outstripping the US and Japan in relative terms, a prominent Chinese thinktank has said. A report released on Wednesday by the Beijing-based Yuwa Population Research Institute found that the average cost of raising a child in China until the age of 18 is 538,000 yuan (£59,275) – more than 6.3 times as high as its GDP per capita, compared with 4.11 times in the US or 4.26 times in Japan. For children brought up in…

China needs to do more on ‘silent crisis’ of debt, says World Bank official

China holds the key to speeding up debt relief and ending the “silent crisis” that is holding back attempts to tackle poverty in the world’s poorest countries, a senior World Bank official has said. Ayhan Kose, the Bank’s deputy chief economist, said Beijing needed to be more active in negotiations to provide financial support for those countries already in, or close to, debt distress. Kose said China’s emergence as a significant creditor country over the past 15 years meant it needed to take responsibility for making a post-pandemic debt relief…

Taiwan chases Chinese coast guard boat away from frontline islands amid heightened tensions

Taiwan on Tuesday drove away a Chinese coast guard boat that entered waters near its sensitive frontline islands, one day after China’s coast guard boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat amid an escalating dispute sparked by a fatal capsize last week. A Chinese coast guard boat, numbered 8029, entered Taiwan’s waters near Kinmen on Tuesday morning, Taiwan’s coast guard said, adding that it dispatched a boat and used radio and broadcast to drive away its Chinese counterpart, which left the area an hour later. Taiwan’s coast guard said it will continue…

China offers to deepen security ties with Hungary

China has offered to deepen security cooperation with Hungary, underscoring Budapest’s warming ties with Beijing just as Hungarian officials snubbed a visiting delegation from Washington. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, met China’s minister of public security, Wang Xiaohong, on Friday. In comments published by China’s official Xinhua news agency over the weekend, Wang said he was hoping to “deepen cooperation in areas including counter-terrorism, combating transnational crimes, security and law enforcement capacity building under the belt and road initiative”. The aim, according to the Chinese minister, would be “to make…

‘It’s legalised robbery’: anger grows at China’s struggling shadow banks

Wang Jin felt sure that he could invest in Sichuan Trust, an institution that was part of one of what he describes as the “four pillars” of China’s financial system: banks, securities, insurance and trusts. Promised a return on his investment of 8.3%, he handed over 1.6m yuan (£178,000) in 2019. “The trust had a state licence, so we believed in its integrity,” Wang (not his real name) recalls. Unluckily for him, in May 2020, the company said that it would be unable to repay 20bn yuan of investments. Protests…

China, Russia and Cambodia top list of regimes targeting critics in exile

Scores of attacks, including assassinations, abductions and assaults, were perpetrated by 25 governments last year against people outside their borders, new analysis reveals. Data from the Washington DC-based pro-democracy organisation Freedom House reveals that the governments of Russia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Turkmenistan and China were the biggest five perpetrators of transnational repression in 2023. <gu-island name="GuideAtomWrapper" priority="feature" deferuntil="visible" props="{"id":"3a74eff0-0c22-4cf5-932b-14ea93e93bd4","title":"Transnational repression","html":" Transnational repression is the use of tactics including electronic surveillance,&nbsp;physical assault,&nbsp;intimidation&nbsp;and threats to family in the home country&nbsp;to silence people living in exile. The Guardian’s Rights and freedom series is publishing…

Authors ‘excluded from Hugo awards over China concerns’

Leaked emails from the organisers of the prestigious Hugo awards for science fiction and fantasy suggest several authors were excluded from shortlists last year after they were flagged for comments or works that could be viewed as sensitive in China. In January the Hugo awards published the statistics behind the 2023 awards, which were held as part of the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in the Chinese city of Chengdu in October. The data showed that the New York Times bestseller RF Kuang and the young adult author Xiran Jay…

China holds citizen on spying charges after she did ‘admin’ work for US company

China has detained one of its citizens on spying charges after she did some work for a US company, in a case that experts say highlights the potential risks of working for foreign businesses in the country. Emily Chen, 50, disappeared after flying into Nanjing Lukou international airport in December on a visit from Doha, where she lives. According to her husband, US citizen Mark Lent, Chen messaged her family to say that she had landed but she then did not emerge from the airport. Four days later, her son…

Genetics journal retracts 17 papers from China due to human rights concerns

A genetics journal from a leading scientific publisher has retracted 17 papers from China, in what is thought to be the biggest mass retraction of academic research due to concerns about human rights. The articles were published in Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine (MGGM), a genetics journal published by the US academic publishing company Wiley. The papers were retracted on 12 February after an agreement between the journal’s editor in chief, Suzanne Hart, and the publishing company. In a review process that took over two years, investigators found “inconsistencies” between…

Beijing condemns Taiwan after two Chinese fishers die in speedboat crash

Beijing has condemned Taiwanese authorities after two Chinesefishers drowned while being chased by Taiwan’s coastguard off the coast of the Kinmen archipelago. The Chinese speedboat was carrying four people when it capsized on Wednesday, throwing all onboard into the water, Chinese and Taiwanese authorities said. “The malignant incident severely harmed the feelings of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan affairs office, said in a statement. Taiwan’s coastguard said the speedboat had “illegally [entered] Taiwanese waters”, CNA news agency reported. The coastguard…