World News by Wild Rose

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s tour of a commercial vehicle factory during a surprise visit to the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday points to Pyongyang’s drive to modernise its buses and expand industrial ties with Beijing. In a symbolic move, Kim crossed into China via the newly opened New Yalu River Bridge on Saturday and also returned to North Korea via the bridge later in the day. It was Kim’s first trip to China since he attended a military parade in Beijing last September. His...

With China flexing its naval power across the Pacific and bilateral tensions running high, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is weighing a move long viewed as taboo – nuclear-powered submarines for the Maritime Self-Defence Force fleet. “We will seriously consider [the possibility] in a concrete and realistic manner,” Takaichi told the Japanese parliament on October 14. Yet with Tokyo set to revise its core security documents by year’s end, the proposal is dividing the ruling coalition. The...

China’s five-year leadership cycle is getting under way at a provincial level, with new teams being installed in a process that offers important clues to the future of the Communist Party at a national level. Last week, four provinces – Anhui, Henan, Shanxi and Xinjiang – wrapped up their respective party congresses and appointed new standing committees for the next five years. The meetings were held a week before a key party gathering in Beijing – known as the fifth plenum – that runs from...

Mainland China’s state media and armed forces staged a concerted publicity campaign on Sunday to mark “Taiwan Restoration Day”, the anniversary of the end of Japanese rule. October 25 was formally established by Beijing as an official memorial date last year on the 80th anniversary of the island’s return to Chinese rule. State broadcaster CCTV released a 42-second video clip featuring aerial views of Taiwan captured by the commercial Jilin-1 satellite constellation, overlaid with the caption:...

Filipinos are almost evenly divided over the Marcos administration’s handling of the maritime dispute with China, even as nearly three in four favour diplomacy over confrontation, according to a new survey. That preference has taken on added significance after recent remarks by China’s ambassador to Manila sparked a diplomatic row ahead of November’s Asean summit. The feud underscored the challenge of managing tensions with Beijing, and increasingly hostile rhetoric could make the diplomatic...

Beijing has a formula for tackling African conflicts and hot-button issues, and during a meeting this month with Togolese leader Faure Gnassingbe, Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined it in four principles linking peace to development. The principles entail focusing on African-led security free from outside intervention; upholding sovereignty and UN Charter principles; rejecting force and sanctions and favouring ceasefires through dialogue; and focusing on both immediate security concerns and...

When China’s political elites gather behind closed doors in Beijing for the Communist Party’s fifth plenum on Monday, much of the attention will be on the quiet preparations for allocating hundreds of pivotal roles in next year’s 21st party congress. At the heart of this transition is the rise of the party’s seventh generation – often referred to as the 7G – who were born in the late 1960s and the 1970s and whose ascent will be critical in shaping China’s political trajectory. Xie Maosong, a...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday, according to state news agency Xinhua. The trip, Kim’s first visit to China in more than a year, comes ahead of next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, where Donald Trump and other world leaders are expected to visit. He was accompanied by Wang Huning, China’s fourth ranked official, according to Xinhua. More to follow …

The visit comes about a week after a major new bridge linking the two countries was officially opened.

Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society and a former Australian prime minister, described US-China strategic competition as full-on and multidimensional at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics event on Friday. “There is a full-blown strategic competition under way in every dimension of national political power and influence, militarily, economically, trade and investment and technology, in foreign policy, in ideology,” said Rudd, a noted China scholar. “It’s across the world,...

Strategic competition between China and the US and its allies is intensifying across the Pacific islands, with both sides pursuing a growing range of security agreements to expand their influence, according to an interactive mapping tool released this week by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank. The tool details 56 security arrangements among 14 Pacific island countries and the US, Australia, New Zealand, mainland China and Taiwan in a bid to map...

China has unveiled a position paper on outer space governance, prioritising the prevention of space weaponisation while calling for a global framework to protect all nations’ legitimate rights beyond Earth. Addressing the inaugural Global Governance Forum near Beijing on Friday evening, Foreign Minister Wang Yi framed the document as one of eight key actions under Beijing’s Global Governance Initiative (GGI) – an overarching vision introduced by President Xi Jinping in September last year. “We...

The Opposition party accused Mr. Modi of being a "coward" for not raising border issues with China during his meetings with the Chinese President

China’s Communist Party convened an early monthly Politburo meeting on Friday to review a key internal inspection report, doubling down on its high-pressure anti-corruption campaign ahead of a major party conclave next week. Chaired by President Xi Jinping, the now 21-member Politburo met on Friday – earlier than its traditional end-of-month schedule – to discuss a comprehensive report on the seventh round of inspections by the 20th Central Committee. The latest inspection is a major internal...

As violent protests fuelled partly by the cost-of-living crisis shake parts of Europe, most notably France, analysts say the unrest could add to pressure on European policymakers to take a tougher trade stance towards China. “One could argue that the EU looks weaker, but then one could also argue that there is more of a need to show external strength at a time of such events,” said David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project at the European Centre for International Political...

A key Communist Party meeting next week in Beijing is likely to be dominated by two themes – the renewal of President Xi Jinping’s long-standing anti-corruption drive and the hunt for clues about a looming leadership reshuffle. “Major issues related to advancing full and rigorous party self-governance” will top the agenda at the fifth plenum of the party’s Central Committee, which runs from Monday to Wednesday. Plenums, which usually take place once a year, draw about 300 delegates and...

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Honduras targets Chinese shops, state builder as president sits on Taiwan pledge Honduran migration officials have summoned or placed under review 41 Chinese nationals after inspecting shops in the capital and a hospital being built...

Internet users in China are watching the protests in France with a mix of geopolitical cynicism, domestic pride and sadness at the damage to French landmarks. The protests started in September, when students and teachers in southeastern Paris rallied against deteriorating school conditions. Those specific grievances quickly escalated into nationwide protests at the rising cost of living and declining public services. What began as peaceful marches has since dissolved into violence, with rioters...

The president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) has urged Beijing and Washington to push more negotiations down to working-level officials, saying businesses need greater long-term stability in bilateral ties than leader-level diplomacy alone can provide. Michael Hart, president of the chamber, said American businesses were encouraged by the unprecedented frequency of meetings between the presidents of China and the US, but warned that working-level officials had less...

China backs “constructive efforts” to ensure international shipping lanes are safe and open, a communique jointly issued with Djibouti said, marking Beijing’s first formal statement with a Red Sea nation on containing the fallout from the US-Iran war. Chinese analysts said the situation in the Red Sea has not yet escalated to a level that warrants direct naval escorts, though Beijing will closely monitor the region and may take action in the event the country’s shipping comes under threat. “The...

In an interview with FRANCE 24, exiled former Tibetan leader Lobsang Sangay said any successor to the Dalai Lama appointed by China "is going to be a fake one". He also likened Beijing's ethnic unity law to "an ethnic erasure", said Tibetan concerns had been "downgraded a bit" in US-China talks and accused China of failing to warn of the deadly August floods on the Nepal-Tibet border.

A strong and united party leadership is vital to victory, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a keynote speech on Thursday marking the 90th anniversary of the Long March. Speaking days before an important Communist Party meeting known as the fifth plenum, Xi said the party managed to turn the tide of defeat into a path to victory 90 years ago because it rallied around the leadership of Mao Zedong. By linking the Red Army’s historic endurance with today’s geopolitical struggles, Xi said China...

China on Wednesday condemned an arrest warrant issued in the US state of Florida for former Cuban president Raul Castro over the 1996 downing of two civilian planes, accusing the United States of using the courts to pressure Havana. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning was asked about the warrant by the state-run Global Times at a regular briefing in Beijing. She referred to the 95-year-old as “comrade Raul Castro”, a “venerated” leader held in high international esteem. Mao said China opposed...

Virginia Tech is accelerating the closure of a joint undergraduate programme with China’s Xidian University, bringing forward the end of a partnership that it had previously planned to keep running until 2029, according to a university spokesperson and a copy of an official letter reviewed by the South China Morning Post. This decision comes as the Pentagon’s push to tighten oversight of US universities’ research ties with China has led to more than 80 termination-related actions across 30...

Europe should work with Beijing to develop shipping through the Arctic rather than trying to advance its transatlantic security alliance by framing China as a threat linked to Russia. That was the assessment of Chinese analysts following the release of the European Union’s Arctic policy on Tuesday. In addition to identifying Russia as its main threat, the policy warns of Beijing’s growing strategic ambitions in the European Arctic through its deepening alignment with Moscow. “With our new...

As turbulence grows in many countries, it is tempting to ask if there is a global hegemon that can sort everything out fairly. US President Donald Trump has threatened that his country would not defend Nato allies if they failed to spend enough on their defence. Together with new trade barriers, his words suggest that the US is scaling back its ambitions for global leadership and concentrating more on its own region. Our latest projections of national strength for 2027 take into account...

Getting relations with China right is widely seen as Britain’s epoch-defining challenge. It is also one it is woefully unprepared to face. So concluded a recent audit by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which highlighted that top negotiators lacked basic Chinese language skills. More critically, it exposed a deeper deficit: a poor grasp of China spanning political elites and the public alike. This is rooted in a desk-bound classroom sinology rather than a nuanced appreciation...

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