World News by Wild Rose

China’s access to artificial intelligence computing power will double next year, but US-designed chips will account for about 65 per cent of that capacity, an indication of its continued reliance on foreign hardware, according to new research. Total compute available to Chinese entities was expected to expand in 2027 from about 4.6 million to 8.8 million “H100-equivalents” – a metric benchmarked against Nvidia’s data-centre graphics processing units, according to a report by the Washington-based...

Mainland Chinese shipyards delivered more than twice as much naval tonnage as their US counterparts in 2024 and 2025, according to a new survey, exposing a growing production gap that analysts say could weigh heavily in a prolonged conflict over Taiwan. Tonnage alone is an imperfect measure of naval power, specialists cautioned, pointing to ongoing US advantages in submarine technology, aircraft carriers and operational experience. They also highlighted China’s ability to draw on commercial...

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...

The United States is lulling itself into a “sense of false security” over its military rivalry with China, according to a Republican senator who called for more spending on modern warfare systems and closer cooperation with allies. Speaking at the Hudson Institute after a recent trip to Japan and South Korea, Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania senator and West Point graduate, claimed up to 90 per cent of US defence spending funded decades-old equipment and technologies. “We convince ourselves; we...

Stephen Roach argues Xi Jinping’s willingness to engage in a series of meetings with Donald Trump may reflect concern about China’s economy and a desire to buy time. Roach suggests Xi may not share the personal camaraderie Trump portrays and says Chinese officials are likely realistic about how much progress is possible with an unpredictable counterpart. (Source: Bloomberg)

The US State Department announced on Monday that it was imposing sweeping sanctions under the Protecting American Intellectual Property Act (PAIPA) on five Chinese entities suspected of stealing trade secrets from American companies. The targets include Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, founded by former Google software engineer Ding Linwei, venture capital firm MiraclePlus and three related entities. Ding was convicted of seven counts of trade secret theft in January. A federal judge subsequently...

China’s R&D investment grew by 8.2 per cent last year – fuelled by double-digit growth in fundamental science and university funding – in sharp contrast with deep budget cuts across the US research sector. Total investment in research and experimental development crossed 3.9 trillion yuan (US$583 billion) in 2025, “maintaining a trajectory of steady growth”, the National Bureau of Statistics said when releasing the data on Friday. State news agency Xinhua noted on Friday that in the five years...

The United States and China are in regular talks to iron out details of a framework announced last month for handling AI-related incidents and institutionalising bilateral dialogue, multiple sources told the South China Morning Post. The technical teams of the two countries aim to make AI cooperation a potential deliverable when presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen next month – their third face-to-face...

China should avoid taking a “confrontational posture” over a new security pact between the United States, Denmark and Greenland as it might end up being excluded from engagement on the emerging Arctic order. That was the warning from Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s National Institute of Strategic Studies (NISS), a Chinese think tank, in a report released on Wednesday. It also said the US was unlikely to turn the northern polar region into its “exclusive strategic backyard”. The report noted that...