Technology News

US first lady Melania Trump is unlikely to travel to China with the president for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen this month. “First lady Melania Trump is not scheduled to attend the events in person,” her office said in response to a query about her travel plans. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit the Philippines for this year’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit before travelling to the November 18-19 Apec event, where he will meet his Chinese...

China’s social credit system, stereotypically imagined as an all-powerful numerical scoring project for authoritarian control, has gained notoriety in the West – although people inside the country actually feel little of its presence or practical influence. In a government-funded study, however, a Chinese legal scholar warned that deploying artificial intelligence (AI) risked turning the rating system into a “large-scale surveillance tool”. The paper was published in the Journal of Sichuan...

China’s Ministry of Commerce has voiced firm opposition to a decision by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to bar device testing in China by 2028. “This has seriously harmed the interests of China and other trading partners, seriously undermined the stability of China-US economic and trade relations, and seriously disrupted the stability of global industrial and supply chains,” it said in a statement on Friday night. “[We] hope the United States will face the calls of the industry,.

Prominent biologist Rao Yi is refusing to back down after Cell Press said it had found no evidence that top journal editor Steve Mao sought bribes from Chinese scientists. In a statement published on Thursday evening, Cell Press – one of the world’s leading scientific publishers, owned by Elsevier – said its investigation had “largely concluded” and “found no evidence to support the aforementioned allegations”. Nevertheless, Rao, a tenured chair professor at Peking University who stepped down as

Beijing promoted 10 officials to full membership of the Communist Party’s Central Committee at a major political gathering this week, where the normally routine process of filling vacancies took on new significance. The names of the officials who have filled the vacant slots were included in a communique released at the end of the fifth plenum of the party’s 20th Central Committee on Thursday. The event, which focused on party discipline and the fight against corruption, confirmed that 24 full..

The film Everest: The Other Side, a collaborative US-China project that opened on Friday in 515 US cinemas and that will premiere at 700 IMAX theatres in China on November 6, starts with a majestic shot of the world’s tallest mountain. Then the music builds and more challenging weather rolls in, foreshadowing what is at stake. The film invokes a well-trod narrative for fans of the mountaineering genre: a mix of the grit and sacrifice driving world-class climbers, along with no small amount of...

China has broken up a major transnational drug trafficking network in cooperation with Indonesia and Malaysia, seizing around 1.2 tonnes of liquid methamphetamine, China’s Ministry of Public Security said on Friday. The operation was carried out on October 21 by Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency (BNN), which raided and shut down a large-scale drug processing and purification facility in Aceh, Indonesia, and arrested 11 people, with help from China’s National Narcotics Control Commission...

In May, Donald Trump touring Beijing’s Temple of Heaven – bathed in golden light as traditional Chinese music played in the background – was an unlikely image of US-China relations. For Julian Gewirtz, a former China official on president Joe Biden’s National Security Council, it also had a familiar Gen Z twist. “Trump, strange as it is to say, is Chinamaxxing,” he wrote in a Substack post at the time. The social media trend celebrates the features of Chinese life, from high-speed trains and...

Top Democrats on the US congressional intelligence committees say they are preparing to check and respond to any claim by US President Donald Trump that foreign powers interfered in the November 3 midterm elections, even though they say they have seen no sign of any country interfering with voting or vote counting. The concern comes as Democrats lead by eight points among likely voters in the fight for control of Congress, according to an October 27 PBS News/NPR/Marist poll. It also follows a...

On a recent warm Thursday evening, supporters drift into San Francisco’s United Irish Cultural Centre to hear Connie Chan, who is running for California’s 11th congressional district. Born in Hong Kong, Chan attended elementary school in Taiwan before immigrating to the United States at 13. Now a San Francisco supervisor, she hopes to succeed long-time Democratic powerhouse Nancy Pelosi, who announced her retirement and endorsed her. The 48-year-old politician would be the first Asian-American..

A Democratic takeover of either chamber of the US Congress could bring tougher scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s dealings with Beijing, even as lawmakers are likely to maintain a broadly hawkish stance towards China, analysts said. A change in control could shift the emphasis of congressional oversight, with the Democratic Party seeking greater accountability for the administration’s China policy after Trump’s Republican Party largely gave him room to manoeuvre, said Sarah Trister, a former..

China and America have escalated uncrewed aircraft deployments across sensitive Indo-Pacific waters, with mainland drones patrolling strategic passages near Japan while a US Marine detachment operates near disputed South China Sea islands. In recent days, Japan has detected an uptick in Chinese military aircraft operations in important waters that enable Beijing’s naval forces to transit beyond the first island chain. The activity coincided with large-scale joint military exercises between Tokyo

China and the European Union can resolve their differences through dialogue, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Friday. “China has always regarded the European Union as a partner,” Xi said, according to state broadcaster CCTV, adding that cooperation between the two sides outweighed competition. “As long as [both sides] stay anchored to their partnership and engage in dialogue on an equal footing, differences and challenges can always be resolved.

Beijing is expected to gradually restore military representation in its top leadership, analysts say, as the Communist Party seeks to strike a delicate balance in its relations with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) amid an anti-corruption drive that has hit the top ranks. They said the process was expected to be completed at next year’s 21st party congress, which will usher in a new leadership line-up for both the party and military. The party wrapped up its fifth plenum of the 20th Central...

The Chinese coastguard has carried out an exercise featuring water cannons and drones near two disputed reefs in the South China Sea to prepare for “foreign infringement”, according to state broadcaster CCTV. A China Coast Guard (CCG) flotilla “recently” conducted “comprehensive maritime law-enforcement training” in the waters around Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal, CCTV said on Friday, without specifying when these took place. The two shoals – part of the disputed Spratly Islands – are at.

As tightening US visa restrictions and geopolitics lock out Asian researchers from Western institutions, South Korea is emerging as a new academic sanctuary for top talent. According to Yoo Ji-beom, president of Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) in Seoul, that reflects a broader trend that has seen the West giving way to Asia after decades of dominance – particularly in the field of applied technology in China, Japan and South Korea. “Technological competition and global talent mobility are...