News on China Archives - Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research | Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

News on China | No. 45

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 07:00:03 +0000

31 October 2026

About 10 min read.

Xiong'an Forum Draws Nearly 400 Guests from over 90 Countries as Wang Yi Unveils Eight Actions

Discussions on 23–25 October addressed 'Rebuilding Confidence and Cooperation', one year after Xi Jinping proposed the Global Governance Initiative. Wang Yi announced eight actions covering APEC hosting in Shenzhen in November, UN reform and the Group of Friends, now comprising over 60 countries. Commitments cover the high-seas biodiversity (BBNJ) treaty and Xiamen's secretariat bid, alongside the right to development. An outer-space paper, an AI capacity-building progress report and a research centre with an annual index complete the package.

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Tokyo Trial Archives Reach UN for 80th Anniversary as Fu Cong Cites Legal Legacy

China’s permanent representative called the judgments foundational to the post-war order. He warned against attempts to reopen that record. He spoke at a New York display of historical photographs and documents during International Law Week. He linked the commemoration to the 55th anniversary of the restoration of China’s lawful UN seat, tying historical accountability to contemporary multilateralism.

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CPC Opens Four-Day Plenum on Party Self-Governance and Stronger Policy Implementation Capacity

Disciplinary authorities filed 800,000 cases and punished 680,000 people in the first nine months of 2026, including investigations into 73 officials at provincial-ministerial level or above. Xi Jinping explained a draft decision on full and rigorous Party self-governance at the fifth plenum, which opened on Monday. The proceedings thus link internal oversight and anti-corruption enforcement to policy implementation during the new five-year plan period.

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High-Risk AI Projects Face Employment Checks During Market-Access Review Under National Policy

The State Council released guidelines on 23 October to manage technological change through employer transition planning. Companies are encouraged to explore 'unemployment buffer periods', giving affected staff advance notice and retraining or redeployment support before large-scale rollouts. Specified market-access projects must undergo employment-impact assessments, and labour-intensive industries should adopt the technology cautiously in scope, intensity and pace. The 18-point guideline also expands demand for AI trainers and digital managers, and widens occupational-injury protection pilots for platform workers.

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High-Tech Manufacturing Captures 25.5% of Industrial Profits as AI Demand Reshapes Growth

January–September results show above-scale firms earned 15.5 percent more year on year and achieved a 5.68 percent average revenue margin. High-tech manufacturing profits climbed 52 percent and reached 25.5 percent of the total, up 6.2 percentage points in a year. AI computing and advanced memory demand doubled electronics profits, contributing 9.6 percentage points to growth and lifting optical-fibre and cable makers’ profits 570 percent and 110 percent respectively. The figures indicate technology-led production is changing the composition of industrial earnings.

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Central Bank Unveils Digital Yuan System, Smart Contracts and Cross-Border Settlement Platform

September brought 99.67 million transactions worth 1.87 trillion yuan (US $281.20 billion). Transaction count rose 12 percent year on year, but value climbed 123 percent, sharply lifting the average size. The People's Bank of China's e-CNY operating centre unveiled the Digital Currency and Electronic Payment System and a smart-contract framework to lower integration and liquidity-management costs. The infrastructure also includes a cross-border settlement platform, which signed agreements with its first 26 direct participants in June.

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New 10,000-Tonne Air-Dome Silo to Add Grain Reserve Capacity and Close Northeast Storage Gap

Membrane inflation at Sinograin's Longjia depot in Changchun, Jilin, reached completion in September. The Longjia project will introduce the design to the high-cold northeast through four 10,000-tonne-class units, the first practical application there. The cold-adapted design will expand reserve capacity in a major grain-producing region and close a regional technology gap through insulation and airtightness suited to long winters and large temperature differences.

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China Charts National Water Sector Priorities After US $846.50 Billion Infrastructure Outlay

The 2021–25 total was about 2.8 times the 12th Five-Year Plan level and 1.6 times the 13th. It reached 5.68 trillion yuan (US $846.50 billion). The Ministry of Water Resources will expand digital twins and AI models alongside a more interconnected network, greener development, precise flood control and efficient water use. These priorities indicate the sector’s direction for the next five years, pairing physical infrastructure with data-driven management.

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Six-Area Plan Deepens Integration of Scientific and Industrial Innovation for Modern Industry

Two central government offices released comprehensive new guidelines in October 2026 to bring laboratory research closer to commercial application. Their six areas connect research and industrial chains, expand enterprise-led collaboration, coordinate resources and support traditional, emerging and future industries. The document deepens implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy to foster new quality productive forces and build a modern industrial system.

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Outer Space Governance Paper Urges 10-Point Action to Prevent an Arms Race

The existing international legal regime has lagged behind technological advances, creating regulatory challenges and security risks for all states. A new position paper calls on states to oppose offensive military policies and take all possible measures to prevent an outer-space arms race. The text also supports an international arms-control legal instrument and stronger developing-country representation under UN-centred governance.

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Fingerprint Study Reveals Women and Teenagers Among Makers of Qin Terracotta Army

Shandong University and museum researchers applied a Bayesian mixture model to archaeological evidence from the third century BCE. Their sample of 79 impressions on 23 figures yielded estimates of about 45% adult men, 32.7% adult women and 22.3% people under 15. These percentages describe prints, not workforce totals or specific task allocations. The findings and apprenticeship records indicate that women and teenage apprentices also shaped, moved and assembled figures in Qin state workshops.

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China Wins First World Women’s Gymnastics Team Title in 20 Years After Beam Rally

Two rotations into the Rotterdam final, the United States led by 1.967 points. Zhang Qingying’s 6.8-difficulty routine scored 15.066, the final’s highest beam mark, as her team took a 2.200-point lead. The defending champions narrowed the gap on floor, but China held on to win by 0.233 points. The victory ended a 20-year wait since Cheng Fei and Zhang Nan’s 2006 title.

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News on China | No. 44

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 07:00:30 +0000

24 October 2026

About 10 min read.

From Ningde Village to Shanghai Consensus, Global South Forum Turns Theme into Mechanism

On 17 and 18 October, hundreds of party representatives, scholars and media delegates met in the city. Wang Shaoju, a national honouree, traced how Chixi village left thatched huts and sweet-potato meals after a 1984 readers’ letter, and delegates rose to applaud. Across six sub-forums, the two-day meeting ended with a formal Shanghai Consensus, a ‘Bandung Circuit’ release and a new four-outlet media centre.

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Kyrgyz Rail Section Crosses 2,000 Local Hires as First Tunnel Breaks Through

Civil works began in June 2025. Crews have now started 27 tunnels, 43 bridges and 88 subgrade sections, holing through the first at 209.6 metres. The project company has employed more than 2,000 Kyrgyz person-times, trained 1,800 at three skills bases, spent over 10 billion som locally and bought more than 60 percent of its cement in Kyrgyzstan. In Tashkent on 17 October, Premier Li Qiang told President Shavkat Mirziyoyev that Beijing would ensure high-quality delivery.

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At Long March Commemoration, Xi Reiterates Push for Military Modernisation by 2027

At the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, a gathering heard that remembering history is how the future is created. Xi Jinping traced the 1934 to 1936 victory to Party leadership, Mao Zedong’s core position decisive, and mass support. He then restated the founding story as five imperatives: Party ideals, high-quality development, a ‘great struggle’, a world-class military by 2027 and Party self-governance.

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Rescuers Reach Xizang Villages at 4,800 Metres as Magnitude-7.0 Quake Kills 16

At 10:33 p.m. on Thursday, police, firefighters, troops and volunteers began moving through the night toward the epicentre. The county seat lost power and communications, and 339 homes were damaged. The national response rose from Level IV to Level III, with 50 million yuan (US $7.44 million) for relief and 30 million yuan for recovery. Officials reported 16 dead and 76 injured on Friday and relocated 12,000 people, monitoring seismic activity to prevent secondary disasters.

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Canton Fair at 70 Spotlights Robots and Green Goods as New Products Hit 23.2 Percent

In 1957 the first session filled 9,600 square metres and drew 1,200 buyers. This month’s 140th edition, built around an advanced-manufacturing first phase, fills 1.55 million square metres and brings in more than 30,000 companies. Organisers report that 64 percent of exhibitors now apply industrial internet or artificial intelligence technologies. New products account for a record 23.2 percent of displays and green goods for 26 percent.

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China Drafts One Rulebook for the World’s Largest Grid as Spot Trading Goes National

The National Development and Reform Commission released proposed spot-market rules on 19 October, replacing 2023 interim rules. They would apply to every provincial, regional and interprovincial spot market from 1 January 2027, with consultation to 18 November. Clearing would favour locational marginal pricing, with real-time dispatch set 5 to 15 minutes ahead. That shift from administrative dispatch to node-level prices is what lets a high-renewables grid run.

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FAO Names Yin Yuzhen Among 100 Women Heroes for Turning Nearly 5,000 Hectares Green

Over four decades in the Mu Us Sandy Land, a rural woman and her husband planted more than eight million trees by hand. Their work restored nearly 5,000 hectares of barren dunes around their home in Inner Mongolia. The United Nations food agency honoured her in Rome on 15 October, during the International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026.

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Hydrogen Reward Funds Tied to Five-Cluster Pilot Results in National Chain Push

Regional alliances will spend four years scaling clean fuel across heavy industry, freight and refuelling, from the north-east to the far west. Each cluster can receive up to 1.6 billion yuan (US $238 million), released only after annual reviews of its performance. The rules ask regions to build one supply chain, share hydrogen across provincial borders and avoid duplicating projects. A March policy set a 2030 target of 100,000 fuel cell vehicles.

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DeepSeek Opens the Inference Engine Behind Its Production Model to Any Operator

The disclosure came with hard numbers: one cluster handles 155 trillion tokens a day, and revenue works out at US $38 per GPU-hour. The engine was published on Tuesday under the Apache 2.0 licence. It runs on Nvidia SM100 and Huawei Ascend 950 chips, so operators can use either. A Chinese expert quoted by Global Times said the shift from ‘opening up capabilities’ to ‘opening up productivity’ would lower deployment costs for developers worldwide.

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Tech Finance Opens to Global Capital as 18 Measures Back AI in Commerce

A central bank plan with ten other departments sets 2030 as the deadline for full-chain services across Beijing, Shanghai and the Greater Bay Area. Nine departments also issued 18 measures the same day to embed artificial intelligence in shopping, logistics and consumer services. The plan eases cross-border fund management for multinational firms and for Chinese companies financing overseas research centres. Governor Pan Gongsheng said the bank would widen relending, bond-market and cross-border financing pilots.

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Lu Xun Editions Museum Opens Beside His Childhood Home on 90th Anniversary of His Death

Collector Shi Xingwen preserved the material for more than 50 years. He has now given 1,000-plus volumes to Shaoxing, the writer’s birthplace, for permanent public display. The collection includes a 1926 Wandering and the 1938 complete works, editions through which the texts have travelled. In Japan, My Old Home has been required middle-school reading since 1953.

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Chongyang Festival Spotlights 323 Million Elderly as Beijing Court Stresses Filial Duty

Lion dances and opera for grandparents marked the Double Ninth on 18 October, now Seniors’ Day in law. Ahead of the holiday, Beijing No 3 Intermediate People’s Court released six cases on children’s duty to ageing parents. It said its 4,415 support suits since 2021 now turn less on money than on care quality and who manages the family property. Some 323.38 million people are aged 60 or above, 23 percent of the population.

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News on China | No. 43

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 07:00:14 +0000

17 October 2026

About 10 min read.

Seventh CICA Summit in Baku Sets Its Own Agenda, Not Bloc Logic, as Wang Yi Attends

The forum’s 28 members, from Israel and Iran to India and Pakistan, account for nearly 90 percent of Asia’s territory and population. It decides only by consensus and, unlike a military alliance, offers no collective-defence guarantees. Those members, not an outside bloc, set the region’s security priorities. China’s foreign minister attended the 15 October gathering as President Xi Jinping’s special representative, then toured Croatia and Bulgaria, both EU members, and EU candidate Montenegro.

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Indonesia’s Prabowo Launches 11 Chinese-Backed Downstream Projects to Keep Value at Home

The Weda Bay industrial park in North Maluku shipped its first electric-vehicle batteries on 8 October. The president called it ‘a notable milestone’ and proof that the country’s downstreaming policy was on the right track. He said the projects were worth an estimated US $10.2 billion and park investment had passed US $20 billion, with US $7 billion more planned. The park has created over 100,000 jobs, he said, with Chinese enterprises the investors on Indonesia’s own terms.

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Beijing’s 12345 Hotline Handles 200 Million Requests as 66 Legislators Compare Notes

Organisers released a study of public complaint services in 20 international and 100 Chinese cities, plus 43 urban governance cases. Since 2019 the 12345 hotline’s resolution and satisfaction rates have risen above 97 percent, a process officials call ‘whole-process people’s democracy’ – residents’ complaints heard and answered. Legislators and other delegates from 52 countries met in Tianjin to discuss development strategy and urban services. Both gatherings were framed as experience sharing rather than a template to copy.

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Military Museum Debuts 300 Long March Relics as 40% of Holiday Trips Reach Revolutionary Sites

A division commander’s handwritten account of the Xiangjiang River battle is on public view for the first time in Beijing. The Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution is also showing wartime radio records and thin coats and blankets soldiers wore over the snow mountains. About 40 percent of the 826 million National Day holiday trips included a visit to a revolutionary site. The anniversary was measured less in ceremony than in what people chose to see.

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Export Tax Rebate Taper Completed with NEV Rate at 9 Percent from April 2027

September vehicle exports of 1.053 million included 571,000 new energy vehicles, over half for a fourth month. The Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration cut the NEV rate from 13 percent on 12 October, completing the ‘new three’ taper. Solar products lost the rebate on 1 April 2026 and lithium batteries lose theirs on 1 January 2027. Rebating indirect tax is not a subsidy, but the cut raises exporters’ costs and may pull shipments forward before April 2027.

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China-Laos Railway Trade Tops US $14.9 Billion as Southbound Exports Jump 58.4 Percent

From January to August 2026, 5.26 billion yuan of durians, mangosteens and longans came north, up 12.3 percent. Mechanical and electrical exports including smartphones and electric-vehicle parts went south, reaching 7.42 billion yuan, up 58.4 percent. Since December 2021 the 1,035-kilometre line has run more than 25,000 freight trains carrying over 20.77 million tonnes in two-way trade. Cumulative trade passed 100.4 billion yuan (about US $14.9 billion), with import and export volumes up more than 24 percent a year.

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Inner Mongolia Alpacas Eat Half a Sheep’s Feed, Turning Lighter Grazing into Herder Income

A breeding base in Sonid Left Banner began in 2013 with 78 animals imported from Australia. It now keeps over 1,500 breeding females, and the company says alpaca fleece is four times warmer than ordinary wool. The company’s buy-back floor is at least 10,000 yuan (about US $1,490) per calf – a commercial contract, not a subsidy. Local reports say each female alpaca a herder owns adds over 10,000 yuan (about US $1,490) a year.

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China Shifts Water Cleanup from Major Rivers to Ditches and Ponds at People’s Doorsteps

In 2025, 91.4 percent of national surface-water sections reached Grade I to III, up 8 percentage points from the 14th Five-Year Plan’s start. The Yangtze has held Grade II for six consecutive years and the Yellow River for four. A six-body action plan released in mid-July turns to urban tributaries, ponds and village ditches, and county and township black and odorous water. By 2030 such water should show no unusual colour, no unpleasant odour and no visible floating debris.

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Railway Sci-Tech Plan Sets 30 Innovation Bases and 100 Core Technology Breakthroughs

The National Railway Administration has issued a 2026–2030 research agenda for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, covering seven areas. It sets about 30 new industry innovation bases, breakthroughs in no fewer than 100 key core technologies and no fewer than 500 major achievements. No fewer than 20 demonstration projects are planned, including the 400 km/h high-speed train operating system. For 600 km/h maglev, it proposes steady and orderly research and testing for domestic production, not construction.

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Doctors on the Ground Assess Shenzhou-23 Crew Health Using Tongue, Face and Pulse Data

An onboard instrument digitises the four classical examinations of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM): inspection (looking), auscultation and olfaction (listening and smelling), inquiry (asking) and palpation (pulse-taking). It captures tongue and facial images and pulse readings. That information reaches doctors on the ground for comparison and health assessment. The device has been aboard the space station since the Shenzhou-12 mission in 2021.

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46 Countries Recognise First China-Led Vocational Education Standard Set for Tianjin Release

A Chinese-trained electrician’s certificate often carries little weight abroad. In response, the Ministry of Education said on 12 October that a framework for vocational and technical education standards will be released at the Tianjin conference on 15–17 October. It is the first China-led international standard of its kind, endorsed by 46 countries. China has built 38 Luban Workshops in 32 countries, giving academic education to more than 30,000 students and non-degree training to over 160,000 participants.

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Cairo Campus Marks 70 Years of China-Egypt Ties as Students Perform in Each Other’s Languages

Badr University in Cairo and Sinopec hosted a Chinese culture festival on 12 October, run by the university’s Chinese language department. Egyptian students shared calligraphy, paper-cutting and tea with Chinese students from Beijing Language and Culture University. Egyptian and Chinese students performed poetry recitations, songs, dances and short plays, showcasing their language skills. The Chinese Embassy said it would expand Chinese-language teaching and student exchanges, which Badr University called necessary for lasting friendship.

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News on China | No. 42

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 07:00:53 +0000

10 October 2026

About 10 min read.

China’s Top AI Models Close Performance Gap with US to 3 Percent, Lowest on Record

China’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) models have narrowed the performance gap with US rivals to around 3 percent, the lowest on record, down from 9 percent in May and 15 percent earlier in 2026, according to Bloomberg Intelligence; Stanford’s 2026 AI Index said the gap had ‘effectively closed’. DeepSeek is no longer China’s only serious challenger: Alibaba’s Qwen, Z.ai’s GLM and Moonshot’s Kimi rank near the global frontier on third-party benchmarks, with some scoring above DeepSeek on composite tests.

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PLA Navy Hospital Ship Auspicious Ark Arrives in Guinea for First Medical Visit

China’s naval hospital ship Auspicious Ark docked at the Port of Conakry on 3 October for a seven-day goodwill visit, the first by a Chinese naval hospital ship to Guinea, as part of Mission Harmony-2026. At the previous stop in Mauritania, the vessel handled more than 1,600 consultations in a single day and a woman with a high-risk pregnancy gave birth aboard. Chen Renbing of the Guinea Overseas Chinese Association said the visit marked ‘a new level in the friendship between Guinea and China’.

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Revised Audit Regulations Add Interference Protection and Extend Scope to State-Owned Resources

Premier Li Qiang signed a State Council decree on 24 September revising the regulations on the implementation of the audit law, taking effect on 1 December. The 64-article revision adds a formal registration system requiring auditors to document any unwarranted attempts to inquire into or interfere with audit matters. It also extends special audit investigation powers to state-owned resources management and requires audit institutions to share information and transfer clues across ten national supervision channels, including discipline inspection and NPC oversight.

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Huawei and Qualcomm’s 5G Patent Deal Reverses Royalty Flow for the First Time

Huawei and US chipmaker Qualcomm on 5 October announced their first cross-licence covering 5G, computing, AI and networking. China Daily reported the accord as the first revenue-positive agreement between the two companies, with net payment flowing to the Chinese firm. Huawei earned its first licensing income in 2011, from Motorola. The arrangement reverses a royalty channel that long moved surplus to US patent holders, and will push Huawei’s cumulative licensing value beyond US $6.9 billion.

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Central SOEs Post 7.5 Percent Profit Margin as First Five-Year Plan Earmarks US $297 Billion for Infrastructure

The first five-year plan for China’s centrally administered state enterprises (2026–2030) targets a further 5-percentage-point rise in value-added from strategic emerging industries. The plan earmarks about 2 trillion yuan (US $297 billion) this year for the ‘six networks’ infrastructure programme; R&D spending rose 2.7 percent in January–August and the operating profit margin reached 7.5 percent, up 0.2 percentage points. The results challenge the assumption, long entrenched in other regions, like Latin America, that public enterprise is inherently inefficient.

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China Completes First Offshore Platform to Boost Gas Recovery by Reinjecting Captured CO2

China’s state energy company CNOOC has completed the main structure of the country’s first offshore platform to reinject carbon dioxide to boost natural gas recovery, at the Dongfang 1-1 gasfield off Hainan Province. The platform will capture CO2 produced alongside natural gas, pressurize it and inject it underground to recover otherwise hard-to-reach reserves while permanently storing more than 1 million tonnes of CO2 annually. UNECE identifies carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) as critical to the 90 billion tonnes that its member countries need to sequester by 2050 to meet Paris Agreement targets.

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Xinjiang Connects China’s First 100-MW CO2 Energy Storage Plant, Deployable on Flat Land

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has connected to the grid China’s first 100-megawatt compressed carbon dioxide energy storage plant. The system uses off-peak power to compress CO2 into liquid and releases it as gas to drive turbines at peak demand, storing 290 million kilowatt-hours a year and discharging 180 million. Unlike pumped-hydro and compressed-air storage, the closed-loop design requires no particular geography: no mountains, no caverns.

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DeepSeek and Huawei Release Six Ascend Components Challenging Nvidia’s CUDA Software Monopoly

DeepSeek and Huawei on 30 September announced that code written for one chipmaker’s processors can run unchanged on another’s. The two companies open-sourced six Ascend components that mirror one-to-one their existing Nvidia-platform tools, including the TileLang language, and jointly released a supernode solution based on 128 Ascend 950 chips. The move targets the CUDA software ecosystem underpinning US chipmaker Nvidia’s dominance in AI computing.

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CAS Launches First Batch of 10 Frontier Projects on Dark Matter and Synthetic Cells

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) unveiled on 29 September the first batch of ten frontier research projects targeting the synthesis of new elements, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, measurement of chemical bonds and creation of synthetic cells. The projects draw on 77 major national scientific facilities, 43 operated by CAS, combined with AI-assisted research. The academy is opening participation to scientists worldwide, targeting global leadership in each field by 2030.

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‘Traces of Justice’ Tops US $170 Million National Day Box Office With a 92-Year-Old Scientist’s Story

The National Day holiday box office topped 1.16 billion yuan (about US $170 million), led by ‘Traces of Justice’ with 423 million yuan (about US $62 million). The crime drama is built on the career of Cui Daozhi, 92, a forensic scientist who received the Communist Party of China’s July 1 Medal. Daily takings exceeded 100 million yuan (US $14.84 million) for seven consecutive days.

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China Takes Record 169 Golds Overseas as 13-Year-Old Yu Zidi Becomes Youngest Asian Games MVP

The Asian Games closed in Nagoya on 4 October. China topped the medal table for a 12th consecutive edition with 169 golds; of the 815-strong delegation, 548 made their Games debut. Junior-high swimmer Yu Zidi, 13, won three golds and set three records, including 2:06.10 in the 200m individual medley; she and Thailand’s Puripol Boonson were named co-MVPs, and at 13, Yu Zidi is the youngest MVP in Asian Games history.

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News on China | No. 41

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 07:00:27 +0000

26 September 2026

About 10 min read.

China Calls for Stronger UN Role as Vice President Han Zheng Addresses General Assembly

China called for a stronger UN role as it marks 55 years since the restoration of its lawful seat. Vice President Han Zheng is in New York from 24 to 26 September for the 81st UN General Assembly, where he presented Beijing’s positions on major international and regional issues and the work of the UN. China has called for ‘true multilateralism’ and renewed efforts to strengthen the UN’s authority and role, while promoting reform of global governance. The anniversary also highlights China’s position as a permanent member of the Security Council and its support for greater representation of developing countries.

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Xi Calls for Strategic Stability as US-China Trade Truce Extended

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump agreed to extend the bilateral trade truce until 10 January 2027, following talks in Washington on 24 September. The two sides’ economic teams also reached a new joint arrangement. Xi called for turning a new vision of ‘strategic stability’ into action, with cooperation as the mainstay, moderate competition and manageable differences. He stressed equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit, urged Washington to oppose ‘Taiwan independence’, and called for cooperation on AI. The leaders also discussed the Middle East, Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula, while reaffirming support for the 2026 APEC and G20 summits.

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China to Deepen ‘AI Plus Manufacturing’ and Keep Tackling Disorderly, Irrational Competition

President Xi Jinping urged sustained efforts to strengthen advanced manufacturing in an instruction conveyed to a national conference that ended on 17 September. Premier Li Qiang named next-generation intelligent manufacturing the ‘primary direction’ and called for deepening the ‘AI plus manufacturing’ initiative. He also urged more support for firms’ digital and intelligent transformation. Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing closed the meeting by calling for continued work against ‘disorderly and irrational competition’ and a high-quality standards system.

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Fentanyl Rules Split Medical Drugs from Non-Medical Analogues, Which Face Heroin Thresholds

The Supreme People’s Court (SPC), Supreme People’s Procuratorate and Ministry of Public Security made public an 18-article guideline on 23 September. Medical fentanyl-related substances stay under the SPC’s existing judicial interpretation on drug crimes. Non-medical ones, the vast majority, are tackled by reference to heroin under the Criminal Law. Under that interpretation, trafficking 125 grams or more of medical fentanyl carries 15 years to life or death – the same as 50 grams of heroin.

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High-Tech FDI Jumps 35.1% to US $29.66 Billion Even as Total Inflows Fall 5.3%

Overseas firms put 74 percent more into research and design services in January–August 2026, Ministry of Commerce data show. This surge helped lift high-tech industries to 200.26 billion yuan (US $29.66 billion), or 41.7 percent of the total – 12.4 percentage points more than a year earlier. Overall foreign direct investment in actual use still fell 5.3 percent. China Briefing has called high-tech industries the ‘star attraction’ of foreign investment, a sign of China’s pivot towards innovation-driven growth.

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Smart Glasses Sales on Major Platforms Jump 120% as Consumption Tilts towards Health and Tech

Retail sales rose just 0.4 percent in August, below market expectations of 0.8 percent. Ministry of Commerce figures for January–August point to where demand is moving instead, with platform sales of electrocardiogram monitors up 75 percent. Retail sales of services grew 4.9 percent, 3.9 percentage points faster than goods. Rural retail sales reached 4.4 trillion yuan (US $651.65 billion), growing 1.3 percentage points faster than in urban areas.

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Import-Reliant Soybeans and Oilseeds Get New Seeds and Smart Machinery in 2026–2030 Crop Plan

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs’ 2026–2030 crop farming blueprint makes grain self-sufficiency and staple-food security its bottom line. It also pledges to consolidate capacity in soybeans, oilseeds, cotton and sugar crops, where import dependence runs high. Systemic tensions with the US have made cutting this import reliance more pressing. Breakthrough varieties and intelligent machinery lead as ‘new quality productive forces’, with technology already driving more than 64 percent of output growth.

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China Beats Kigali HFC Production Cap by 1.185 Billion Tonnes of CO2 Equivalent Since 2024

Since joining the Montreal Protocol in 1991, China has phased out about 720,000 tonnes of ozone-depleting substances – more than half the developing-country total. Cumulative HFC use has also run more than 759 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent below the national compliance target. Full implementation of the Kigali Amendment is expected to avoid 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the century’s end. Vice Minister of Ecology and Environment Xu Bijiu said China’s resolve to honour international commitments ‘will not waver’.

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New Global Science Literacy Body Debuts in Beijing as China’s Rate Hits 16.74 Percent

Its 32 founding members come from 21 countries across Asia, Europe, South America, Africa and Oceania. The China Association for Science and Technology backed the World Organization for Science Literacy, which debuted on 20 September. The association’s survey found 16.74 percent of Chinese citizens were scientifically literate in 2025, up from 10.56 percent in 2020. China also helps economically underdeveloped regions improve scientific literacy, including via science and technology backyards in the Global South.

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Shanghai Opens WorldSkills Five Years Later than Planned After Pandemic Derailed 2021 Edition

The 48th competition has drawn 1,385 competitors from 68 countries and regions, contesting 64 skills. China had won the 46th edition for 2021, but the pandemic forced its postponement in 2020 and cancellation in 2022. A revised Vocational Education Law ranks vocational schooling ‘as important as general education’, the academic route to a degree. Beijing treats skills as a national investment, counting more than 220 million skilled workers, about 30 percent of the employed population.

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Chang’e Flew to the Moon Alone, but Mid-Autumn Became China’s Night of Family Reunion

On Friday evening, people across the country turn their eyes skyward in a custom that flourished under the Tang dynasty more than a thousand years ago. Families share round mooncakes, whose circular shape mirrors the full moon and symbolises reunion. The festival entered China’s first batch of national intangible cultural heritage in 2006. In 2008 the State Council made it an official paid holiday to promote traditional culture.

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News on China | No. 40

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 07:00:38 +0000

19 September 2026

About 10 min read.

Lula’s Special Adviser Celso Amorim Visits China as Beijing Highlights “High Level of Political Trust”

On 16 September, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Brazilian President Lula’s Special Adviser Celso Amorim in Beijing, where Amorim delivered a letter from Lula to Xi Jinping. Wang called for stronger strategic coordination between China and Brazil and closer cooperation within the Global South. The two sides discussed bilateral ties and cooperation in artificial intelligence, supercomputing, space and critical minerals. Beijing reiterated its principle of non-interference in Brazil’s internal affairs and expressed hope that the country’s elections will proceed in a stable and peaceful manner.

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US$10.8 Billion Pinglu Canal Opens, Cutting 560 Kilometres from Southwest China’s Sea Route

Thirty general cargo ships made the first transits on 16 September, sailing from ports in Nanning and Qinzhou, Guangxi. The 134.2-kilometre waterway cost 72.7 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion) and can accommodate vessels of up to 5,000 tonnes. As part of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, the canal connects China’s inland river network with the Beibu Gulf, shortening routes to the sea by more than 560 kilometres. Guangxi authorities expect logistics costs to fall by 18 to 30 percent. China and ASEAN have been each other’s largest trading partners for six consecutive years, with trade rising 18.2 percent in the first half of 2026.

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Hong Kong Unveils First Five-Year Plan, Targeting 3% of GDP for Innovation After 2030

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee presented the city’s first five-year plan to the Legislative Council on 16 September. Priorities include accelerating the Northern Metropolis, a technology-focused development near Shenzhen planned for 2.5 million residents and 650,000 jobs. The plan also targets an increase in domestic expenditure on innovation activities from 1.63 percent of GDP in 2024 to 3 percent after 2030. Lee said the plan sets out a strategic direction rather than a planned economy.

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State Council Orders Hazard Checks in Key Industries After Qingdao Shipyard Fire Kills 25

Premier Li Qiang chaired the cabinet meeting in Beijing on Friday 11 September. Accidents had ‘occurred frequently in recent times, with profound lessons to be learned’, the meeting said. It ordered an in-depth investigation into the causes and resolute action against violations of laws and regulations. The session also reviewed computing networks and the upgrading of ageing reservoirs, and approved a draft revision to the Regulation on the Administration of Foundations.

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QatarEnergy Pays US$4 Billion for Bul Hanine Project, China’s Largest Offshore Contract Abroad

Fabrication began on 15 September at a Qingdao base in Shandong province, where a CNOOC subsidiary cut the first steel. COOEC is prime contractor for more than 60 offshore facilities and 40 subsea pipelines and cables, plus over 130,000 tonnes of steel. QatarEnergy is paying for the entire chain, from design and procurement to offshore installation and commissioning, with completion scheduled for mid-2031.

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Cost-Accounting Rules Make Below-Cost Selling Measurable, Pushing Firms from Price to Quality

The National Development and Reform Commission and the market regulator released the notice on 10 September. Whether a producer has sold below cost is judged in principle against its individual cost for the specific product. Where that cannot be calculated, industry associations work out an industry average, and a certain downward margin is allowed. Existing law barred low-price dumping without saying how to calculate it, and the aim is competition on quality and innovation.

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Carbon Market Expands Beyond Power to Steel, Cement and Aluminium, Reaching 3,680 Emitters

Heavy industry entered the national scheme for the first time in 2025, ending a single-sector design in place since July 2021. Around 8.3 billion tonnes of CO2 now fall under the market, more than 65 percent of the national total. Annual trading volume hit a record 235 million tonnes in 2025, up 24.36 percent year on year. All major industrial sectors are due to join by 2027.

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Digital Village Plan Sets Eight 2030 Targets Spanning Farm Technology and Rural Livelihoods

The Cyberspace Administration of China and two ministries released the five-year roadmap on 11 September. Its 24 tasks across five areas run from smart breeding and seed production zones to village delivery stations. Digital education, digital healthcare and digital finance carry equal weight in the text. Rural internet penetration is set to reach 75 percent by 2030, and county cultural centres to run 170,000 online activities, up from 151,600.

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AI Security Governance Framework 3.0 Released as Beijing Police Warn of Voice-Cloning Fraud

The 2026 Cybersecurity Week opened on 14 September in Jinan, east China’s Shandong province, themed on safeguarding cybersecurity in the intelligent era. Version 3.0 of the AI security governance framework was released at the opening ceremony. Beijing police warned in the same week that fraudsters keep silent on calls to capture a few seconds of speech, then clone the answerer’s voiceprint with AI to ask relatives for money. Officers advise saying nothing, counting to three and hanging up.

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China Presents First Far-Side Lunar Sample to UN in Vienna for Permanent Public Display

Chang’e-6 collected 1,935.3 grams from the South Pole-Aitken Basin in 2024, material no earlier mission had reached. A piece of that return was presented to the United Nations in Vienna on 14 September 2026. The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs director, Aarti Holla-Maini, said the rare far-side material now ‘belongs to everyone’. Permanent display puts it before thousands of students, delegates and visitors each year.

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Embodied Intelligence Robot Technician Gains Official Status as China Drafts Skill Standards

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security released the latest batch of new roles on 9 September, adding 11 occupations and 23 job specialties. Five of the 11 are classified as digital occupations and three as green, lifting national totals to 113 and 142. National standards will follow, guiding vocational education, skills training and talent assessment. The ministry expects a sizable shortage of digitally skilled workers, and says recognition will spur training.

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World’s First Pterosaur Museum Opens on Xinjiang’s Gobi with 3D Eggs and Embryos

Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) researchers spent more than two decades on rescue excavations in the fossil-rich Hami region. Their finds went on display on 13 September in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, including the world’s first three-dimensionally preserved pterosaur eggs and embryos. Six oval halls cover 4,600 square metres and, seen from above, resemble a clutch of eggs in the desert. The exhibits recreate life roughly 130 million years ago, now open to the public.

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Sirens and 14 Bell Strikes Mark 95 Years Since the September 18 Incident

The commemoration opened on Friday morning at the torn calendar-page monument in Shenyang. Japanese forces caused an explosion nearby in 1931, blamed Chinese troops and attacked them. The warning bell was struck once for each of the 14 years of resistance that followed. Cities across Liaoning province then sounded three-minute air-raid sirens at 9:18 a.m., and drivers stopped and pressed their horns.

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News on China | No. 39

Sat, 12 Sep 2026 07:00:32 +0000

12 September 2026

About 10 min read.

Xi reaffirms ties with North Korea as US, Japan and South Korea hold military drills

On 9 September, President Xi Jinping reaffirmed Beijing’s commitment to strategic ties with Pyongyang, calling the relationship an ‘unshakable’ policy and describing China and North Korea as friendly socialist neighbors that ‘stand side by side and share joys and difficulties.’ In 2026, ties advanced with Xi’s June visit to Pyongyang, the resumption of passenger rail services after six years, and progress on the Yalu River Bridge. Meanwhile, the US, Japan and South Korea are holding the Freedom Edge military exercise through 11 September, which Pyongyang condemned as a provocation, amid growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

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Xi to Attend BRICS Summit as India and China Prepare Successive Presidencies

Xu Feihong, Beijing’s ambassador in New Delhi, wrote in The Hindu on 7 September that the two countries will hold the rotating chair in succession. President Xi Jinping will attend the 12–13 September summit, his first visit to India in seven years. Sound coordination between the two chairs, Xu said, would safeguard the common interests of developing countries.

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Over One Billion Voters Set to Elect 2.6 Million Grassroots Deputies Across China

Turnout in the round that ended in 2022 reached 86.49 percent at county level and 85.63 percent at township level. That meant 921 million ballots for county congresses and 623 million for township congresses. County and township are the only tiers citizens fill by direct ballot, and their deputies are tasked with conveying public views and resolving practical problems. Xinhua describes the exercise as one of the world’s largest democratic practices.

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Import Growth Outpaces Exports for a Sixth Month as Zero-Tariff Access Reaches 63 Countries

The General Administration of Customs reported on 8 September that August goods trade reached US $683.8 billion, up 26.3 percent in dollar terms. For a sixth consecutive month, import growth outran exports, 28.2 percent against 25.0 percent. China has removed import duties for 63 countries and cut its average tariff to 7.3 percent. It has been the world’s second-largest import market for 17 consecutive years, an opening for Global South exporters.

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China’s Central Bank Says It Never Sought a Surplus, Urges Deficit Economies to Adjust Too

The G20 finance meeting in Asheville ended without a communiqué. All members present except China backed a US chair’s statement telling countries with excessive and persistent external surpluses to curb their overreliance on exports. Pan Gongsheng, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, answered that the country has never deliberately pursued a trade surplus. He urged deficit economies to cut fiscal deficits and raise savings, and surplus economies to promote consumption and investment growth.

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Solar Capacity Overtakes Coal for First Time as China Supplies over 80% of World’s Modules

The National Energy Administration announced the milestone on 1 September, drawing on official figures for the end of July 2026. Installed photovoltaic (PV) power stood at 1.286 billion kilowatts against coal’s 1.285 billion. Output is another matter: solar holds 31.5 percent of installed capacity but supplied only 13 percent of electricity consumption in January-July. China supplies over 80 percent of the world’s PV modules, putting that transition within reach of countries that cannot manufacture it.

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World’s First Humanoid Robot for Hybrid Crop Breeding Automates Pollination Long Done by Hand

The Chinese Academy of Sciences released GEAIR 2.0 on 4 September at the 33rd China Beijing Seed Industry Conference. Developers put stigma recognition at 92.8 percent, up from 85 percent, and demonstrated a tomato pollination in under 10 seconds. Xu Cao’s team gene-edited the flower itself, making it male-sterile with a stigma the robot can reach. Manual crossing accounts for over 25 percent of fresh-market tomato breeding costs in China.

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Six Agencies Issue Rural Investment Plan Covering Bonds, Credit, Insurance and Private Capital

The text was made public on 7 September and carries no aggregate spending figure. Its one quantified target is a 2030 deadline for the mechanism itself, aligning it with the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Government funding retains the leading role, with bonds, loans and insurance leveraged alongside non-government capital. Price and subsidy policy must now move in step with those funding channels.

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Ministry Plan Targets 9,800 EFLOPS of Intelligent Computing and Adaptation to Domestic Chips

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released a five-year plan for the information and communications industry on 7 September. Intelligent computing capacity is to rise from 1,590 EFLOPS (each a quintillion operations per second) in 2025 to 9,800 by 2030, roughly a sixfold increase. The plan’s computing task pairs that target with greater efforts to adapt infrastructure to domestically produced chips. Capacity had already reached 2,185 EFLOPS by end-June 2026, up 177 percent year on year.

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BeiDou’s 7,569 Ground Stations Open Their Data to Industry While Staying Publicly Owned

The Ministry of Natural Resources and the National Data Administration announced the arrangement on 4 September. Officials call it a shift from an underused public resource to a compliant, tradable asset, opened to key industries under state supervision. The network’s 420 national, 3,293 provincial and 3,856 coordinated stations refine China’s own satellite navigation for autonomous driving and urban governance. Ministry chief planner Zhang Bing called it a replicable model for managing public data in other sectors.

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Algorithm Governance Widens from Eight Platforms to 25 in Push for Gig Workers’ Social Security

About 200 million people work in flexible employment, 84 million in new forms – 21 percent of the workforce. Zhao Shitang, a vice-minister at the Communist Party of China’s Society Work Department, announced the expansion on 9 September. Unreasonable order assignment and opaque pricing have been addressed, and some localities now pause the delivery timer at red lights. A separate occupational injury insurance scheme covered nearly 30 million workers by June 2026.

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Chinese Malls and a Metro Operator Hand Prime Advertising Space to National Role Models

A 7.8-metre lightbox of rocket scientist Qian Xuesen replaced a paid commercial poster in Heze, Shandong, on 7 August. The mall agreed the swap with an advertising company, and no national order required it. Similar displays reached Anhui, Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi and Henan. Zhengzhou Metro then gave six honourees three major interchange stations, among them hybrid-rice researcher Yuan Longping and Nobel laureate Tu Youyou.

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News on China | No. 38

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:00:43 +0000

5 September 2026

About 10 min read.

Modi, Xi and Putin Defend Multipolar Order as Russia Offers China Permanent Visa-Free Travel

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation marked its 25th anniversary at a Bishkek summit on 31 August and 1 September 2026. Narendra Modi urged the leaders to leave ‘endless war’ behind and move towards its end. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, meeting on 31 August, pressed for an equal and orderly multipolar world. Putin offered to make the reciprocal 30-day China-Russia visa-free regime permanent, citing a 43% rise in bilateral tourism in the first half of 2026.

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China Steps Up Emergency Aid to Nepal with Third Airlift and Rescue Teams

A third shipment of emergency supplies reached Kathmandu on 3 September, including tents, blankets, mortuary refrigerators, medical protective gear and satellite communication equipment. Chinese forensic experts also arrived to assist with victim identification, while Xizang sent two Bailey bridges to help restore access. The shipment followed a second airlift carrying drones, water purification gear and genetic testing equipment. Together, the first two airlifts delivered 55.8 tonnes of aid, including 13,200 relief items. China has provided US $2 million in emergency aid, while the Red Cross Society donated US $200,000. Nepal recorded around 1,300 dead and 4,800 missing.

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China Quits Gwangju Biennale over ‘Taiwan Pavilion’ Name but Credits Seoul’s One-China Stance

Since June, organisers had listed the exhibition under an institutional acronym, drawing ‘political censorship’ accusations from the participating artists in Taiwan, China. The biennale’s foundation restored ‘Taiwan Pavilion’ in late August, and China’s embassy called that a violation of the one-China principle. It credited Seoul’s one-China position, faulting ‘a very small number of South Korean politicians and social groups’. Seoul called the naming a cultural-sphere decision unrelated to policy, while Beijing said ties are on the ‘right track’.

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Regular Aid and Monitoring Enter Rural Revitalisation to Prevent Large-Scale Poverty Relapse

A joint inquiry on 26 August put lawmakers’ questions to Vice Premier Liu Guozhong and senior ministry officials. Liu said regular support should be incorporated into the rural revitalisation strategy, with targeted monitoring to prevent a large-scale return to poverty. Per capita income in counties lifted out of poverty reached 18,627 yuan (US $2,772) in 2025, growing 8.2 percent a year since 2020. Employment among people lifted out of poverty has stayed above 30 million for five consecutive years.

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Coast Guard Enhances Huangyan Dao Patrols to Strengthen Management and Safeguard Sovereignty

Rules published in August prohibit unauthorised fishing, mining and the collection of corals and giant clams inside a national nature reserve. Coast guard drills covered search and seizure, interdiction of forced entry and forced towing. Patrols in Huangyan Dao’s territorial sea have since been enhanced, with offending ships regulated under the law. The coast guard says the patrols further strengthen orderly management of the waters and safeguard China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.

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Foreign Investors Hold Under 2% of Onshore Bonds as Hidden Local Debt Halves in Two Years

A State Council report published on 31 August put total government borrowing at 102.5 trillion yuan (US $15.27 trillion) at end-2025. Within that, off-balance-sheet local liabilities fell to 6.5 trillion yuan (US $968 billion) from 14.3 trillion yuan (US $2 trillion) at end-2023. A 10 trillion yuan (US $1.49 trillion) swap package launched in late 2024 drove the fall. Most of the debt is owed to domestic, state-backed lenders, so a sudden crisis remains unlikely.

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South-South Trade Deepens as China and ASEAN Cross US $1.05 Trillion for the First Time

Vice Minister of Commerce Yan Dong announced the 2025 total on 1 September. In January–July 2026 the two sides exchanged US $744.41 billion, up 24.7 percent and equal to 21.8 percent of China’s foreign trade. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has now been China’s biggest trading partner for six successive years. The wider Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is the world’s largest trading bloc, holding 28 percent of world GDP against the European Union’s 18 percent.

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Digital Rural Strategy Closes Second Stage as Report Sets 15th Five-Year Plan Tasks

The Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs published the seven-year review on 31 August. It records 2025 as the year the 2019 Outline of the Digital Rural Development Strategy met its second-stage goals. Rural internet penetration reached 69.5 percent in 2025, narrowing the urban-rural access gap to 15.6 percentage points. The report then sets 15th Five-Year Plan tasks: digitalised rural industry, informatised rural construction and smart governance.

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Tibetan Plateau Weather Monitoring and Cryosphere Data Sharing to Expand After Mudslide

Part of a glacier broke off on the Nepalese side of the border on 26 August and reached Gyirong Port in Xizang within seven minutes. Three portable automatic weather stations now support road restoration, rescue work and barrier lake surveys. The China Meteorological Administration pledged on 28 August to improve the siting of weather stations across the Tibetan Plateau. It will also share glacier, snow and permafrost data and survey the region’s glacial lakes.

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Chinese Scientists Target World Protein Shortage with Food-Waste Feed Using 1% of Soybean Land

A two-stage process at the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology ferments canteen leftovers into organic acids, then feeds them to the marine microbe Schizochytrium. The best engineered strain produced 46.72 kg of single-cell protein per tonne of dry waste, with land-use impacts about 1% of soybean-based production. The peer-reviewed study calls the process a low-carbon answer to global protein deficits. Fossil resource use runs 203% above soybeans, and industrial scale-up is the team’s stated next step.

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China’s Space Computing Cloud Serves 100 Users as Musk’s Orbital Data Centres Await Launch

Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications launched the Tiansuan Constellation in 2021, which now runs 16 low-Earth-orbit satellites and seven ground stations. Xinhua reported on 31 August that the platform had begun routine in-orbit services. The milestone drew little Western coverage, though Chinese state media announced each step. Elon Musk has promoted orbital AI data centres for months, telling a March event that space compute could undercut terrestrial costs in as little as two to three years.

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China’s First Healthcare Security Law Covers 1.33 Billion People and Codifies Long-Term Care

Lawmakers approved the seven-chapter, 56-article text on 28 August, and it takes effect on 1 January 2027. It requires a multi-tiered system with basic medical insurance as its mainstay. Long-term care insurance, piloted since 2016, now becomes a statutory system. The scheme covered 308.55 million people at the end of 2025, when 323.38 million Chinese were aged 60 or above – 23 percent of the population.

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Chongqing Lets Schools Keep Phones off Campus from the First Day of Autumn Term

The measure sits inside a wider juvenile-protection statute, passed by the municipal legislature in late July and effective since 1 September. Each school decides whether to exclude phones, tablets and smartwatches. UNESCO monitoring counts 114 education systems with national school phone bans, 58% of countries, up from 24% in June 2023. Australia’s social media age limit for children took effect in December, and Portugal and Spain have passed comparable laws.

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News on China | No. 37

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 07:00:43 +0000

29 August 2026

About 10 min read.

China and Jordan unite for Palestine; Xi proposes four principles for a political solution amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza

During Jordanian King Abdullah II’s state visit to China from August 18 to 24, Beijing and Amman reaffirmed support for an independent Palestinian state. President Xi Jinping proposed four principles to advance a political solution: pursuing a two-state solution, upholding “Palestinians governing Palestine,” protecting civilians and ensuring humanitarian aid, and defending international law and justice. A joint statement called the two-state solution “the only way” to achieve just and lasting peace, supporting a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital and full UN membership. China and Jordan also reaffirmed their strategic partnership and expanded cooperation in trade, the digital economy, artificial intelligence, green energy, education, technology, culture and tourism.

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China and India Reach Eight-Point Border Consensus, Adding Two Hotlines and Delimitation Push

China and India reached an eight-point consensus during the 25th round of Special Representatives’ talks in Beijing on August 25, the third since an October 2024 understanding eased the Ladakh standoff. Wang Yi and India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining peace and pursuing a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement based on the 2005 agreement. Two working groups will finalize their terms of reference before pursuing an “Early and Substantial Harvest” on boundary delimitation and border management. The sides agreed to improve understanding of the Line of Actual Control, add two military meeting points and two hotlines, reopen three border trade markets, and expand cooperation on transboundary rivers. The next round will take place in India in 2027.

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Cross-Border Corruption Bill Would Codify Sky Net and Fox Hunt, Set Duties for Overseas Firms

Reviewed on 25 August by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the text runs to six chapters and 47 articles setting out principles, scope, operational mechanisms and institutional responsibilities; Huo Zhengxin of the China University of Political Science and Law, who took part in drafting, said it provides for extradition, mutual legal assistance and repatriation in line with the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and places integrity and compliance duties on state-owned and private firms alike.

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From Xiamen’s 12 Measures to Fuzhou’s 17-City Network, Cities Lead Cross-Strait Exchanges

Presented at a regular Beijing briefing, the latest round of cross-Strait initiatives is municipal in origin and people-facing in content: Xiamen is establishing a distribution hub for agricultural and fishery products from Taiwan, China, an audiovisual platform and digital-content training for young people; Fuzhou (Fujian’s capital) has extended its Strait Youth Development-Oriented City programme, launched in 2025 and now spanning 17 mainland cities; and a Shanghai gathering from 24 to 28 August drew about 1,000 participants.

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Entrusted by Xi, Premier Li Qiang Directs Xizang Mudslide Rescue Under Level-II Emergency

After a glacier collapse in Nepal buried Gyirong Port on the China-Nepal border on Wednesday, leaving three people dead and 558 missing, including 260 foreign nationals, the central government activated its second-highest disaster and geological emergency responses, allocated 220 million yuan (US $33 million) and dispatched hundreds of rescuers with 30,000 relief items, while the premier, acting on President Xi Jinping’s instructions, travelled to the site on Thursday to direct all-out operations.

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High-Tech Industries Account for 41.6% of Foreign Capital as Overall Inflows Fall 6.2%

In the first seven months of 2026, actual investment in research, development and design services rose 72.1 percent and in services commercialising sci-tech achievements 62.2 percent, lifting high-technology inflows 32.7 percent to 182.31 billion yuan (US $27.13 billion) and their share of the national total 12.2 percentage points, while 37,711 new foreign-invested enterprises were established, up 4.4 percent, under an encouraged-industries catalogue steering foreign capital into advanced manufacturing since 1 February.

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Chips, Robots and 6G Anchor 2026-30 Growth Agenda, Backed by ‘Little Giant’ SME Drive

Industry Vice-Minister Xin Guobin told a State Council Information Office press conference on 26 August that integrated circuits, aerospace, biomedicine, the low-altitude economy, new energy storage and intelligent robots will be developed into emerging pillar industries, with a tiered cultivation system for specialised small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and a second phase of the national SME development fund extending the drive for technological self-reliance into industrial-chain resilience, employment and livelihoods.

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Officials Face Lifelong Liability for Ecological Damage and Failure to Advance Carbon Goals

Replacing a framework first issued in 2015, the revised document extends punishment to senior figures at public institutions, development zones and state-owned enterprises, tightening a system under which 3,371 people were held accountable in central environmental inspections (May 2020–June 2022), while requiring that enforcement be precise and evidence-based, neither dampening officials’ enthusiasm for work nor undermining the credibility of the Party and the government.

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Airborne Wind Turbine Generates Power at 4,000 Metres in Northwest China Flight Test

Developed by Beijing start-up Sawes Energy Technology with Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Aerospace Information Research Institute, the helium-filled craft (roughly the length of a Boeing 747) carries lightweight turbines into steadier high-altitude winds and returns the electricity down a tether; it can be moved quickly between sites, making it suited to deserts, highlands, islands and disaster zones beyond the reach of a power grid, though no output figure was disclosed.

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South China Morning Post, 25 August 2026

Beijing’s Humanoid Robot Games Move 21 of 51 Events into Real Factories and Hotels

Fully autonomous operation carried a scoring coefficient of 1 against 0.5 for remote control, while task tolerances were drawn from paid work – a microwave timer turned to five minutes, with deviations beyond one minute costing points, and 30 minutes for robot teams to move luggage, replenish guest-room supplies and make beds – so that performance on the field itself, in the organisers’ words, provides evidence of commercial viability.

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Chang’e 7 Lunar South Pole Launch Postponed Beyond Its Planned Window on Reliability Grounds

Bound for permanently shadowed terrain near the rim of Shackleton crater with a lander, rover and hopping probe, the water-ice mission was halted days before lift-off at Wenchang under the principles of ‘prudence, reliability and absolute safety’, with no cause disclosed; the wider programme is geared to a crewed landing before 2030 and a joint research station with Russia by 2035, while the United States, India and Russia are pursuing the same south-polar region.

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Chinese Archaeologists to Excavate Peru’s 5,000-Year-Old Caral in First South American Project

Two societies that rose on opposite rims of the Pacific will now be compared on the ground, under an agreement covering field surveys, excavations, heritage conservation and specialist training, signed by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences with Peru’s Culture Ministry and the National University of San Marcos, at sites of a civilisation that flourished around 3000 BC to 1800 BC (the oldest known in the Americas).

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Decade of Fieldwork Yields World’s Largest Language Archive, Now a Strategic AI-Era Resource

Opened on 24 August inside the Hunan Museum in Changsha, a new exhibition hall draws on a national documentation programme launched in 2015 that has surveyed more than 1,800 sites and assembled a repository of over 120 languages and dialects, with an alliance of universities and research institutions formed the same day to promote language technologies in education, research and cultural preservation, meaning the corpus is now being positioned as data infrastructure rather than salvage recording.

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News on China | No. 36

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 07:00:17 +0000

22 August 2026

About 10 min read.

China and South Korea Revive Dialogue Amid Tensions on the Korean Peninsula

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s 19–20 August visit to South Korea, the first by a Chinese foreign minister in five years, renewed efforts to strengthen bilateral ties amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Beijing and Seoul agreed to accelerate negotiations on the second phase of their Free Trade Agreement and expand cooperation in trade, supply chains, technology, and cultural exchanges. Wang called for South Korea to pursue external relations in an ‘independent, autonomous, balanced and non-conflicting manner’ and urged Washington to change its ‘hostile policy’ towards Pyongyang. China reaffirmed its commitment to peaceful resolution and regional stability; Seoul reiterated the one-China principle. Beijing is considering a Xi–Lee summit at November’s APEC in Shenzhen.

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US Imposes Drone Tariffs of up to 100% as China Demands Repeal

China has urged the United States to withdraw new Section 232 tariffs on drones and related components, calling them discriminatory against Chinese products and harmful to Chinese companies. On 13 August 2026, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation imposing tariffs of up to 100% on certain drones and components, while others face 25% duties. Producers in the European Union, Japan and Switzerland face a 15% ceiling, and UK suppliers 10%. Most tariffs take effect on 3 September, with some components delayed until 9 February 2027. Beijing’s 20 August response follows a US national-security investigation launched in July 2025 and broader efforts to restrict Chinese technology and reshape global supply chains.

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Cross-Border Corruption Bill Goes to First Reading After 963 Fugitives Repatriated in 2025

Convening at the Great Hall of the People on 18 August, the Council of Chairpersons, chaired by Zhao Leji, set 25–28 August for the 14th National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s 24th session, with the National Commission of Supervision’s anti-graft measure – on the legislative plan since 2023 – to be deliberated alongside draft laws on healthcare security and farmland protection, days after Evergrande founder Xu Jiayin’s life sentence for fraud and bribery.

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Xi Marks Jiang Zemin’s Birth Centenary, Tying 1990s Reform Record to the ‘New Journey’

About 6,000 people filled the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 17 August for an address crediting the late leader with the Theory of Three Represents, accession to the World Trade Organization, the response to the Asian financial crisis and the 1998 floods, and a push for a multipolar world, each achievement then matched to a present-day task from strengthening Communist Party leadership to high-quality development.

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Weekly Arctic Route Opens to Europe, Halving Shipment Times for a Chinese Container Line

Bound north through the Bering Strait and the frigid waters along Russia’s northern coast, the Dubai Tower sailed from Ningbo-Zhoushan Port on Saturday evening carrying energy storage cabinets, power batteries and photovoltaic modules from the Yangtze River Delta, and is timetabled into Felixstowe on 7 September with Hamburg and Gdynia later that week – a crossing possible only while the ice has melted enough to allow transits without icebreakers.

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BRI Markets Take US $83.67 Billion of China’s Car Exports as Consultants Warn of Overcapacity

Customs data compiled by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers record 3.381 million vehicles, 1.135 million of them new energy models (up 59.4 percent), shipped to Belt and Road Initiative partner countries in the first half of 2026, which now take 57.5 percent of China’s automobile export value; the surge continues even as AlixPartners predicts that only 15 of China’s 129 electric and hybrid brands will be financially viable by 2030.

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Ecological and Environmental Code Takes Effect, Replacing 10 Laws with Systematic Governance

Adopted by the National People’s Congress in March 2026 and binding on every company operating in China, the 1,242-article text has applied since 15 August, absorbing 10 statutes in full while drawing more than 100 administrative regulations and over 30 laws into one system, its dedicated green and low-carbon chapter tying ecological stewardship to growth as the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) embeds environmental considerations across economic policy.

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Shanghai’s Domestic Green Methanol Chain Delivers World-Record 8,016 Tonnes to a French Ship

Fuel made from Jilin’s wind, solar and biomass, moved through Dalian Port along an inter-provincial corridor opened in June 2026, reached CMA CGM’s 13,000-TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) dual-fuel vessel with a single 8,016-tonne lift covering an entire transoceanic voyage without a top-up, while cutting lifecycle emissions by an estimated 10,000 tonnes of CO₂ and giving international shipping a production-to-bunkering model that Shanghai Electric says can be repeated and expanded.

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China’s Non-Governmental ‘Nobel Prize’ Awards US $1 Million Each to Three 2026 Laureates

Zhang Hong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fudan University’s Zhao Dongyuan and Peking University’s Yuan Xinyi were named in Beijing on 13 August for work on autophagy (‘self-eating’), on mesoporous materials underpinning catalysis, energy storage and biomedicine, and on arithmetic geometry; their selection takes to 49 the scientists recognised since 2016 by the country’s first privately funded science award, which scientists and entrepreneurs, not the state, jointly initiated.

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DeepSeek’s ‘Everything Is a Plugin’ Harness Passes 33,000 GitHub Stars Within Hours

Released as a developer preview one week ago and built on the Cordis composability framework, the MIT-licensed Node.js runtime treats the model adapter, tool registry, session log and even the agent loop itself as interchangeable plugins (no privileged core to patch); because external pull requests are not yet accepted, DeepSeek channels contributions into community plugins and GitHub Discussions instead, around a harness that drives Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure or Google models just as readily.

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Qixi’s Weaver Girl Returns to the Square as a Migrant Cook’s War Drama Tops Cinemas

Guangzhou’s Tianhe district opened a seven-day carnival on 14 August, carrying customs listed as national intangible cultural heritage – needle-threading for skill, offerings to the Seventh Sister on the night the Cowherd and Weaver Girl meet on a magpie bridge – into public space, while cinemas drew couples to Once Upon a Time in the Middle East (Welcome to Dragon Restaurant), where a migrant cook keeps his kitchen open through a war because people need three meals a day.

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Frenchmen Hand Kunming Museum 16 Pages of Nantes Archives on a War the West Overlooks

Some 618 wartime photographs from Marcus Detrez’s grandfather in 1930s Shanghai set off a cross-border campaign by the non-profit Echoes of the World, which in August lodged 138 pages on the Chongqing Bombing and 891 more in Shanghai before handing a Kunming museum six documents dated 1938 to 1941 – drawn from France’s own diplomatic files, while the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) remains, Detrez says, insufficiently understood in many Western societies.

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