The European Commission claimed on Saturday that it has reached an agreement with China’s commerce ministry to restart the flow of semiconductors that had been disrupted by a crisis surrounding the company Nexperia. EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said on social media that, effective immediately, exports of the company’s chips to the bloc for non-military uses will not be subject to Chinese licensing requirements. “My team and I have been in constant contact with the Chinese authorities, and...

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The launch of the Fujian, China’s third and most advanced aircraft carrier, has been cause for celebration in Chinese media, with mainland analysts hailing it as superior to its US counterparts and a force for projecting power further into the western Pacific. But overseas analysts have been more tempered, suggesting that there is still a big gap between the naval force of the People’s Liberation Army and the United States in terms of the number of carriers, combat systems, personnel proficiency...

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President Xi Jinping has given the southern province of Guangdong the task of strengthening technology, infrastructure and regulatory cooperation with Hong Kong and Macau to advance the Greater Bay Area scheme. “Developing the Greater Bay Area is both a major responsibility and a rare development opportunity for Guangdong,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as telling senior Guangdong officials on Saturday. “Guangdong should make great effort to deepen cooperation with Hong Kong and Macau in...

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Confirmation from Pakistan’s top naval official that Chinese submarines will soon arrive in the South Asian country suggests India’s dominance of the Indian Ocean could be tested and that Beijing has overcome a major technical hurdle, according to analysts. In an interview with Global Times, affiliated with People’s Daily, Admiral Naveed Ashraf, the Pakistani chief of naval staff, said the first batch of Hangor-class, conventionally powered attack submarines jointly built by China and Pakistan...

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Particle beams – streams of atoms or subatomic particles accelerated to nearly the speed of light – have been the holy grail of space warfare. The idea is simple: fire a tightly focused beam of high-energy particles at an enemy satellite or missile, damaging it through sheer kinetic and thermal energy. But turning this vision into reality has remained out of reach. One critical reason is power. To work, a particle beam weapon needs not just massive amounts of energy, but also extreme precision...

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Chinese businesses should pivot their attention to the “rising” Global South such as Africa and the Middle East while minimising foreign investment risks through localisation, according to a former senior diplomat. Le Yucheng, who was a Chinese foreign vice-minister from 2018 to 2022, offered the assessment on Wednesday at the Hongqiao International Economic Forum in Shanghai, held as part of the China International Import Expo (CIIE), one of the world’s largest trade fairs. The annual six-day...

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European countries have been forced to boost defence spending because of the “threat” from Russia, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said as he wrapped up a visit to China where he called for the country to put more pressure on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine. In an interview with the South China Morning Post on Thursday, Tsahkna said: “President [Donald] Trump has been very clear that Europe must put skin in the game. Europe must take more responsibility.” Trump had previously...

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The Chinese embassy in Japan has urged Chinese citizens in the country to remain vigilant about local wildlife attacks amid a surge in incidents, with fatalities reaching a record high. The embassy released a statement on its official WeChat account on Friday, advising Chinese citizens to monitor wildlife sighting information released by local governments in Japan and avoid areas frequented by bears, wild boars and other animals to minimise risks. Since April, Japan has recorded at least 13...

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Chinese officials have agreed to hold talks with their Dutch counterparts regarding the Nexperia crisis, which has thrown the global automotive chip supply chain into uncertainty, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Saturday. In response to remarks made by Netherlands’ Economy Minister Vincent Karremans on Friday – indicating that Nexperia chips made in China could resume shipments in the coming days – Beijing expressed hope that the Dutch side would take concrete actions and agreed...

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In a high-stakes bilateral exchange where Taiwan has historically been an enduring flashpoint, the unusual silence was deafening. Last week’s summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump produced a rare omission – no mention of Taiwan at all in official readouts from both Washington and Beijing. The rare departure from diplomatic tradition has left the self-ruled island with an awkward sense of both relief and unease. While most Western media described the outcome of...

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The ferocity of China’s biopharmaceutical investment boom this year – fuelled by record-breaking licensing of commercial rights to global giants after a three-year slump – may have surprised casual observers. But according to Helen Chen, one of the most respected analysts and advisers in China’s life sciences space, the supercharged sector’s real renaissance came two years earlier. In December 2022, US drug maker MSD agreed to license global (excluding China) rights to develop and commercialise...

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China now has the largest naval fleet in the world, and its growing numbers of nuclear-powered submarines are an integral part of its efforts to project power beyond its coastal waters. But the view from Beijing is growing more complex as a handful of US allies in the Pacific also ramp up deployment of nuclear-powered subs. South Korea inched closer to attaining the technology on October 30 when US President Donald Trump said he had given the country approval to build a nuclear-powered...

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Recycling sand and gravel aggregates from construction and demolition waste could meet half of China’s demand for the materials essential for building skyscrapers, roads and railways by 2050, a Chinese-led study has found. By embracing a circular economy strategy, some provinces could achieve aggregate recycling rates as high as 65 per cent, the team led by researchers from Tsinghua University found. This could significantly ease China’s annual aggregate demand, which is projected to halve by...

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Restoring confidence and stabilising the property market are “significantly more important” for China than the ramifications of tariffs, a Nobel laureate in economics said while warning of financial risks to Chinese households. Michael Spence, who won the Nobel Prize in 2001, made the remarks at the Hongqiao International Economic Forum in Shanghai on Thursday, during a panel discussion on China’s pathway to revitalise consumption. While acknowledging that Beijing needs to “seriously” address...

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The fight against a Florida law restricting property purchases by Chinese citizens may hinge on finding new challengers – and on persuading a conservative judiciary unlikely to reverse course, legal experts say. In a 2-1 decision on Tuesday, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld two provisions of the 2023 law – requiring buyers to register their property and attest to their eligibility by affidavit, and ruled that the plaintiffs lacked the right to challenge the main purchasing...

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China will join a Brazil-led coalition to link carbon markets across major economies, one of the key environmental proposals set to be adopted at Cop30 in Belém on Friday. The so-called Open Coalition for the Integration of Carbon Markets was created to align standards and make it easier for countries to trade carbon credits. Developed by Brazil’s Ministry of Finance, it is part of the government’s Ecological Transformation Plan, a broad strategy to combine economic growth with social inclusion...

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Taiwan’s Vice-President Hsiao Bi-khim gave a speech at the European Parliament in Brussels on Friday, in what organisers claimed made her the most senior official from Taipei to have spoken in a foreign legislature in which it does not have diplomatic recognition. Hsiao spoke at a private conference of lawmakers from around the world who advocate for tougher China policies, hosted in the parliament and unannounced, which is sure to provoke a furious response from Beijing. The No 2 leader told...

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Alibaba Group Holding will keep investing in super-scale computing infrastructure to empower the artificial intelligence era, CEO Eddie Wu Yongming said at China’s annual internet industry summit on Friday. Meeting the AI industry’s demand “requires super-scale infrastructure and full-stack technology accumulation”, Wu told the audience at Friday’s opening of the 2025 World Internet Conference, an annual industry gathering in the town of Wuzhen in eastern Zhejiang province. The event will run...

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China has completed ground and altitude tests of an adaptive cycle engine prototype with unprecedented thrust, efficiency and speed range, according to presentations at the Chinese Society of Engineering Thermophysics annual conference in Beijing last week. During the opening day report, Xu Gang, deputy director of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, presented his team’s research progress in adaptive cycle engine (ACE) technology. This advanced engine...

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Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing.

1. China’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, enters service China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, entered into service on Wednesday at a grand ceremony held in Sanya, Hainan, according to state media reports.
2. China’s exports fall in October as firms wait out trade war reset China’s exports fell in October amid a volatile trade war with the...

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Fang Lei, a long-time professor with Texas A&M University’s chemistry department, has returned to China to join the cutting-edge Yongjiang Laboratory, a state-backed research centre that has drawn a cumulative investment of more than 26 billion yuan (US$3.65 billion) in less than four years. Fang built a distinguished career in the United States over nearly two decades, rising to be deputy head of the chemistry department at Texas A&M. He resigned from the university earlier this year to assume...

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On the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in 2007, a celebratory special by state media included a brief history of the late Deng Xiaoping’s observations. “In June 1987, while analysing Inner Mongolia’s economic development, Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of China’s reform and opening-up, predicted that Inner Mongolia was likely to ‘take the lead’,” it read. Under a black and white photo, the text continued: “This was in January 1992, when he...

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China has called for further talks on Iran’s nuclear programme to get the process “back on track” after European countries reimposed sanctions on Tehran a few weeks ago. “China appreciates Iran’s recent reaffirmation that it has no intention of developing nuclear weapons, and supports Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in a phone call on Wednesday. Wang warned there was currently a “deadlock” over the...

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Chongqing, a key economic hub in southwest China, has unveiled a plan to support the development of innovative drugs as the country steps up its push for scientific and technological self-reliance. Key goals include having one to three innovative drugs approved for market launch each year by 2027 and building three innovative drug industry clusters to encourage joint research and development (R&D) and technology transfers, with the authorities pledging support for innovative enterprises,...

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The Netherlands’ Economy Minister Vincent Karremans said on Friday that China could resume supply of chips to Nexperia customers in Europe and the rest of the world “over the coming days”, signalling that the Dutch government has “softened its stance” and raising hopes of a breakthrough in a row that has threatened to throw global automotive production into disarray. “The Netherlands trusts that the supply of chips from China to Europe and the rest of the world will reach Nexperia’s customers...

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