Category Archives: China

How Chinese tech and Russian tactics are aiding Iran’s bombing of US bases

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Increasingly accurate and lethal attacks are revealing weaknesses in stretched defences across the Gulf

As the crisis in the Middle East escalates, Iran has been bombing US bases and critical infrastructure in the Gulf with increasing accuracy, helped by Chinese satellite imagery and tactics learned by Russia in Ukraine.

Three US soldiers were killed last Friday in an attack on the Muwaffaq Salti airbase in Jordan, which was being protected by a Thaad air defence system. Satellite imagery later released by Iranian media showed several buildings had been destroyed.

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Mass job cuts loom at VW as profits fall steeply on China sales slump

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Carmaker expects to sell 3% fewer vehicles this year as it pushes through a programme that could eliminate 100,000 roles

Volkswagen has reported a steep fall in profits and cut its revenue forecast amid a sales slump in China, as the German carmaker pushes through a brutal cost-cutting programme that includes axeing up to 100,000 jobs.

VW said it expects sales to fall by up to 3% this year, a reversal of a previous forecast for a 3% increase on last year’s €321.9bn (£275.3bn), because of a sales slump in the highly competitive Chinese market.

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Australia to warn China it won’t be bullied by ‘provocative‘ actions as it builds military and nuclear arsenal

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Foreign minister Penny Wong will deliver speech criticising China’s recent launch of a nuclear-capable submarine-launched missile

Penny Wong will warn China that Australia and other neighbouring nations will not be bullied by its “provocative” actions, after its involvement in another “destabilising and dangerous” incident this week.

The foreign affairs minister – who will deliver the address on Thursday in the Philippines, where the 59th Asean foreign minister’s meeting is being held – will also caution world leaders against placing a toll on the strait of Hormuz after both Iran and the US threatened to do amid the protracted conflict.

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Democrats criticize Trump’s claims of election interference – US politics live

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Virginia’s Mark Warner says speech was ‘just lies and long-debunked conspiracies’

Several major networks declined to air Donald Trump’s primetime televised address on Thursday, citing concerns that the content could be politically partisan or inflammatory.

CNN, ABC and NBC chose not to air the speech live, but CBS, Fox News and MS Now (formerly MSNBC) aired at least large portions of the speech live. Some ABC station station affiliates – including the Washington DC station owned by right-leaning broadcaster Sinclair – also chose to air the speech.

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ICE arrests human rights lawyer who fled Chinese crackdown

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Arrest in Pennsylvania of Wu Shaoping, who is awaiting asylum decision, raises fears of deportation and persecution

A Chinese human rights lawyer has been arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raising concerns he could be deported to China where he would face persecution.

Wu Shaoping fled China at the end of 2019 amid a crackdown on human rights lawyers. He travelled to the US on a tourist visa and made an asylum claim in 2020, for which he is still awaiting a decision.

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Trump makes unverified claims of China ‘election meddling’ as critics fear ploy to challenge midterm results

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Opponents say president’s address about 2020 election loss is attempt to sow confusion ahead of midterms that could deliver big losses for Republicans

Donald Trump accused China of interfering with the 2020 election in a primetime televised address that laid bare his continuing obsession with his defeat to Joe Biden, but which opponents warned was a smokescreen for him to meddle in the forthcoming congressional midterms.

In a 25-minute speech on Thursday that had been hyped by Trump himself, the US president cast extraordinary doubts on the integrity of the US electoral process, saying it was “catastrophically” short of standards of fairness and trust, and vulnerable to trespassing by foreign powers.

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China ‘strongly dissatisfied’ with nationalisation of British Steel

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Move dealt ‘severe blow to Chinese companies’ confidence in investing in the UK’, says Ministry of Commerce

China’s government has said it is “strongly dissatisfied” with the decision to nationalise British Steel this week, 15 months after the UK government stepped in to prevent the closure of its steelworks in Scunthorpe and the loss of 4,000 jobs.

On Thursday, British Steel was brought under public ownership to protect “the future of steel production”, the government announced.

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Five arrested in Hong Kong bookstore raids in ‘seditious’ materials crackdown

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Third round of arrests linked to independent bookshops widely regarded as clampdown on dissent in territory

Hong Kong authorities have raided two bookstores and arrested five people on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications, in the latest step targeting independent booksellers.

Videos and photos from multiple media outlets on Wednesday showed officers wearing vests marked with “police” seizing boxes from the building that houses Have A Nice Stay, a bookshop founded by former journalists. AFP reporters saw officers also lead away a woman in handcuffs to a van.

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China and Xi Jinping seen more favourably than the US and Trump in poll of major countries

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Global views appear to have flipped in Beijing’s favour, driven in part by tensions between the Trump administration and US allies, a new Pew survey shows

The world has largely viewed the US more favourably than China for years, but those opinions have flipped in Beijing’s favour this year, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, a remarkable shift driven in part by tensions between the Trump administration and US allies.

More people have favourable views of China than the US in 25 out of the 36 countries and territories that were surveyed, including Canada and Mexico. The poll was conducted from February to May, a period when the United States and Israel were engaged in a war against Iran.

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China’s economy grows at 4.3%, one of its lowest rates on record

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Worse-than-expected figures for three months to June come amid concerns over lopsided economy

China has posted worse-than-expected growth figures for the three months to June as its economy expanded by just 4.3% – one of its lowest quarterly readings on record.

The rate, which came in under the government’s target of 4.5% to 5%, was one of the weakest since reporting on official quarterly GDP figures began in the early 1990s.

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Severe storms in China bring tornadoes and landslides that have killed 15 people

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping calls for ‘all out’ rescue effort as death toll rises and 16 people ⁠remain buried after a ⁠landslide in the country’s west

The death toll from devastating storms in parts of China rose to 15 on Tuesday, with hundreds more injured and tens of thousands evacuated, state media reported, as the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, urged “all out” efforts to rescue people affected by the weather.

Thunderstorms and gale-force winds killed at least 11 people and injured 331 in the central province of Hubei, where “severe convective weather” hit cities, while tornadoes were reported elsewhere late Monday, state news agency Xinhua said.

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Founder of prominent underground church released from prison in China

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Ezra Jin, founder of Zion Church, lands in the US and reunites with family who are ‘overwhelmed with joy’

The founder of one of China’s most prominent underground churches has been released from prison and reunited with his family in the United States.

Ezra Jin, the founder of Zion Church, landed in the US on Friday evening. He was one of dozens of church members who were detained in a sweeping crackdown on Christians in October.

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China says man who flew plane into Beijing skyscraper had mental health problems

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Official statement offers the most detailed official account yet of the highly unusual and fatal incident in Beijing

Chinese authorities said the man who flew a small plane into Beijing’s tallest skyscraper last week was a 66-year-old who had mental health problems.

The statement published on Thursday offered the most detailed official account yet of the highly unusual incident that occurred in Beijing’s central business district on the evening of 26 June.

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Australians have more negative view of Israel than of China, Guardian Essential poll finds

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Poll also finds perception of Donald Trump has soured since his re-election, with fewer than a third of respondents viewing him positively

Australians have a more negative view of Israel than of China, the latest Guardian Essential poll has found, with women and middle-aged people exhibiting the least positive perception of Israel.

The poll also finds Australians’ perceptions of Donald Trump have tumbled since his re-election, with fewer than a third of voters having a positive response to the US president.

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China’s ethnic unity law denounced as ‘forced assimilation’ by rights groups

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Law comes into effect that critics fear will further erode rights of Uyghurs and Tibetans, as well as allow Beijing to pursue dissidents abroad

A new ethnic unity law has come into effect in China despite warnings from Taiwan, the United Nations and rights groups that it could threaten freedoms, especially for minorities.

The Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress aims to forge a “shared” national identity among ethnic groups, for example by strengthening the status of Mandarin as the official language. But overseas campaigners have argued it will further degrade the rights of ethnic minorities, such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, that Beijing is accused of persecuting.

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China is a clear winner from Trump’s war in Middle East, report concludes

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Beijing, whose stockpiles and renewables industry allowed it to withstand energy shock, is now gaining from global solar and EV push

China has emerged as the sole winner in Asia from the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to a report published on Tuesday.

The report by the Asia Group thinktank concluded that China had weathered the storm of the global commodities crisis resulting from the closure of the Middle Eastern waterway, and also stood to gain from the economic and geopolitical trends sparked by the wider conflict.

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Chinese supercomputer leapfrogs best US machines to be ranked world’s fastest

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China’s LineShine debuts at number one in Top500 – a list sometimes viewed as a national measure of global tech prowess

A supercomputer in China now outranks its US counterparts as the world’s most powerful. It is the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess.

The LineShine computer in Shenzhen displaced top-ranked US computer El Capitan in the Top500 rankings released on Tuesday. It was LineShine’s debut on the list.

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Lululemon apologises after Japanese drum row at Great Wall yoga event

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Online uproar follows Canadian brand’s use of taiko drum at sponsored festival held to celebrate Chinese culture

The activewear brand Lululemon has apologised after a promotional event held on the Great Wall of China appeared to mistakenly feature a Japanese drum, prompting an uproar.

The Canadian-headquartered company, known for its upmarket leggings, has been growing rapidly in China and arranged for a yoga festival to take place in late May on a section of the wall near Beijing.

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EV prices in UK and EU not likely to dive due to Chinese rivalry, says Xpeng boss

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Brian Gu says he sees Chinese car firms competing on quality rather than launching price war as at home

Motorists in the UK and EU should not expect a sharp drop in the cost of electric vehicles despite increased competition among Chinese manufacturers, one of the country’s biggest electric carmakers has said.

Brian Gu, the vice-chair of the manufacturer Xpeng, said that Chinese carmakers could compete on quality to win customers in the EU and UK, rather than unleashing a brutal price war as they have in China.

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Jessie J’s triumphant return puts lucrative Chinese market in spotlight

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Other western acts have attempted to crack country’s music scene since singer’s breakout success in 2018

One week after announcing she was “cancer free”, the British pop star Jessie J did what any recovering patient would do and travelled thousands of miles around the world to perform for an audience of more than a billion people.

On 29 May, the singer-songwriter, whose real name is Jessica Cornish, belted out a stage-rattling rendition of Frank Sinatra’s My Way on the stage of Singer, a hugely popular Chinese singing competition similar to The Voice. She also performed her new song, California, briefly adapting the lyrics to change California to Changsha, the Chinese city where Singer is hosted.

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