Category Archives: China

Police officer received death threats over Nowak murder case as Mahmood condemns ‘dangerous’ commentary – UK politics live

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Home secretary says officer wrongly linked to case had to relocate after footage emerged of victim being handcuffed while dying

BBC Scotland has more details of the Peter Murrell hearing this morning on its live blog. And, on its live blog, Sky News has pictures of some of the items purchased by Murrell with stolen SNP funds.

Andy Burnham will not call an early election if he becomes prime minister after the Makerfield byelection, a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester mayor has said.

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Japan defence minister rebuffs claims of ‘new militarism’ levelled by China

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Shinjiro Koizumi says Japan valued as a ‘peace-loving’ nation while China expands military capabilities ‘without sufficient transparency’

Japan’s defence minister took a veiled swipe at China on Sunday, pledging to keep strengthening the military despite Beijing’s criticism of Tokyo’s increasingly muscular security stance.

Under the prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, Japan has quickened its pivot to a more proactive defence policy, further shaking off – with US encouragement – its pacifist outlook in place since the end of the second world war.

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New Aukus drone tech to protect critical undersea cables as Marles warns: ‘seabed is a battlefield’

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Minister at Singapore defence summit also reveals Australia to buy only secondhand Aukus submarines from US

The defence minister, Richard Marles, has said the “seabed is a battlefield” in a combative speech urging Beijing to be more transparent about its maritime operations, and taking aim at weak international controls over so-called “shadow-fleet” vessels.

The warning came as the US, UK and Australia announced a new Aukus project to develop new underwater drone technology to protect undersea cables.

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US ‘more than capable’ of resuming war against Iran, Pete Hegseth says

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Pentagon chief also tells Singapore defence summit of ‘alarm’ at China’s military buildup but says US does not seek ‘needless confrontation’

The US warned on Saturday it was “more than capable” of resuming war with Iran after President Donald Trump said any peace deal must adhere to his red lines, including Tehran never being able to develop nuclear weapons.

The White House had signalled Trump was close to a decision on an initial deal on Friday after weeks of mixed signals in tenuous negotiations, though Tehran denied there was a final agreement on ending the Middle East conflict that has jolted the global economy.

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EU fines Temu for failing to stop sale of illegal and dangerous products

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European Commission finds shoppers on Chinese website very likely to find unsafe items and imposes €200m penalty

EU regulators have fined the Chinese shopping website Temu €200m (£173m) for failing to stop the sale of illegal and dangerous products.

The European Commission imposed the penalty after a 19-month investigation that found consumers were very likely to encounter illegal or unsafe products including baby toys and electronics on the firm’s website.

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Dissident detained in South Korea after fleeing China in rubber boat

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Dong Guangping has tried to escape on several previous occasions after being jailed for his activism in China

A Chinese dissident has washed up on the shores of South Korea after attempting to flee China in a rubber boat.

Dong Guangping, 68, is in custody in South Korea, having been detained by the coastguard on Monday evening. He is thought to have travelled more than 30 hours by sea to reach the shores of China’s democratic neighbour.

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Russia is targeting UK’s infrastructure and democracy, GCHQ head to say

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Anne Keast-Butler will also warn of narrowing window to stay ahead of China in ‘new era of radical uncertainty’

Russia is relentlessly targeting Britain’s infrastructure and democracy while there is only a narrowing technological window to stay ahead of a fast-developing China, the head of the spy agency GCHQ will warn in a lecture on Wednesday.

Anne Keast-Butler, giving an inaugural annual lecture, will say that the UK is caught in a “new era of radical uncertainty” and that “the risk of miscalculation” is as high as she has ever seen it as hacker attacks from the two states continue.

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China mine explosion: death toll leaps to 90 after gas blast

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Xi Jinping urges authorities to ‘spare no effort’ in rescue operation after blast in northern Shanxi province

At least 90 people have been killed in a gas explosion at a coalmine in China’s northern Shanxi province, the country’s deadliest mining accident since at least 2009.

The gas explosion occurred late on Friday at the Liushenyu coalmine in Qinyuan county, with 247 workers on duty underground, the state news agency Xinhua reported.

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Xi prepares to welcome Putin to China four days after hosting Trump

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Chinese state media say Beijing emerging as ‘focal point of global diplomacy’ with Russian leader arriving on Tuesday

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin exchanged “congratulatory letters” on Sunday ahead of the Russian president’s visit to Beijing this week, four days after Donald Trump left China after a high-stakes summit.

Xi said bilateral cooperation between Russia and China had “continuously deepened and solidified”, Chinese state media reported, with this year marking the 30th anniversary of the two countries’ strategic partnership.

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Donald Trump does ‘not feel optimistic’ for Jimmy Lai after speaking with Xi Jinping

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Family and supporters had hoped the US president could help free the 78-year-old British citizen during summit talks in Beijing

Donald Trump raised the case of jailed Hong Kong democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai in talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping but was told it “is a tough one”.

Family and supporters of the 78-year-old British citizen had hoped the US president could help secure his release.

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Trump’s lack of focus on human rights in China is big departure for US diplomacy

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Change reflects both transformation of US in Trump era and China’s increasing confidence on world stage

Asked before he departed for Beijing if he would raise with the Chinese president the case of Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy activist jailed in Hong Kong, Donald Trump said: “I’ll bring him up.”

But, the US president added: “It’s like saying to me, ‘If Comey ever went to jail, would you let him out?’ It might be a hard one for me.” Trump was referring to James B Comey, a former FBI director and a frequent target of Trump’s ire.

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What was actually achieved at Trump and Xi’s ‘stalemate summit’ in Beijing?

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US president has said he and Chinese leader ‘settled a lot of different problems’ but has given little detail on solutions

Donald Trump’s whirlwind trip to Beijing – the first US presidential visit in nearly a decade – wrapped up with much fanfare but little clarity about what was actually achieved.

Trump said on Friday he and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, “settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. But he didn’t provide much detail on what those solutions were.

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Men in the mirror: Trump and Xi’s suits put ‘chameleon effect’ to test in Beijing

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Mirroring of each other’s attire may signal alignment – though the look wasn’t a huge departure for either leader

When Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met for a welcome ceremony in Tiananmen Square this week with the world’s gaze on them, they mirrored one another in strikingly similar suits.

Both were blue, single-breasted with flap pockets. Both had two buttons with only the top one done up. Both wore red ties.

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Canadian officer accused of spying for China acquitted of charges

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William Majcher was accused of helping Chinese police coerce a Vancouver-area real estate investor, accused of fraud, to return to China

A retired police officer Canada accused of being an agent for China has been acquitted of national security charges after prosecutors failed to prove he acted illegally.

William Majcher, who served in the RCMP’s financial crime unit, was charged in 2023 over allegations he had breached Canada’s Security of Information Act by helping Chinese police coerce a Vancouver-area real estate investor, accused of fraud, to return to China.

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Trump-Xi summit live: US president preparing to meet China’s leader with trade, Taiwan and the Iran war set to dominate talks

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Ahead of the crucial talks, security has been heightened in Beijing, with the US president set to meet Xi at the Great Hall of the People

I’m now sitting in the press filing centre at the China World Hotel in Beijing. Two American flags and a wooden lectern bearing a “United States embassy Beijing” seal stand on a black podium against a black curtain beneath a giant crystal chandelier.

There are TVs on either side of the podium: one showing CNN, the other Fox News. Sadly, that is as close as many reporters will get to seeing Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in action today.

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Chinese court awards compensation to sacked worker replaced by AI

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Case attracts widespread attention as example of China balancing enthusiastic adoption of AI with job security

A court in China has ruled in favour of a worker whose company replaced him with artificial intelligence (AI), awarding him more than £28,000 in compensation.

The worker, whose surname is Zhou, joined a tech company in the eastern city of Hangzhou in 2022 as a quality assurance supervisor overseeing large language models used in AI products.

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Scepticism and tight security as Trump is welcomed by Xi to Beijing

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US’s apparent decline has fuelled growing Chinese nationalism while US president has lost his novelty value

Yaoji Chaogan, a no-frills canteen next to Beijing’s historic Drum and Bell towers, once proudly displayed photographs of Joe Biden, who visited the restaurant when he was US vice-president in 2011. Biden’s visit went viral in China, with media praising his “noodle diplomacy” (one of the dishes that Biden ordered was zhajiang mian, a traditional style of Beijing noodles with bean paste).

But evidence of Biden’s visit was removed when the restaurant was redecorated a few years ago. A visit from a US leader is no longer something to boast about.

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Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech while emulating Xi Jinping on AI

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Tim Cook and Elon Musk, among other tech CEOS, will accompany the US president on a trip to China

Donald Trump is heading to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.

On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, would join the US president. Other guests from the tech sphere include Meta’s recently appointed president, Dina Powell McCormick; Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of computer memory maker Micron; Chuck Robbins, CEO of longtime telecom giant Cisco; and Cristiano Amon, CEO of semiconductor maker Qualcomm, according to a White House official.

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The big questions hanging over the Trump-Xi meeting in China

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Taiwan, tariffs and the strait of Hormuz are on the meeting’s agenda for Beijing – but will the US president be forced to ask for help in ending his war with Iran?

On 20 February, a White House official confirmed that US president Donald Trump would be travelling to Beijing the following month to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Top of the agenda: the US-China trade war.

One week later, Trump approved joint strikes with Israel against Iran, starting a new war in the Middle East. Its ramifications have spread far beyond the region and caused alarm in Beijing. The presidential summit was postponed.

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Hong Kong dissident Nathan Law on China spies in UK: ‘We’re not surprised’

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Law says conviction of two men for spying raises serious concerns about how they accessed sensitive information

Nathan Law, an exiled leader of the Hong Kong student protest who lives with a £100,000 bounty on his head from the Chinese authorities, was not surprised to discover a spy ring had photographed him entering the Oxford Union for an evening debate in November 2023.

The conviction at the Old Bailey of Chi Leung “Peter” Wai, 38, and Chung Biu “Bill” Yuen, 65, for assisting a foreign intelligence service, was a sobering first – no Chinese spies had been convicted in British criminal history before Thursday – but the details that came out in the nine-week trial mainly served to confirm his suspicions.

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