Category Archives: China

Manila accuses Beijing of ‘dangerous manoeuvres’ in South China Sea

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Philippines says vessels were damaged and four people injured after Chinese boats caused two collisions

The Philippines has accused China of “dangerous manoeuvres” in the disputed South China Sea that damaged its vessels and left four Filipinos with minor injuries, warning such action had put lives at risk.

The Philippines said Chinese coastguard and maritime militia vessels had caused two collisions, which led to superficial structural damage to the hull of one of its coastguard vessels. The simultaneous use of water cannon by two Chinese vessels against a civilian supply boat shattered the vessel’s windshield and caused minor injuries to at least four personnel onboard, according to a Philippine national taskforce.

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China sets challenging GDP target in face of regional tensions and ageing population

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Economists say 5% target is ambitious, as premier Li Qiang tells annual gathering that global economy and problems at home are presenting hurdles to recovery

China has set its target for GDP growth at 5%, in line with analysts’ expectations for another year of historically modest ambitions for the economy, amid regional tensions and its demographic crisis.

China’s premier, Li Qiang, spoke of the “challenges” facing China’s leaders as he delivered his annual government work report on Tuesday. He cited the global economy and regional tensions as hurdles for China’s recovery, as well as domestic issues such as low consumer demand in a challenging labour market.

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‘We need to go again’: Australian who led MH370 search joins calls for fresh effort to find plane

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Peter Foley, the program director for search led by Australian Transport Safety Bureau, says any chance of success needs the government to invest

The man who led Australia’s search for MH370 has urged the Australian government to support any new effort to find the plane, which disappeared 10 years ago on Friday.

On Sunday the Malaysian government said it was in talks with the US marine robotics company Ocean Infinity to discuss a new search. The company says it is willing and able to return to the search, and has submitted a proposal to the Malaysian government.

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China Two Sessions: premier Li Qiang will not speak to press in break with tradition

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Annual appearances were rare opportunity for foreign media to engage with high-ranking Chinese officials

China’s leading economics official, premier Li Qiang, will not address the press at the country’s major annual political gathering in Beijing, in a break with tradition.

The Two Sessions has started against a backdrop of major economic headwinds, decreasing transparency on government indicators, and growing concern among international business and investors.

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Chinese tourism to Australia still in the doldrums after pandemic travel bans

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Tourism industry disappointed but hopeful Chinese holidaymakers could return by year’s end – but economists predict a longer wait

In the two weeks either side of lunar new year, Mandy Ho, who manages a hot air balloon company in Melbourne, has many balls in the air.

Most mornings before dawn, when weather permits, her colleagues fly Chinese tourists from the vineyards of the Yarra Valley over Melbourne’s eastern suburbs to parkland on the city’s fringe. Interpreters make sure nothing is lost in translation.

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Asio cleared of unlawfully luring Daniel Duggan back to Australia, agency chief Mike Burgess says

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Exclusive: Duggan’s legal team continues to fight US request for extradition on charges of arms trafficking and money laundering

The spy agency Asio says it has been cleared by the intelligence watchdog of allegations of impropriety raised by the Australian citizen Daniel Duggan as he fights extradition to the US.

Duggan, a former US marines pilot accused of training Chinese pilots to land fighter jets on aircraft carriers, had complained to the inspector general of intelligence and security (IGIS) about Asio’s role in securing his return to Australia from China.

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Intrigue swirls about possible reshuffles as China’s parliament convenes

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Policy blueprint to be set out for year ahead and big personnel changes may be announced

Thousands of delegates are due to arrive in Beijing this weekend for China’s most high-profile political gathering, a closely observed series of meetings that will lay out the government’s policy blueprint for the year ahead.

The event, known as the “two sessions”, begins on Monday as China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC) convenes alongside a separate but parallel meeting of the country’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

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Boeing agrees to pay $51m over export violations in China and other countries

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Company accused of violations including Chinese employees improperly downloading files relating to Pentagon programs

Boeing said on Thursday it had reached a $51m settlement with the US state department for numerous export violations including Chinese employees in China improperly downloading documents related to US Pentagon programs.

The state department said from 2013 through 2017 three Chinese employees at Boeing facilities in China downloaded technical data involving programs including the F-18, F-15 and F-22 fighter jets, the E-3 airborne warning and control system, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and the AGM84E cruise missile.

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Scientist fed classified information to China, says Canada intelligence report

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Report says Xiangguo Qiu secretly worked with Wuhan Institute for Virology and posed a ‘threat to Canada’s economic security’

A leading research scientist at Canada’s highest-security laboratory provided confidential scientific information to Chinese institutions, met secretly with officials and posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” according to newly released intelligence reports.

The dismissal of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, has been shrouded in mystery ever since the couple were escorted from Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in 2019 and formally fired two years later.

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Congress ‘gradually destroying’ US relations with Pacific ally, Marshall Islands president warns

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Hilda Heine says US funding delays damage relationship with the Pacific nation as lawmakers say hold-up delivers a ‘gift’ to China

Hilda Heine, the president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has warned relations with the US are “gradually being destroyed by party politics” as Congress delays approval of crucial funding for the Pacific nation.

US lawmakers have not yet passed funding packages agreed in 2023 with the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), in a move some argue is opening the door to China to build its influence in the Pacific region.

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Rare copy of Mao’s Little Red Book expected to fetch more than £30,000

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Early editions of the book of quotations will be sold at an auction of Cultural Revolution artefacts

The Little Red Book, a talisman of 20th-century Maoism, may have fallen out of favour in China after the Cultural Revolution, but its popularity with collectors shows no sign of abating.

The book, officially entitled Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, was given its popular name due to the bright red cover of mass-produced editions. A rare prototype version is about to resurface in a sale by a west London auction house of hundreds of artefacts from the Cultural Revolution, where it is expected to fetch more than £30,000.

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Vogue China’s Margaret Zhang, youngest person appointed as an editor at magazine group, to step down

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Australian Chinese former fashion blogger, whose appointment in 2021 was met with controversy, announces she is leaving the magazine

Three years after becoming the youngest person to hold an editor title at Vogue, Margaret Zhang is leaving her position as editorial director of Vogue China.

The Australian Chinese creative director announced her exit on Instagram on Monday, writing: “As we kick off a transformative Year of the Dragon, I’m excited to announce that I have decided to wrap up with Vogue and jump into the next chapter of my career.”

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Tuvalu names Feleti Teo prime minister after pro-Taiwan leader Kausea Natano ousted

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Taiwan ambassador says ties remain ‘rock solid’ amid rumours island nation could switch allegiance to Beijing

Lawmakers in Tuvalu have selected Feleti Teo as the Pacific island nation’s new prime minister, weeks after an election that put ties with Taiwan in focus.

Former attorney general Teo secured the support of lawmakers who were elected last month, government secretary Tufoua Panapa told Agence France-Presse on Monday.

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Apartment block fire in China’s Nanjing city kills at least 15, officials say

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The blaze started on the first floor where electric bikes had been placed, according to officials, but the cause is still unknown

At least 15 people were killed and 44 injured in a fire at a residential building in eastern China’s Nanjing city, local authorities said.

The fire broke out early Friday morning, officials said at a press conference, with a preliminary investigation suggesting the blaze started on the building’s first floor, where electric bikes had been placed.

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Weather tracker: Contrasts in cold and heat break records in China

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Xinjiang in north-west recorded minus 52.3C, while Badu in south recorded 38C – the largest temperature contrast recorded in a single country

China’s Xinjiang region, in the far west of the country, experienced record-breaking low temperatures of -52.3C on 18 February, surpassing a 64-year-old record for the region. The figure was just shy of the lowest national temperature of -53C, which was recorded in the Heilongjiang region in January last year.

The extreme weather has caused big disruption after the lunar new year celebrations, with blizzards and ice leaving people stranded on roads and railways. On the same day, Badu in the south of China recorded a maximum temperature of 38C, meaning there was a staggering temperature difference of 90.3C across the country. This is the largest temperature contrast ever recorded for a single country, surpassing the US in January 1954 by a whole degree Celsius.

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Huge cybersecurity leak lifts lid on world of China’s hackers for hire

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Leaked files shows range of services offered and bought, with data harvested from targets worldwide

A big leak of data from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has revealed state security agents paying tens of thousands of pounds to harvest data on targets, including foreign governments, while hackers hoover up huge amounts of information on any person or institution who might be of interest to their prospective clients.

The cache of more than 500 leaked files from the Chinese firm I-Soon was posted on the developer website Github and is thought by cybersecurity experts to be genuine. Some of the targets discussed include Nato and the UK Foreign Office.

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Growth in CO2 emissions leaves China likely to miss climate targets

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Carbon intensity of the country’s economy remains high, despite rapid improvements in clean energy output

China is off track on all of its core 2025 climate targets, despite the fact that clean energy is now the biggest driver of the country’s economic growth, analysis has found.

After years of extraordinarily rapid growth, China is now grappling with a slowdown that is causing ripples internally and internationally. The government has supercharged the growth of the renewable energy industry but it has simultaneously poured stimulus funds into construction and manufacturing, and continues to approve coal power.

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Cost of raising children in China second-highest in world, thinktank reveals

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Expense and challenge of balancing work and family life key factors in declining birthrate and shrinking population

China is one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, outstripping the US and Japan in relative terms, a prominent Chinese thinktank has said.

A report released on Wednesday by the Beijing-based YuWa Population Research Institute found that the average cost of raising a child in China until the age of 18 is 538,000 yuan (£59,275) – more than 6.3 times as high as its GDP per capita, compared with 4.11 times in the US or 4.26 times in Japan.

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China needs to do more on ‘silent crisis’ of debt, says World Bank official

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Beijing must be more ready to support countries facing distress, says deputy chief economist

China holds the key to speeding up debt relief and ending the “silent crisis” that is holding back attempts to tackle poverty in the world’s poorest countries, a senior World Bank official has said.

Ayhan Kose, the Bank’s deputy chief economist, said Beijing needed to be more active in negotiations to provide financial support for those countries already in, or close to, debt distress.

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Taiwan chases Chinese coastguard boat from frontline islands as tensions rise

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Taiwan’s coastguard said it will continue to use surveillance and patrols amid escalating dispute after fatal capsizing last week

Taiwan has driven away a Chinese coastguard boat that entered waters near its sensitive frontline islands, one day after China’s coastguard boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat amid an escalating dispute sparked by a fatal capsizing last week.

A Chinese coastguard boat, numbered 8029, entered Taiwan’s waters near Kinmen on Tuesday morning, Taiwan’s coastguard said, adding that it dispatched a boat and used radio and broadcast to drive away the Chinese craft, which left the area an hour later.

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