Category Archives: China

China swelters through record temperatures, putting pressure on power grids

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Record heat in May across parts of the country comes amid a year of rising temperatures and erratic weather in China

Temperatures across China reached or exceeded their records for the month of May, the country’s National Climate Centre has said.

Weather stations at 446 sites registered temperatures that were the same as, or greater than, the highest ever recorded for the month of May, deputy director of the National Climate Centre Gao Rong said at a press briefing on Friday.

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Twitter and Tesla’s interests at odds in Elon Musk’s quiet China visit

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The world’s richest person lapsed into an unusual silence on social media during his trip to the electric carmaker’s second largest market

Followers of Elon Musk didn’t know what to expect from his trip to China. Would he speak about Tesla, a company with a large market and manufacturing footprint there? Or SpaceX, with its symbiotic relationship with the American state? Or even Twitter, the social network he bought because “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”?

The one thing no one expected: silence.

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China’s Xi Jinping calls for greater state control of AI to counter ‘dangerous storms’

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President says national security threats are increasing and urged greater oversight of artificial intelligence and data security

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and top officials have called for greater state oversight of artificial intelligence as part of work to counter “dangerous storms” facing the country, state media reported.

The president and other ruling Communist party officials agreed at a meeting of the National Security Commission to “improve security governance of network data and artificial intelligence”.

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UN experts express ‘grave concern’ over detention of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong

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Communication sent to Beijing government says media mogul’s prosecutions relate to his criticism of China

A group of UN experts have expressed “grave concern” over the arrest and detention of Jimmy Lai, a former media mogul in Hong Kong who has been charged with violating the territory’s national security law.

In a joint communication sent to the Chinese government, the experts from the UN working group on arbitrary detention and several special rapporteurs focused on human rights said Lai’s arrest and multiple prosecutions related to “his criticism of the Chinese government and his support for democracy in Hong Kong”.

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Erin O’Toole: China targeted me in election, says 2021 rival to Canada’s Trudeau

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Ex-leader of Conservatives says Canadian Security Intelligence briefed him on a ‘Chinese-orchestrated campaign’ to manipulate the vote

Canada’s spy agency told former Conservative party leader Erin O’Toole that China campaigned to discredit him and suppress votes ahead of the 2021 election he lost to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, O’Toole has said.

In a briefing on Friday, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (Csis) informed O’Toole about intelligence saying Beijing had targeted him in 2021, when he was Conservative leader and running to defeat Trudeau.

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Chinese pilot performed ‘aggressive maneuver’ near US plane, military says

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The incident is the latest in a season of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing this year

A Chinese fighter pilot performed an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” near an American surveillance aircraft operating over the South China Sea last week, according to US military.

The incident – which the Pentagon says is part of a pattern of behavior by China – comes at a time of already heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing over issues including Taiwan and an alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down after traversing the United States earlier this year.

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Hong Kong court rebuffs effort to dismiss Jimmy Lai national security trial

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Lawyers acting for pro-democracy activist argued that proceedings could be biased due to judge selection

Hong Kong’s high court has rejected an attempt by lawyers acting for the jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai to have his national security trial dismissed.

The court ruled on Monday that the argument the trial may appear to be biased had “no merits”, and gave the proceedings, which are scheduled to start in September, the green light.

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Hong Kong: 13 go on trial over 2019 storming of legislature by pro-democracy protesters

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Seven admit rioting, while another six face additional charges carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison

A Hong Kong court has began the trial of 13 people over the storming and ransacking of the city’s legislature in 2019, which was an unprecedented challenge to the Beijing-backed government.

It was the most violent episode in the initial phase of the huge pro-democracy protests that shook Hong Kong that year, with millions marching and staging sit-ins for weeks.

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Number of people prosecuted in China’s courts up 12% in five years, report shows

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Experts point to crackdown on national security and legal system that encourages guilty pleas

Chinese courts prosecuted 8.3 million people in the five years to 2022, a 12% increase on the previous period. There was also a nearly 20% increase in the number of protests against court rulings.

The figures released by the supreme people’s procuratorate (SPP) in March give a glimpse of how China’s notoriously opaque justice system has operated in recent years, amid a tightening domestic security environment.

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Hong Kong’s prominent pro-democracy Civic party votes to disband

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Group was among the last opposition parties, as political dissent has been banned since 2020’s security law

The Civic party, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy groups, has voted to disband because of a leadership vacuum, after its members were squeezed out of local councils and charged under Beijing’s national security law.

Nicknamed “the barristers’ party”, it was founded in 2006 by professional elites – mostly from the legal sector – who wanted to promote democratisation and civil society in Hong Kong.

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Joe Biden’s advisers say he doesn’t want to drag Pacific allies into ‘headlong clash’ between US and China

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Senior White House official says president hears region’s concerns and ‘does not want conflict’ with China

Joe Biden’s senior advisers have acknowledged countries in the Indo-Pacific don’t want to be “trampled by a headlong clash” between the US and China.

In a webinar with an Australian audience on Friday, senior White House national security council (NSC) officials said the US president wanted to give allies and other close partners “breathing space” to engage with China constructively.

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GCHQ warns of fresh threat from Chinese state-sponsored hackers

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National Cyber Security Centre urges operators of critical national infrastructure to prevent hacks

The UK’s cybersecurity agency has urged operators of critical national infrastructure, including energy and telecommunications networks, to prevent Chinese state-sponsored hackers from hiding on their systems.

The National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, issued the warning after it emerged that a Chinese hacking group known as Volt Typhoon had targeted a US military outpost in the Pacific Ocean.

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China-backed hackers spying on US critical infrastructure, says Five Eyes

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Targets include US military facilities on Guam that would be key in an Asia-Pacific conflict, say Microsoft and western spy agencies

A state-sponsored Chinese hacking group has been spying on a wide range of US critical infrastructure organisations and similar activities could be occurring globally, western intelligence agencies and Microsoft have warned.

“The United States and international cybersecurity authorities are issuing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to highlight a recently discovered cluster of activity of interest associated with a People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actor, also known as Volt Typhoon,” said a statement released by authorities in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK – countries that make up the Five Eyes intelligence network.

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China overtakes US in contributions to nature and science journals

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Citations of Chinese research have risen because of sequencing of Covid-19 genome

China has overtaken the US to become the biggest contributor to nature-science journals, in a sign of the country’s growing influence in the world of academic research.

The Nature Index, which tracks data on author affiliations in 82 high quality journals, found that authors affiliated with Chinese institutions are more prolific than their US counterparts in physical sciences, chemistry, Earth and environmental sciences. The only category in which the US is still in the lead is life sciences.

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Russia and China deepen economic ties amid surge in trade since Ukraine invasion

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Russian PM holds talks with Xi Jinping and signs bilateral pacts to further investment, exports and sports cooperation

Russia and China have agreed to deepen investment in trade services, promote agricultural exports and boost sports cooperation, as Mikhail Mishustin, Russia’s prime minister, signed a set of bilateral agreements on a visit to Beijing.

Mishustin is the highest-ranking Russian official to visit Beijing since the start of the war in Ukraine. In March, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow in a show of support for his “dear friend”.

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Biden trade curbs on China risk huge damage to US tech sector, says Nvidia chief

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Jensen Huang says Chinese firms will ‘just build it themselves’ if they cannot buy from US

The US risks causing “enormous damage” to its tech industry if it continues restrictions on trade with China, according to the chief executive of the chipmaker Nvidia.

Jensen Huang said curbs introduced by the Biden administration, which include restricting the export to China of advanced chips made with US technology, had left the business with “our hands tied behind our back”.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Huang said: “If [China] can’t buy from … the United States, they’ll just build it themselves. So the US has to be careful. China is a very important market for the technology industry.”

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South China Sea shipwrecks give clues about historic Silk Road trade routes

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Archaeologists begin excavation of two 500-year-old vessels filled with porcelain and timber

Two 500-year-old shipwrecks in the South China Sea, filled with Ming-era porcelain and stacked timber, provide significant clues about the maritime Silk Road trade routes, Chinese archaeologists have said.

The two shipwrecks were discovered in October, and cultural and archaeological authorities have now begun a year-long process of deep-sea exploration and excavation, government officials announced.

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Canadian special rapporteur rules out inquiry into Chinese interference claims

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David Johnston warns that subversive efforts represent ‘increasing threat’ to democracy but public inquiry would be the wrong choice


An official named to investigate allegations that China attempted to subvert Canadian elections has announced he will not launch a public inquiry, prompting frustration from critics who say the decision only furthers Beijing’s interests.

Special rapporteur David Johnston on Tuesday released a 55-page report on foreign interference in Canadian institutions, warning that subversive efforts represented an “increasing threat” to democracy.

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Outcry as World Health Assembly locks out Taiwan under pressure from China

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Taipei criticises ‘unfair and unjust’ decision to deny observer status despite support from US, UK, France and other countries

The World Health Assembly has again rejected Taiwan’s request to join its annual gathering amid routine objections from China and despite strong support from a coalition of countries including the US, UK, France and Australia.

The assembly – the forum through which the World Health Organization is governed – on Monday decided not to extend an invitation for Taiwan to attend the 21-30 May event in Geneva as an observer. China and Pakistan spoke against the bid, while the Marshall Islands, Belize, Nauru and Eswatini – four of Taiwan’s 13 formal diplomatic allies – spoke in support.

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Papua New Guinea’s security deal with the US is a win for Washington – for now

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Prime minister James Marape was at pains to say he did not want to be forced to make a choice between the US and China

He may have just signed a new defence cooperation agreement with the United States, but the prime minister of Papua New Guinea was determined to make it clear that he did not want to be forced into making a binary choice between Washington and Beijing.

Speaking after the deal was struck, James Marape reflected the view of Pacific leaders that they should not simply be seen as chess pieces in a broader geopolitical struggle,as China and the US step up their efforts to expand their influence among Pacific island countries. For Pacific countries, their priorities lie in their development needs and action on the climate crisis.

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