• Chinese girl vomits live worms for month; doctors finally find tiny moths to blame
• After Nato chaos, ‘irrelevant’ Europe shambles towards China summit
• Nvidia taps 2 young Chinese AI experts to strengthen research
• China canteen worker’s moving ‘eat well’ speech at graduation evokes feelings of mum’s care
• Could Cambodia hit the Thai capital with its made-in-China weapons?
• The Chinese migrants turning their UK homes into Temu and Shein warehouses
• Will the world need subsidies and tariffs to respond to China’s rare earth export curbs?
• Why are Chinese civil servants down the line saying no to dining out?
• Fierce China job market turns unemployed youths into ‘full-time grandkids’
• Cook Islands aid row spotlights China’s Pacific outreach, New Zealand’s mounting unease
• Chinese youth make sun protection masks from giant lotus leaves, ignite online hilarity
• Why China may be keeping a close eye on Trump’s Middle East moves
• Palace intrigue conquers global screens: are C-dramas China’s new soft power?

Chinese girl vomits live worms for month; doctors finally find tiny moths to blame

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3315674/chinese-girl-vomits-live-worms-month-doctors-finally-find-tiny-moths-blame?utm_source=rss_feed

An eight-year-old girl in China who had been vomiting live worms for a month discovered that the cause of her ills was a common household problem.

Despite seeing many doctors, the unidentified girl from Yangzhou City, eastern China’s Jiangsu province, could not pinpoint the reason why she was throwing up.

Her father said she would vomit a handful of 1cm-long worms each time. No one else in the family suffered the same problem.

A doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Soochow University in Jiangsu came to their rescue.

The doctor, Zhang Bingbing, advised them to have the rarely seen worm checked by the local Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

There, staff immediately recognised the worm, matching it with worms they had once found in a 60-year-old woman.

It turns out to be the larva of drain flies, which are also known as moth flies.

The insects are commonly found in damp interior places, such as the toilet and the kitchen. They more often appear in southern China, which has humid summer weather.

The girl’s family recalled seeing such flies at home.

Xu Yuhui, a department chief at the Yangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, explained that the drain flies’ larvae had contaminated the running underground water.

“When the child brushes her teeth or flushes the toilet, the worms might enter her system through splashes of water,” Xu said.

The flies do not send diseases via the blood, but they can still be problematic.

The expert warned against killing the insect with one’s hand because the bacteria they carry might remain on the hand and enter a person’s body when they use their hands to rub their eyes.

They also advise removing the flies by using boiling water with added salt and baking soda.

However, a more powerful method of eliminating them is to keep the bathroom and kitchen clean and dry.

Many online observers said they had seen the insect at home and expressed concern over the news.

“This news really scares me. We have a lot of drain flies in our toilet. I even killed many with my hands,” one person said.

“They used to be my nightmare, all over my toilet and even flew into the living room. I had to use disinfectant to kill them,” said another.

After Nato chaos, ‘irrelevant’ Europe shambles towards China summit

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316259/after-nato-chaos-irrelevant-europe-shambles-towards-china-summit?utm_source=rss_feed

For months since the return of US President Donald Trump, there has been a roaring trade in papers and speeches about how to make Europe a truly independent geopolitical player.

The term “strategic autonomy”, championed by the French government during Trump’s first term, is back in vogue.

But the independence movement was on the ropes this week, when a series of summits thrust Europe’s weakness on global affairs into the spotlight ahead of a bout of engagement with China.

On Monday, a meeting of the European Union’s foreign ministers exposed the bloc’s impotence on the ongoing crises in the Middle East. On Tuesday and Wednesday, meanwhile, the world watched as European leaders fawned over Trump to try to keep him engaged at the annual Nato summit in The Hague.

WhatsApp groups across Europe lit up after Trump published text messages from Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, telling him that he was “flying into another big success”. They lit up again after he called Trump “daddy” a day later.

“Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,” wrote Rutte, who spent 14 years as the Dutch prime minister until last July, while only once hitting Nato’s defence spending targets.

On to Thursday and a European Council summit in Brussels, where national leaders flip-flopped on whether they could accept a trade deal with Trump that would maintain a base-rate tariff.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen then bamboozled observers by suggesting the bloc team up with members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) to bring the World Trade Organization back to life – even though the EU is not part of the agreement.

According to a diplomatic source, at least one national leader emerged from this part of the meeting – from which phones and aides were banned – asking what the CPTPP was.

“Europe is completely irrelevant – I think even they themselves stopped pretending that they matter,” a second frustrated European diplomat said.

A third diplomat from France said the week was “really bad”, but summoned some gallows humour nonetheless. “We French joke these days that the only worse thing than penniless French diplomacy is EU diplomacy.”

All of this happened on the cusp of a ramp-up in contact with China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will tour Brussels, Berlin and Paris next week, while the bloc’s institutional leaders will travel to China next month for a two-day summit.

Given the outcomes of the past week’s meetings, Beijing may well be pleased. Observers in Brussels already suspected that China harboured doubts about Europe’s geopolitical credibility, a sentiment that would have only grown over recent days.

Despite Nato’s much-publicised Asia pivot, there was no mention of China in the truncated Nato statement, despite China being named as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war on Ukraine in last year’s communique. Leaders from Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, skipped the summit after the US’ bombing of Iran.

There was also no mention of China in the conclusions of the European Council summit, despite efforts from some EU member states to name it alongside Belarus, Iran and North Korea. Most notably, China was absent from a line that “condemns the continued military support” those countries give to Moscow.

One of the chief opponents to naming China in the statement was Germany, diplomatic sources said. Berlin beat back a push from several others during ambassadors’ meetings in Brussels this week, suggesting that Merz’s new government may not be making the big shift on Beijing that some hawks had hoped for.

China was discussed at the European Council, in relation to its support for Russia, its strained trade relations with Europe, and its growing competitiveness on technology. A clear theme, said a diplomat briefed on the discussion, was that EU leaders feared “living in a world dominated by China.”

But Beijing’s leadership was unlikely to lose much sleep over that, observers said. Instead, some raised concerns that last week’s mess did not bode well for the coming month of summitry with China.

Sven Biscop, a geopolitical analyst at the Egmont Institute, a Belgian think tank, said that the events at Nato would come back to haunt Europe and that both the US and China would see the bloc as less serious.

“Grovelling doesn’t buy you anything – Trump expects that anyway, so you don’t get rewarded. It’s also bad for our reputation in the rest of the world,” Biscop said.

Ed Arnold, a security analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, criticised Nato’s decision to ignore China, adding that the event “exposed [Europe’s] total psychological dependency on the US.”

He also took aim at the reduction of the main plenary session to just “2½ hours to accommodate Trump, giving each ally less than five minutes airtime each.”

“The government of the Netherlands estimates that the cost of the most expensive summit thus far will be €183.4 million (US$214.7 million) – or €1.2 million per minute – making it a serious contender for being the most expensive meeting ever held anywhere in the world,” Arnold wrote.

The disarray was also noticed in Beijing. “Nato summit’s viral ‘Daddy’ joke exposes Europe’s sidelined agenda,” state news agency Xinhua said in one headline above an article that contended: “The summit reflected Nato’s shift toward US-centric theatrics, with Europe’s core concerns largely pushed aside.”

Others were less glum about the bigger picture. After all, Nato has secured Trump’s buy-in for another year and European governments pledged to make what many consider to be essential increases in defence spending.

“The general orientation on the European side right now is: don’t do stupid things that blow everything up. Try and keep things predictable. Do damage limitation. Manage things carefully,” said Andrew Small, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund for the United States.

“If you went back to the beginning of the year and said, ‘this is where we’re going to be at the beginning of July’, I think people would have taken that.”

Nvidia taps 2 young Chinese AI experts to strengthen research

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3316269/nvidia-taps-two-young-chinese-ai-experts-strengthen-research?utm_source=rss_feed

US chip giant Nvidia has hired two prominent artificial intelligence (AI) experts who hail from China, underscoring the rising global recognition of talent from the mainland and their key contributions to the field’s advancement.

Zhu Banghua and Jiao Jiantao, both alumni of China’s Tsinghua University, said on their respective social media accounts that they joined Nvidia, sharing photos of themselves with Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of the company.

Zhu, who received his bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Tsinghua in 2018 and a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2024, joined Nvidia’s Nemotron team as a principal research scientist, according to Zhu’s post on X from over the weekend.

Zhu’s LinkedIn profile showed that he has also been an assistant professor at the University of Washington since September 2024.

“We’ll be joining forces on efforts in [AI] model post-training, evaluation, agents, and building better AI infrastructure – with a strong emphasis on collaboration with developers and academia,” Zhu said, adding that the team was committed to open-sourcing its work and sharing it with the world.

Nemotron is a group at Nvidia dedicated to building enterprise-level AI agents, according to the team’s official website. The team’s Nemotron multimodal models power AI agents for sophisticated text and visual reasoning, coding and tool-use capabilities.

Jiao, who received a PhD in electrical, electronics and communications in engineering from Stanford University in 2018 after graduating from Tsinghua with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, said on LinkedIn over the weekend that he joined Nvidia to “help push the frontier of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial super intelligence (ASI).”

AGI and ASI are higher levels of AI that are meant to reach or exceed human intelligence.

“I’m thrilled to be working with amazing colleagues to advance post-training, evaluation, agentic systems and AI infrastructure,” said Jiao, who also works as an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley.

Zhu and Jiao have worked together before, co-launching a start-up called Nexusflow AI in Palo Alto, California between June 2023 and June 2025.

Jiao served as CEO of the firm, which developed an open-source Athene-V2 model that rivalled OpenAI’s GPT4o in terms of performance.

Nvidia’s recruiting of Zhu and Jiao came as Chinese experts were increasingly being recognised as a driving force in advancing generative AI – the technology behind chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT – with some star researchers in high demand at leading US tech firms.

He Kaiming, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was recently tapped by Google to join the company’s AI research facility DeepMind as a distinguished scientist.

Originally from China’s southern Guangdong province, He graduated from Tsinghua and the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is a highly recognised scientist in the field of computer vision and deep learning.

Meta also reportedly poached at least five Chinese AI researchers from OpenAI, according to reports by The Wall Street Journal and the Information.

Those included Zhai Xiaohua from OpenAI’s Zurich office; as well as Yu Jiahui, Ren Hongyun, Bi Shucao and Zhao Shengjia, key contributors to a slew of OpenAI’s models.

Meta and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours on Sunday.

China was the second-largest source of AI talent in the US in 2023, accounting for 26 per cent of top-tier researchers, just behind American researchers who made up 28 per cent, according to a report by research agency Marco Polo, which is affiliated with think tank the Paulson Institute.

China canteen worker’s moving ‘eat well’ speech at graduation evokes feelings of mum’s care

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3315615/china-canteen-workers-moving-eat-well-speech-graduation-evokes-feelings-mums-care?utm_source=rss_feed

A graduation ceremony speech delivered by a canteen worker at a university in northeastern China has touched both students and millions of internet users.

Liu Xiaomei, a canteen cook at Yanbian University in northeastern Jilin province, addressed graduates of the class of 2025 on June 20 as a representative from the logistics support department.

Her speech went viral online, racking up 5 million likes on one leading social media platform alone, the Yanbian Daily reported.

“As a service worker at the canteen, I feel honoured to be part of the beautiful youth period of your life,” said Liu, dressed in her cook’s uniform and hat.

“You often ask me, auntie, why do you have such a good service attitude? Why do you always smile? It is because I think you are far away from your hometown and it is not easy for you to study.

“If I work harder, perhaps you will be happier and your parents will feel more assured.

“At home, you are the baby of your parents. At school, you are the baby of uncles and aunties. This is the message from all of us staff from the support department,” Liu added.

She became emotional in the middle of her speech.

“I am trying to constrain my mood, but I cannot control my feelings when seeing your lovely faces,” Liu said.

She also urged the students to eat well and not to rely too heavily on delivered food and instant noodles.

“Promise me that no matter how busy you are, you will always eat well and take care of your health,” she said.

She added that she and her team had prepared 15,000 dumplings for the graduates that day.

“This represents our good wishes for you. I hope all of you have splendid prospects,” said Liu.

A video clip of the speech showed some female students weeping.

Yanbian University is a major institution in Yanji city of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin.

Liu’s speech has been broadcast by state media such as People’s Daily and CCTV.

“No one talks to me in this way except my mother,” said one online observer.

“This canteen auntie is the best business card for Yanbian University,” said another.

While a third person said: “The auntie’s speech warms our hearts. It hints that this school cares about its students. How lucky these students are!”

Could Cambodia hit the Thai capital with its made-in-China weapons?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3316275/could-cambodia-hit-thai-capital-its-made-china-weapons?utm_source=rss_feed

Cambodia could use Chinese-made weapons to strike Thailand but they would not put the Thai capital within reach, and Beijing is unlikely to stand by if border tensions erupt into military conflict, according to a Chinese analyst.

“China’s weapon exports are defensive in nature, and after purchase, ownership and usage rights belong entirely to the recipient country,” former People’s Liberation Army instructor Song Zhongping said.

“China would not wish to see two of its traditional friends at war, even over territorial disputes,” he said, adding that Beijing would seek to facilitate negotiations and a ceasefire.

“Thailand is both a traditional friend of China and a traditional ally of the United States, while Cambodia has close ties with China.”

The assessment follows a report in the Bangkok-based news site The Nation on Friday quoting Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen as saying that his country had weapons “that can reach Bangkok”.

Tensions have risen between Thailand and Cambodia along a disputed part of their border known as the Emerald Triangle. A Cambodian soldier was killed during a brief exchange of gunfire on May 28, heightening fears of military escalation.

China is a major source of weapons for both countries.

But Song said it would be impossible for Cambodia to threaten the Thai capital with its main Chinese-made rocket systems.

“Cambodia also lacks fighter jets capable of carrying long-range missiles,” he said, adding that Cambodia’s defence budget was roughly a tenth of Thailand’s.

“Thailand’s military capabilities are much stronger than Cambodia’s.”

China has surpassed the United States to be Thailand’s biggest weapons supplier, accounting for about 44 per cent of Thailand’s military imports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Meanwhile, Cambodia is almost completely reliant on China for weapons, with the Phnom Penh Post reporting that Chinese arms could be as much as 95 per cent of the total.

Song said that unlike the United States, China did not impose conditions on the deployment of its weapons.

“This is different from the United States, which very often retains control over how its weapons are used,” he said.

There has been unconfirmed speculation that the US restricted India’s use of American-made military aircraft in the most recent conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir.

In May, Pakistani forces reportedly used Chinese-made J-10CE fighters, missiles, and weapon systems to shoot down several of India’s French Rafale jets.

Song said there were several big differences between the Thai-Cambodia dispute and the India-Pakistan hostilities, which involved deep-rooted religious differences.

“Thailand and Cambodia, as Buddhist-majority countries, do not share such severe religious divisions,” Song said, adding that their border dispute stemmed from French colonial rule.

However, Song stressed that China would still advise “both friendly nations to exercise restraint and resolve their disputes through negotiation”.

Song added that China was unlikely to stand by should tensions between Thailand and Cambodia escalate into military conflict.

Song suggested that the newly established International Mediation Institute in Hong Kong “could play a constructive role in helping both sides avoid armed confrontation”.

Song also noted that China’s position aligned with the broader interests of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) because any conflict within the bloc would undermine regional stability. “Beyond China, Asean itself would likely also engage in mediation efforts,” he added.

Many areas between Thailand and Cambodia, including the Emerald Triangle, were inadequately mapped when treaties were signed more than a century ago, resulting in overlapping claims.

Cambodia has previously sought international legal remedies for border disputes.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in Cambodia’s favour concerning the Preah Vihear Temple, and in 2013 reaffirmed the ruling by ordering the establishment of a demilitarised zone and troop withdrawals by both sides.

Thailand continues to reject ICJ jurisdiction on these disputes, insisting instead on bilateral negotiations via the Joint Boundary Commission (JBC). Established in 2000, the JBC has made little progress in resolving the tensions.

The Chinese migrants turning their UK homes into Temu and Shein warehouses

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3316120/chinese-migrants-turning-their-uk-homes-temu-and-shein-warehouses?utm_source=rss_feed

In Kevin Zhang’s quiet, two-storey house in Gloucester, hundreds of parcels blanket the living room floor. Each package – shipped from China – is bound for British customers who placed orders on Temu, TikTok Shop and AliExpress.

Zhang, 49, moved to the United Kingdom from China’s rustbelt northeast in 2000, and spent years running a local nail salon. But in March, he sensed that something big was happening with China’s cross-border e-commerce platforms – and decided to make a change.

He transformed some unused space in his home into a pop-up warehouse, and began processing orders on behalf of Chinese exporters: handling, picking, packing, labelling and distributing packages across Britain for £1 (US$1.35) per parcel.

The business has quickly snowballed. After just a few months, the side hustle is already earning Zhang nearly £2,000 a month – on par with a typical graduate starting salary in London.

“Demand from Chinese exporters is so strong, I’ve had to start turning people away,” he told the Post.

Makeshift warehouses like Zhang’s are spreading across the UK, as Chinese immigrants cash in on the rapid expansion of China’s shopping platforms in the country.

Chinese e-commerce giants including Shein and Temu have launched a marketing blitz targeting the UK this year, with the platforms appearing to pivot to the European market as the US-China trade war makes selling to America more difficult.

Sales in the UK have been rising so fast that Chinese exporters are struggling to keep up. On RedNote, a Chinese social platform, there are reams of posts from vendors looking for reliable British warehousing and distribution partners.

That has created an opening for grassroots operators like Zhang, who are referred to as “family warehouses” in Chinese. Online networks connecting Chinese exporters with UK-based family warehouses have quickly formed on the Chinese messaging app WeChat to manage the growing flow of orders.

Zhang set up his own WeChat group after launching his home warehouse, bringing in fellow Chinese immigrants and neighbours to share the workload. The group has already accumulated 258 members.

“We’ve built a network,” he said. “If someone goes on holiday, someone else steps in. That keeps our clients happy.”

The UK is particularly fertile ground for China’s shopping apps. Like America, it has a cost-of-living crisis that draws shoppers to the super-cheap deals on offer on Temu and Shein. But unlike America, Britain has so far remained open to trade with China.

In the US, the growth of apps like Shein and Temu was fuelled by the “de minimis” exemption – a kink in the tax code that allowed packages worth less than US$800 to enter the country tariff-free. But Washington is now phasing out the policy, meaning that parcels from China will face steep duties of more than 50 per cent.

Britain, meanwhile, has maintained its own version of the “de minimis” rule, which exempts packages with a customs value of up to £135 from all import duties, though value-added tax still implies. London has also not followed Washington in targeting Chinese imports with higher tariffs.

China’s e-commerce giants have been ramping up investment in Britain as a result. Shein increased its ad spend in the UK and France by 35 per cent in May, while Temu’s parent company PDD Group upped its spending by 40 per cent in France and 20 per cent in the UK, according to data from Sensor Tower.

The advertising push appears to have paid off, with Shein’s app downloads in the UK rising 25 per cent in May compared with the previous month and Temu’s more than doubling. TikTok, for its part, announced in early June that it would expand its UK operations, adding 500 new roles.

China’s cross-border e-commerce exports to the UK surged 65.8 per cent year on year in May, reaching US$481.6 million, according to Chinese customs data. Over the first five months of 2025, exports were up 44.1 per cent year on year.

Shein and Temu did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comment.

Demand for UK warehouse partners continues to rise among Chinese exporters, with more than 300 related posts appearing in a single day on RedNote in early June. Chinese residents in the UK are often seen as ideal collaborators – including 22-year-old student Eric He.

Six months ago, He received a message from a Chinese vendor asking if he would be willing to turn his student flat in central London into a warehouse. He agreed, and now earns around £600 per month from processing orders.

“The goods were originally bound for the US,” He said. “But now they’re coming to the UK instead. The pound gives sellers a better margin.”

In some cases, Chinese exporters actively prefer to work with family warehouses, as they offer lower costs – and, in some cases, quicker services – than traditional providers.

In the UK, standard warehousing services cost between £5.20 and £21 per pallet per month. Most Chinese-run home operations, by contrast, offer a first month of storage for free and then charge just £1 per order for full-service fulfillment – roughly one-third of commercial market rates.

“Our Chinese clients trust us more,” said He. “We’re cheaper and often faster than the big providers by at least one day.”

He knows the business violates the terms of his student visa, and he has not reported his income. “But the amount is small,” he said. “I’m not too worried.” After he graduates, he plans to apply for a post-study work visa and launch a registered warehousing business.

But for early entrants like Emily Yin, the flood of new family warehouse operators has come as an unwelcome shock. The 45-year-old started providing traditional labelling services in 2022, breaking down bulk shipments and preparing goods for Amazon’s warehouses. Back then, she earned £3 per order.

“Temu, Shein, TikTok, they’ve all grown incredibly fast in the UK,” she said. “More and more Chinese migrants are getting into this business. And now, sellers can ship individual items straight to overseas warehouses, so the demand for traditional re-labelling is falling.”

“Prices from China are now so competitive – it feels like the price war has come to the UK too,” Yin added. “My income is down to 30 to 40 per cent of what it used to be.”

Beijing, meanwhile, is doubling down on its support for the cross-border e-commerce sector. In its 2025 government work report, the Chinese government pledged to promote cross-border e-commerce, enhance international logistics networks, and help firms expand their overseas warehousing capacity.

Will the world need subsidies and tariffs to respond to China’s rare earth export curbs?

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3316153/chinas-rare-earth-curbs-spur-overseas-projects-reduce-reliance-says-us-developer?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s halt on rare earth exports will fuel efforts to build alternative production capacity overseas despite technical and financial challenges, according to REalloys, an American firm that is involved in the industry.

But the buildout would be costly and protracted due to technical challenges and could require subsidies and tariffs to stave off competition from Chinese products, which have dominated the global market for nearly three decades, analysts said.

“China has done a remarkable job at putting these supply chains for critical metals together,” said REalloys CEO David Argyle in an interview on June 16. “Once you control these supply chains, it is very difficult for new entrants [to] displace [them] because it is a zero-sum game.”

Last year, China accounted for 69 per cent of the world’s rare earth ore production, but it controlled 90 per cent of global downstream processing, which turns rare earth oxides or other compounds into a metallic form, he said. China also dominates the global market for heavy rare earths, which go into high-performance magnets used in defence products, electric vehicles and wind turbine generators, with a share of 98 to 99 per cent.

“China has a very strong card to play [in trade negotiations], which doesn’t impact tens of thousands of Chinese jobs,” he said. “But they have overplayed it this time because the recent supply halt resulted in minor shutdowns at automotive plants in the US and Europe.”

Ohio-based REalloys planned to spend more than US$50 million to set up a production line capable of making 1,000 tonnes of high-performance magnet materials by 2027, in collaboration with Canada’s Saskatchewan Research Council, Argyle said.

REalloys will source ore mined in Brazil for processing in Canada, in addition to recycled sources, he said. The development of a mine in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan was also on the cards.

In April, Beijing halted the export of heavy rare earth materials. In June, the restrictions were lifted as part of a temporary China-US trade truce. In October, Beijing told rare earth firms that they needed to enforce state-guided production volumes.

In recent years, efforts have been made in the US to develop a mine-to-magnet supply chain, including processing facilities being built in California and Texas by Las Vegas-based MP Materials and Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths, respectively.

Thomas Jones, a senior rare earth analyst at natural resources consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said US independence from Chinese rare earths was “years away”.

“The challenge the US faces is not a lack of will, but rather the huge logistical, technological, financial and environmental permitting required to make this a reality,” he said.

China's latest move to leverage its dominance is stronger than past attempts, he said. The global scope of the latest supply restrictions could also push other key trading partners like Europe, India, South Korea and Vietnam away from China, he added.

Rare earths include 17 metallic elements and can be challenging and costly to mine and refine. Strong acids used to extract the metals and radioactive waste also raise environmental compliance costs.

Seven of them are classified as light rare earths, which are generally more available than the 10 heavy rare earths, that are more difficult to process.

The global rare earths market was projected to grow 12.4 per cent annually to US$17 billion in 2032 from US$6.69 billion last year, according to Maximise Market Research. But the global supply outlook remains uncertain.

“The risk of a sudden flood of low-cost supply from China remains in the future … countries may need to subsidise production or impose tariffs to be competitive,” Jones said.

Why are Chinese civil servants down the line saying no to dining out?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3316160/why-are-chinese-civil-servants-down-line-saying-no-dining-out?utm_source=rss_feed

Officials across China are avoiding dining out to “play safe”, as the country’s latest austerity drive spirals into an overbearing campaign of excessive control like many similar ones before it.

Several officials interviewed said that the lifestyle change, even if temporary, was largely prompted by the ever-shifting local austerity measures, which could be even more stringent than the regulations originating from the central state and party bodies.

An official in southwestern Sichuan province surnamed Luo said his department head had announced a dine-out ban in early May, saying “eating out during this period is not good for you”.

“It is the latest ramification of ceng ceng jia ma,” Luo said.

Ceng ceng jia ma in Mandarin translates as “adding extra layer upon layer of control”.

The phrase is well known among China’s officialdom – long used to such top-down escalation. It succinctly sums up how local authorities at all levels tend to take excessive steps on top of the central directives to demonstrate political loyalty and often end up going overboard. The tendency was most recently on display during the pandemic years, when local enforcement of Beijing’s zero-Covid approach was often criticised as excessive.

Since mid-March, thousands of Chinese officials have been scrambling to comply with President Xi Jinping’s latest orders to target wasteful spending – making sure their offices are modest, their meal receipts are in order and returning any lavish gifts – all while inspectors carry out random checks.

In May, Beijing released a set of extensively reviewed and tightened rules to “implement frugality and cut waste” among party and government bodies, putting white elephant projects, the use of official vehicles, lavish meals and meeting room decor in the discipline inspectors’ crosshairs.

Of special note is a total ban on alcohol at work meals, as well as on expensive dishes and cigarettes.

Local governments were quick to adopt the new regulations, with further tightening for good measure, leading some civil servants to complain of excessive intrusion into their personal lives.

A civil servant in central Anhui province said that her department had started conducting daily alcohol tests when staff reported to work, along with spot checks after lunch.

“I think it is just very intrusive and I don’t know what the point of that is. If I drank last night, you probably can’t detect it by next morning,” said the official, surnamed Liu. Those who had alcohol at lunch might just find excuses not to return to the office for the rest of the day, she added.

An official in northwestern Gansu province said he gave up dining out after his disciplinary head circulated a list of 20 types of gatherings that should be avoided, with multiple-choice questions to check if they had understood the directive correctly.

One question read: “Your director likes you and has just promoted you. His son is getting married. What should you do?”

This was followed by four options: “A. Attend the banquet and give a big red envelope; B. Say congratulations and do not attend the banquet; C. Attend the banquet if invited, otherwise give a red envelope privately; D. Check if other colleagues will attend the banquet.”

Red envelope, or hong bao, refers to a traditional red packet containing money, given during special occasions such as weddings, birthdays and Lunar New Year.

“This is too troublesome and too risky,” said the official, surnamed Zhao. “You never know what kind of dinner or entertainment will land you in trouble. The best way is just to turn down everything; one-size-fits-all is the best way to go for now.”

He also questioned the practicality of such examples. “While the right answer is B, I am pretty sure many of us will give a red envelope with some money to help them to at least offset the cost of the wedding banquet. We will also check with all colleagues to attend as the boss will lose face if none of his colleagues are coming, right?”

Luo in Sichuan also said his supervisor sent out “gentle reminders” at the end of May to several colleagues who were seen eating hotpot together, even though they split the bill among themselves.

“Our boss is trying to protect us. If some whistle-blowers report them, they will have lots of explanation to do. My supervisor keeps telling us not to invite such unnecessary troubles at this critical time while so many inspectors are watching,” Luo said.

The overdrive at local levels has not gone unnoticed by the higher authorities, and official media and senior officials have weighed in to clarify the boundaries of the austerity campaign.

Banning banquets violated Xi’s “eight-point regulations” to rectify party conduct, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily said in a commentary on June 17, referring to rules enacted in 2013 and revised in May.

The rules do not imply that all banquets violate regulations, the article said, noting that China’s food and drink market exceeded 5.5 trillion yuan (about US$775 billion) in 2024 and generated more than 30 million jobs.

Beijing’s targeted austerity measures were meant to be wielded like a “scalpel” used in precise operations, but some places were using them like a “sledgehammer”, banning all gatherings and stopping all banquets, it added.

“These are the misunderstandings of policies and the indifference to people’s livelihoods under lazy government thinking, replacing precise governance with simple and crude measures.”

State news agency Xinhua and national broadcaster CCTV have also run similar commentaries.

Ma Xingrui and Sun Shaocheng, the party chiefs of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, respectively, sought to clarify the matter on June 20. They urged officials in the region under their watch not to generalise the crackdown so as to prevent “layer-by-layer escalation and a one-size-fits-all approach”.

Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, said that ironically, the “one-size-fits-all” approach might be one of the most effective ways to curb excessive drinking among Chinese officials.

“They are very good at exploiting the loopholes in regulations. So senior officials usually rather go for overcorrection to achieve some results in the longer term, as harsh bans will gradually wear off as time goes by.”

Fierce China job market turns unemployed youths into ‘full-time grandkids’

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3315665/fierce-china-job-market-turns-unemployed-youths-full-time-grandkids?utm_source=rss_feed

As China’s job market continues to struggle, a new trend in which young people become “full-time grandchildren” by returning home to care for their elderly grandparents has gone viral.

The trend addresses their own employment problems and the growing need for companionship among the elderly.

Such so-called full-time grandchildren provide companionship, emotional support and daily help to elderly or disabled family members.

Compared to “full-time children,” who primarily accompany able-bodied parents, “full-time grandchildren” are often seen as more filial.

One such 26-year-old who was unable to find work after failing her postgraduate and civil service exams accepted her grandfather’s invitation to return home.

“If you take good care of me and help me live a few more years, that is better than anything else you could do out there,” her grandfather said.

She receives 7,000 yuan (US$1,000) a month from her grandfather’s 10,000 yuan pension.

The new trend is rooted in China’s severe youth employment challenges.

In April, the urban unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24 stood at 15.8 per cent, meaning one in six young people was jobless.

While these young adults may have previously been pampered at home, they quickly mature into their new roles, navigating hospital visits, managing daily schedules and medications, and taking charge of most household affairs.

Some encourage their grandparents to adopt healthier habits by taking them to popular milk tea chains and turning simple outings into fun, motivating experiences.

Others, aware of their grandparents’ frugal habits, treat them to fashionable restaurants.

Since grandparents often prefer to handle things themselves, the role is often that of providing mental and emotional support.

One young person said: “At work, all I got for my efforts were empty promises. But as a full-time grandchild, if I mention a craving for something at night, my grandma is out buying it the next morning.”

Many also say the experience has led to personal growth and a re-evaluation of the true meaning of life.

Another 24-year-old “full-time grandchild,” identified as Xiaolin, told Sanlian Life Lab.

“We only have about 30,000 days in a lifetime, and for my grandparents, each day is part of a countdown. I can earn bonuses at work later in life, but time with them, once gone, is gone forever.”

The trend has sparked a heated discussion online.

One person said: “Hiring someone from outside to care for the elderly is expensive. Having family do it is more attentive, better for everyone.”

However, another said: “The bar for being a ‘full-time grandchild’ is too high. How many people actually have grandparents whose pensions are enough to support themselves? My grandfather is a farmer; his monthly pension is only 100 yuan (US$14).”

Cook Islands aid row spotlights China’s Pacific outreach, New Zealand’s mounting unease

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3316148/cook-islands-aid-row-spotlights-chinas-pacific-outreach-new-zealands-mounting-unease?utm_source=rss_feed

What began as a quiet series of infrastructure deals between the Cook Islands and China has erupted into a diplomatic stand-off, with New Zealand halting millions in aid and Pacific leaders accusing Wellington of “patronising” behaviour.

New Zealand’s abrupt suspension of aid has cast a harsh spotlight on the country’s growing unease over China’s expanding Pacific footprint, drawing warnings from regional observers that the move risks appearing “coercive rather than constructive”.

Wellington announced on June 19 that it was freezing millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands, citing a lack of transparency surrounding a suite of deals struck between the archipelago and China.

“We’ve suspended some of the aid money until we can get clarity on those issues,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said from Shanghai during his first official visit to China.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown hit back the next day by accusing Wellington of being “patronising”, contending that the relationship should be “defined by partnership, not paternalism”.

In parliament, Brown defended his government’s engagement with Beijing, insisting that these ties did not “compromise” the islands’ independence and stressing that no military or defence arrangements had been made.

The Cook Islands is self-governing but has a “free association” relationship with New Zealand, its former colonial ruler. Wellington is its primary financial backer, providing budgetary assistance as well as help on foreign affairs and defence, and the two share the same passport.

The agreements signed by Brown during a visit to China in February included pledges for infrastructure investment and educational scholarships from Beijing. Some of these deals were not initially made public, however, heightening suspicions in Wellington.

Former Australian diplomat Solstice Middleby told This Week in Asia that the timing of Luxon’s announcement “is more than coincidental”.

“New Zealand’s decision to suspend aid while the prime minister is in China appears designed to send a message to both domestic and international audiences about its discomfort with deepening China-Pacific ties,” said the PhD candidate in Pacific regionalism at the University of Adelaide.

“Unless [Wellington] articulates concrete concerns, such as transparency, debt sustainability, or dual-use infrastructure, its aid freeze risks being seen as coercive rather than constructive.”

Middleby argued that the suspension seemed less a matter of principle than “punishing” a sovereign decision by the Cook Islands that diverged from Wellington’s preferences.

The move, she warned, risked reinforcing a geopolitical narrative that casts Pacific island nations as mere pawns in a contest for influence, rather than sovereign actors pursuing their own development goals.

Pacific nations have emerged as something of a diplomatic battleground in recent years, coveted for their location astride vital sea lanes and their potential for military basing. Competition between China and the United States and its allies – including Australia and New Zealand – has intensified, particularly since 2022, when the Solomon Islands’ security pact with Beijing triggered Western alarm over a possible Chinese military presence in the region.

Both sides have since redoubled efforts to woo Pacific nations through aid, trade and diplomacy.

But the fallout from Wellington’s aid freeze is already reverberating through the Cook Islands, where the government now faces a sudden shortfall.

A report presented this month by the Cook Islands’ Public Accounts Committee flagged a NZ$10 million (US$6 million) reduction in government coffers – the first public confirmation of the freeze’s financial impact. The funds, earmarked for “core sector support”, underpin health, education and tourism with close auditing by Wellington. Over the past three years, New Zealand has channelled NZ$200 million to the islands.

Middleby warned that the funding freeze had strained the relationship of trust and mutual respect that underpinned the free association arrangement.

“If New Zealand continues to use aid as leverage, it may unintentionally accelerate the very diversification of partnerships it seeks to prevent,” she added.

The Cook Islands’ “free association” with New Zealand dates back to 1965, with a subsequent Joint Centenary Declaration signed in 2001 obliging regular consultation on defence and security matters. Observers say Wellington believes it should have been privy to the details of the China agreements before they were signed – a sentiment echoed in New Zealand media coverage.

Alan Tidwell, director of Georgetown University’s Centre for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies, said Wellington clearly thought the Cook Islands had “overstepped the mark” and failed to consult it adequately.

“Whether a short-term measure or a longer-term punishment, Wellington’s aid cut will have consequences,” Tidwell said. He added that New Zealand’s move appeared calculated to pressure the islands’ government and potentially motivate domestic opposition.

While the Cook Islands could, in theory, assert full independence – adopting its own passport and currency – Tidwell said that it had already “blocked this avenue” by previously rejecting the creation of its own passport.

“The cut in aid is one more pressure point on the Cook Islands to work with Wellington and better manage their bilateral affairs,” Tidwell said.

New Zealand, he added, wanted to “reset” the 2001 agreement by “codifying consultation to avoid ever again having this trouble”.

“As I understand it there will be no more high-level meetings until this takes place,” Tidwell said.

After efforts to reassure Wellington failed, the Cook Islands dropped a proposal to introduce its own passports in February.

For its part, Beijing insists its outreach is benign. “China-Cook Islands cooperation targets no third party, nor should it be interfered with or constrained by any third party,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in February, adding that the deals were intended solely to benefit the Cook Islands’ 15,000 people.

Middleby, meanwhile, said the aid freeze had exposed a deeper tension at the heart of New Zealand’s Pacific diplomacy.

“[There is] a clash between its self-image as a benevolent partner and its discomfort with Pacific nations exercising independent foreign policy choices,” she said, adding that the move had further alienated smaller Pacific nations from their traditional partners.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

Chinese youth make sun protection masks from giant lotus leaves, ignite online hilarity

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/environment/article/3315608/chinese-youth-make-sun-protection-masks-giant-lotus-leaves-ignite-online-hilarity?utm_source=rss_feed

Young people in China have taken self-made sun protection to the next level with their latest innovation: full-face masks made from lotus leaves.

People from southern Chinese provinces, such as Zhejiang, Sichuan and Fujian, are making their own sun protection masks with lotus leaves they pick from roadside ponds.

Viral videos show them covering their faces with the giant leaves, which are at least twice the size of their faces, using hats or helmets with straps to wrap and tighten the leaves.

Eye and nose holes are poked through the leaves to allow seeing and breathing.

One practitioner from southeastern China’s Fujian province, surnamed Yin, said he had planned to wear a beauty mask to prevent suntan before spotting lotus leaves near his home.

He said he found them very effective: “Everywhere except my face has become tanned!”

Yin also praised the sun protection tool as natural and free of charge.

The videos have created hilarious reactions online.

Many said the people in them look like giant mosquitoes or Pinocchio, the Disney character whose nose grows long when he tells lies, because of the long lotus stem still attached to the leaves.

“You must have lied, otherwise how do you explain your long noses?” one online observer said.

“Since when can mosquitoes ride motorcycles and post videos on social media?” said another.

Some described the behaviour as funny but dangerous.

“It will not look so cool when you cause accidents wearing lotus leaves while driving. Also, the stems might hurt people,” one person said.

Some shared their own self-made sun protection face masks.

Among them were those made from tarpaulins and their own long hair combed from back to front to cover the whole face.

The new trend is just one of the latest bizarre sun protection tools that Chinese people have invented.

More than a decade ago, the so-called facekini went viral around the world after a group of middle-aged women wore it to protect their faces from the sun on the beach in Qingdao, eastern China’s Shandong province.

The facekini covers the head and face and reveals only the eyes, nostrils and mouth.

Some even included elements of fashion, such as that of Peking opera masks and Spider-Man.

Some other cooling summer tools sold online include the umbrella hat and the fan jacket, which has power bank-driven cooling fans.

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Why China may be keeping a close eye on Trump’s Middle East moves

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316221/why-china-may-be-keeping-close-eye-trumps-middle-east-moves?utm_source=rss_feed

As the US gets more entangled in the Israel-Iran conflict, China is likely to be keeping a close watch and picking up some clues on American interventionism in regional disputes.

According to one China watcher, Beijing may be a “long-term beneficiary” of the American retreat from stable leadership, as Washington’s strikes on Iran have revealed it to be an uncertain and unpredictable global power.

More significantly, the conflict has revealed Washington’s reluctance to engage in a prolonged war, offering the Chinese leadership clues on how the Trump administration might approach other flashpoints, including Taiwan.

The US carried out air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend in an operation Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called a “resounding success” that obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities. It followed an intense exchange of fire between Israel and Iran that started on June 13 when Israel launched surprise air attacks on Iranian military and nuclear facilities.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire had been reached in the “12-day war” between the traditional adversaries.

However, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday downplayed the impact of the US strikes, claiming that Tehran had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a US airbase in Qatar over the weekend.

Beijing has sharply criticised both the United States and Israel, with China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, accusing Washington of violating Iranian sovereignty and worsening tensions in the Middle East. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in the second call with his Iranian counterpart since the conflict erupted, said on Tuesday that China supported Iran’s efforts to safeguard its national sovereignty and security.

Brian Wong, assistant professor in philosophy at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), said China would have “struggled significantly” in the short to medium term if crude prices had risen due to the conflict, given its reliance on Iranian oil.

“Yet in the long term, China would feel rather glad – and at the very least takes partial solace in the fact that – the US of today is by no means the US of yesteryear,” Wong said in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Tianjin last week.

“And that had been a country that’s capable of truly leveraging both diplomatic and also coercive tactics in driving forward an economic agenda in a region like the Middle East – which could have systematically excluded China’s rising role to play in it.”

Wong, who is also a fellow at HKU’s Centre on Contemporary China and the World, said past administrations had been able to position the US as a stable and reliable provider of security to the region that would also act broadly in line with international expectations.

But Trump’s behaviour and actions involving Iran had “completely undone that sort of uncertainty and predictability”, he said.

“Given the unpredictability here, I would say that China is a long-term beneficiary from the American retreat from stable and consistent leadership.”

While Trump’s attack on Iran showed that he was not hesitant to deploy force in regional conflicts, Wong said it also reflected his reluctance to fight a long and protracted war. But that did not mean China would see it as a chance to act to further its own interests.

“China views this as a sign of the limits to American interventionism under Trump, that there are limits to what Trump is willing to invest and commit to hot zones,” he said.

“He’s unwilling to put troops on the ground, unwilling to get drawn out into protracted warfare, and unable to stick to a consistent line that’s going to last for any more than two to three days.

“These are all messages and cues that Beijing is picking up, but I don’t think this therefore means that Beijing feels emboldened to make a sudden move on ‘disputed’ or ‘contested’ territories and that is because Beijing has its own timeline for what it perceives to be peaceful unification [with Taiwan].”

Monica Toft, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, noted that Trump had campaigned on being a peacemaker and not starting any new wars.

If China viewed him through this lens, it could make the argument that Trump was unlikely to use force on any conflicts, and that Israel – which counts the US as its biggest ally – was a “special case” because of its “special relationship” with Washington.

“It would be quite dangerous to speculate how [US actions on Iran were] going to impact the US reaction should something happen over Taiwan, Hong Kong or the Philippines,” she said in a separate interview on the WEF margins.

Top Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, have on multiple occasions said Beijing is ready to play a “constructive role” in the Middle East conflict.

But Wong said that, despite the unpredictability of the Trump administration, Beijing was “not ready and is not able to step up as a genuine peace broker and a mediator in the region”.

According to Wong, China does not have the knowledge and understanding of the cultural idiosyncrasies and intricacies of conflicts in the Middle East. “Beijing doesn’t want to get its hands dirty,” he added.

“It feels that the moment it assumes responsibilities to mediate and the moment that mediation falls through, its credibility would get irrevocably damaged. This is not something risk-averse foreign policy decision makers in Beijing want to see today.”

Toft said it would be helpful for China to lean on parties it was closer to in resolving global conflicts, whether it was Israel and Iran or the Ukraine war.

“[Beijing] can’t abandon the international community because it’s dependent on it,” she said.

“It’s in China’s interest to stay engaged, to try to help to alleviate and sort of depress these cycles of violence.

“In reading China’s history and understanding China’s foreign policy, China just doesn’t want crises. It wants a stable trading environment so that it can keep its economy growing … Not that any state welcomes a crisis, but if ever there’s a state that wants stability, it’s China.”

Palace intrigue conquers global screens: are C-dramas China’s new soft power?

https://www.scmp.com/culture/article/3316205/palace-intrigue-conquers-global-screens-are-c-dramas-chinas-new-soft-power?utm_source=rss_feed

Over the past month, one of the biggest hit streaming shows globally has been a fictional drama about a young man who plots revenge after his family is murdered.

The made-in-China historical fantasy is the latest major production to showcase the growing international influence of one of the country’s fastest growing cultural exports – storytelling.

In the week after its May 18 debut, Legend of Zang Hai topped multiple overseas rankings in 15 regions, including the No 1 spot on Disney+ in Taiwan for seven days, while becoming the only mainland Chinese production in the local top 10 in Hong Kong.

The 40-episode series also trended globally at No 12 on social media platform X, hitting No 1 in Thailand and charting in the top 10 in Vietnam and Malaysia. It has even trended in Ukraine.

It rates 8.8 out of 10 on the online entertainment database IMDb, making it the highest-rated Chinese suspense drama on the platform, attracting praise for its intricate plot, stunning visuals, and exceptional acting, as well as its use of Chinese intangible heritage like shadow puppetry and Kunqu opera.

The story follows protagonist Zang Hai, who, after his family is massacred, seeks revenge through years of meticulous planning and strategic cunning to infiltrate the enemy’s ranks. As he gains power amid political intrigue, he shifts his focus from personal vengeance to protecting his people.

“For fans of epic historical dramas with soul, this is a must-watch. And for those unfamiliar with Chinese television, Legend of Zang Hai is the perfect gateway – a show that proves great storytelling transcends language and borders,” one viewer wrote on IMDb.

It is not the only Chinese TV drama to find acclaim overseas. The expanding popularity of Chinese TV dramas – known as C-dramas – has become a potent indicator of China’s improving soft power, according to observers.

Driven by increasing production quality, industry advancement and the global reach of Chinese celebrities, such dramas have fused Chinese history, culture, language and values into a formidable entertainment export.

According to analysts, the growing recognition of Chinese dramas has been propelled by a mix of forcing stories rooted in rich cultural heritage, high production values and expanding international distribution, helping them to serve as both cultural ambassadors and agents of China’s evolving soft power.

“Today’s C-dramas are faster-paced, more diverse in genre, visually richer and tailored to younger, global audiences,” said Peter T.C. Chang, former deputy director at the University of Malaya’s Institute of China Studies.

“These shifts not only enhance entertainment value but also reflect a strategic evolution in Chinese media, positioning C-dramas as dynamic cultural carriers.

“By blending traditional values with modern storytelling, they contribute to a more nuanced, relatable and positive global image of China.”

But despite their popularity, challenges such as translation barriers and geopolitical tensions still limit broader international reach, and some critics caution that these dramas may not necessarily translate into a positive view of China overall.

Over the past decade, China has become a global entertainment powerhouse, offering a range of TV products.

In 2015, Netflix acquired the overseas rights to Empresses in the Palace (2011), making it the first Chinese drama to land on a North American paid streaming platform. That year, China exported 381 dramas worth 377 million yuan (US$52.5 million) – surpassing imports for the first time in a decade.

Other Chinese dramas were soon appearing in international markets. Eternal Love made the Cannes TV festival’s list of the top 50 most popular shows in 2017, and Story of Yanxi Palace topped Google’s 2018 global most-searched TV programme list.

It was sold to more than 90 countries and credited with boosting tourism at Beijing’s Forbidden City. The urban drama Nothing But Thirty (2020) became Malaysia’s most-watched Chinese drama and was adapted in South Korea and Vietnam.

According to the China Drama Report 2024 released in December by the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), from 2012 to 2023, the export value of C-dramas tripled from US$24 million to over US$70 million, underscoring their growing international influence.

China’s reality-themed dramas were the most popular overseas, accounting for 49 per cent of the 335 dramas exported in 2023, the NRTA said. Chinese costume dramas have generated significant revenue, according to the administration, with viewers in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the United States among the biggest fans.

Another 2024 Chinese academic paper said the biggest overseas viewers of Chinese dramas were students, expatriates and those with a keen interest in Chinese culture. Genres like mystery, fantasy comedy, science fiction, reality-based dramas and historical fantasy dramas were their favourites.

“Popular genres like historical epics, xianxia fantasy and modern urban romance emphasise emotional storytelling and universal moral dilemmas, making C-dramas effective cultural carriers that blend tradition with contemporary appeal,” Chang said.

Compared to films and video games, TV series have more potential to “reach out to different subsets of audiences with diverse tastes or backgrounds”, said Sheng Zou, an interdisciplinary media researcher at Hong Kong’s Baptist University.

Production quality is a key driver of popularity, according to industry insiders.

Wang Qiao, a vice-president at Beijing-based production company New Classics Media, said he had seen a shift from scepticism to eagerness towards Chinese dramas on overseas platforms in recent years.

Qiao, who has spent 20 years promoting China’s TV and film industry, said the overseas success was due to years of painstaking effort to strengthen the sectors. “The products we offer, from technical specifications and screen quality to compliance with overseas laws, are fully on par with those of foreign companies,” he told the China-based Economic Observer in December.

Big-budget productions of more than 100 million yuan (US$14 million) are not unusual in China. The Longest Day in Changan (2019) and Legend of Fei (2020) each reportedly cost 600 million yuan to make.

The total production cost of Legend of Zang Hai is reportedly 480 million yuan, with each episode costing about 12 million yuan.

The series had “high production values” compared to previous productions in the genre, said Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, chair professor at the department of digital arts and creative industries at Lingnan University.

“It’s more cinematic, more rounded characters and plenty of intrigue. Scriptwriting seems sophisticated,” she said. “Soft power does not set out to achieve glory and honour, but receives it through convincing characters and storytelling.”

As their global footprint expands, however, the impact of C-dramas has so far been mostly limited to Asia, especially Southeast Asia, where shared cultural values, language familiarity and regional history are most pronounced, according to analysts.

“Viewers resonate with Confucian ideals, family-oriented narratives, and themes rooted in mythology and imperial history,” said Chang, who is also a research associate at the Malaysia-China Friendship Association in Kuala Lumpur.

In 2023, total income from C-drama exports to Asia – excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan – accounted for 69 per cent of their global total, 61 per cent of which came from Southeast Asia. Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan also made up a large share, the NRTA report said.

In Taiwan, amid cross-strait tensions, Empresses in the Palace has been a cultural phenomenon since 2012, with repeated broadcasts igniting online fan communities. In 2022, a marathon broadcast of the 76-episode drama during the Lunar New Year drew more than 10,000 viewers; by 2024, another marathon airing had pushed that figure to 61,000.

On June 11, excitement on the island around the latest episode of Legend of Zang Hai – which took top spot on the “Top 10 most-watched dramas in Taiwan Today” list for seven consecutive days – got the attention of the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office.

“People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share the same language with common cultural roots, so it is natural they will have emotional resonance with the excellent film and TV works on both sides,” said TAO spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian, who extended invitations to Taiwanese residents to experience the cinematic locations in person on the mainland.

For decades, Taiwanese artists held sway on the mainland but in recent years as political tensions have risen, they have struggled to reach mainland audiences. At the same time, the mainland’s pop culture market has enjoyed growing acclaim, with Beijing billing it as an engine of soft power to win hearts and minds in Taiwan.

Beijing also sees the central government playing a key role in driving C-dramas to diversify China’s economy beyond domestic markets while expanding the country’s global footing and soft power.

In a 2022 report, the NRTA said the expansion of Chinese TV dramas overseas had evolved through three stages: a self-driven rise in quality from 2012 to 2014; scaling distribution channels that included targeting through the Belt and Road Initiative from 2014 to 2017; and an industrial chain stage from 2018 to 2022, marked by online platforms like Tencent Video and iQIYI expanding overseas with localised operations.

While state support plays a role, experts have emphasised that market forces, video streaming platforms and audience dynamics have been pivotal in the popularity shift.

Cao Xuenan, an assistant professor of cultural studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said C-dramas were a “great soft power” because they were not imposed on people.

“It was definitely far from the state-led or promoted kind of cultural product. It was totally people finding a diversity of content suitable for their taste, just picking up on it themselves,” she said.

Legend of Zang Hai is one example: after watching how the show incorporated elements of feng shui, ancient construction, burial, astrology, puppetry and shadow plays, viewers in Thailand and Vietnam discussed the exploration of geomancy and Chinese traditional culture on forums.

One blogger pointed to the “Eastern beauty” of the show and began digging up articles about the “artistic and cultural accuracy and value” published by museums and cultural institutions in China.

“These audience-driven dynamics – rather than state policy alone – are shaping a more authentic expansion of China’s soft power,” Chang said.

Zou said video streaming platforms such as Youku and iQIYI had been playing an “increasingly central role” in the production and distribution of Chinese TV series. These platforms have not only launched numerous hit C-dramas but have also expanded globally. Legend of Zang Hai, for instance, was co-produced by Youku.

This shift had had a “profound influence” on China’s TV drama industry, creating new opportunities for global circulation and for diversification into various niches and subgenres to grow audiences, he said.

Analysts, however, have cautioned against assuming a simple cause-and-effect relationship between viewership and positive national perception.

Cao warned that while Chinese dramas had boosted language visibility and cultural presence, they did not automatically foster positive perceptions of China, since the content of the shows was diverse and did not present a “unified” image of the country.

“It made the Chinese language more readily available. It also made the Chinese faces more visible online and in other media,” she said. “But whether it is linked to a positive perception of China [is] a whole different thing.”

Zou said that series such as Legend of Zang Hai were not intended to overtly alter perceptions about China or its politics. “They are first and foremost for entertainment,” he said. “But they may subtly cultivate favourable attitudes towards Chinese media and cultural products, or renew people’s perception of the type, range and quality of Chinese cultural products.”

According to Chang, international audiences mainly engage with C-dramas for entertainment “rather than as a lens into China’s political system or global stance”.

“As such, the cultural appeal of C-dramas may not directly shift political perceptions of China,” he said.

“However, by fostering cultural familiarity, C-dramas have the potential – over time – to challenge pre-existing geopolitical narratives and gradually influence deeper, more entrenched views of the country.”

Yeh said “cultural patriotism” was another weakness for C-dramas and films going global. For example, the heavily promoted production (2025), China’s highest-grossing movie ever, was “bloated”.

In recent years, China’s economic rise and technological advances have fuelled national pride and a revival of traditional culture. The blend of old and new has led to productions like the Tang dynasty-inspired (2023) and the classic novel-based video game .

Despite the success of some of the productions, observers have doubts whether productions like Ne Zha 2 have had the same viral impact in overseas markets as they did domestically, since they catered to local tastes through a nationalistic lens.

In Ne Zha 2, for instance, fans noted indirect references in the film to China’s geopolitical rival, the United States.

Observers said China’s drama productions would need to be more creative and explore genres beyond historical epics to appeal to a broader global audience and address challenges such as language barriers, geopolitical headwinds, and competition from South Korean, Japanese and Western TV dramas.

“With improved storytelling, more creative freedom, and strategic collaborations, C-dramas have the potential to grow as influential cultural ambassadors and strengthen China’s presence in global entertainment,” Chang said.