• What are China’s plans for deep space exploration … and beyond?
• A year after China returns rocks from moon’s far side, debate rages over ancient crater
• China’s Wang Yi says deeper US exchanges on the cards after talks with Rubio
• China’s Tianzhou-9 cargo craft set for Tiangong space station resupply mission
• Chinese healthcare graduate sells ice cream, ‘embarrassed’ alma mater forces clip removal
• China and Egypt deepen ties as Beijing boosts influence in bid to solve Mideast crises
• Chinese unicorn Moonshot launches AI model Kimi K2 in red-hot open-source market
• Ancient Silk Road tombs in China join Unesco World Heritage list
• China ‘luckiest driver’ survives after half of truck teetering on edge of collapsed bridge
• Plunging pork and poultry prices put pressure on Chinese farmers
• Chinese lead poisoning scandal sparks backlash, echoing earlier controversies
• Chinese law firms in ‘pivotal moment’ as they answer the call to go global
• Why ‘uneasy alliance’ between US tech titans and Maga may backfire in China rivalry
• In US-China tug of war, Australia puts itself first
• Wang Yi reiterates Beijing’s rejection of South China Sea ruling
• Chinese man jailed for spiking colleague’s drink with ‘truth serum’ to steal work plan
• China has 60 drugs under trial to rival Ozempic in US$150 billion weight-loss market
• US calls for closer South Korea, Japan defence ties amid ‘unprecedented’ China-North threat
• No-fly zone: what brought about China’s largest power bank scandal
• US puts jet-drone teams to bigger test in race with China for air supremacy

What are China’s plans for deep space exploration … and beyond?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3317991/what-are-chinas-plans-deep-space-exploration-and-beyond?utm_source=rss_feed

The US Senate has approved an extra US$10 billion for Nasa’s Artemis moon exploration programme, giving a major boost to contractors such as Boeing.

While many see it as a domestic win over newer space players including SpaceX, it also signals the Trump administration’s determination to stay ahead of China in an intensifying space race.

Here we look at how China is expanding its deep-space ambitions, from putting astronauts on the moon to returning rocks from Mars, and how it is posing the most serious challenge to US space leadership in 60 years.

Possibly.

China aims to land two astronauts on the moon before 2030, with all major hardware now in prototype development and large-scale testing.

The Chinese programme’s Mengzhou crew capsule passed a critical safety test just last month, and the Long March-10 moon rocket could make its maiden flight as early as next year. China is also developing the Lanyue lunar lander and the Wangyu spacesuit, both undergoing trials.

Nasa still leads on paper, with Artemis III targeting a crewed landing no earlier than 2027. But the mission faces big technical hurdles. In particular, its massive lunar lander – a modified SpaceX Starship – requires in-orbit refuelling, something that has not been done before.

In congressional testimony in February, Dan Dumbacher, a former senior Nasa official, called the Artemis timeline “very suspect”.

“The probability of the United States safely landing humans on the moon by 2030, with the current plan, is remote at best,” he warned.

Very serious.

China aims to build a permanent base called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) near the moon’s south pole by 2035, and the planning is already under way.

In 2023, more than 100 researchers from universities, laboratories, and space companies gathered in the central city of Wuhan for the first major planning meeting. Since then, a team has worked out how to bake lunar bricks using simulated soil and sent them to China’s Tiangong space station for testing under extreme space conditions.

China hopes to make its first real brick on the moon in 2028, during the Chang’e-8 mission. A team in the central province of Anhui has built a 3D printer that uses concentrated sunlight to melt lunar soil into bricks that are strong enough for roads and buildings. They have also developed a prototype to extract water ice, using a bundle of tiny drill needles to heat the lunar soil, release vapour and collect it.

Architects in China have proposed various concepts for the research station, including bases on the open lunar surface, at the bottom of craters, and in underground lava tubes. Each features multiple linked modules and is meant to support three to four astronauts during short-term stays.

Possibly – at least when it comes to bringing back rocks from Mars.

China’s Tianwen-3 mission, now in development, aims to collect and return at least 500 grams of Martian samples by 2031.

The plan involves two spacecraft. One will land on Mars to drill, scoop and deploy a drone to grab rocks nearby. The collected material will then be launched into orbit, where a second spacecraft will rendezvous, capture the container, and bring it back to Earth.

That timeline puts Nasa at a clear disadvantage. The US began collecting samples on the red planet with its Perseverance rover in 2021, but the return mission has been plagued by ballooning costs and major delays, with no final plan or launch date in sight.

There is also a real possibility that China could overtake the US in solar system exploration. Nasa’s science programme is facing deep budget cuts, putting missions to Venus, Jupiter, near-Earth asteroids, and even the distant Kuiper Belt at risk – including some that are already in space.

China, meanwhile, is forging ahead. It recently launched Tianwen-2, a mission to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid, and is planning Tianwen-4, which will target Jupiter and Uranus for a rare leap into the outer solar system.

Probably.

China has already made history by deploying the first relay satellite, called Queqiao, in a special halo orbit beyond the moon. From that position, it enables continuous communication between Earth and China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft – the first to make a soft landing on the moon’s far side.

Its successor, Queqiao-2, launched earlier this year, is even more capable. Operating in a highly elliptical lunar orbit, it is designed to support up to 10 missions operating on the lunar far side simultaneously.

Looking ahead, Chinese scientists have proposed building a BeiDou-like navigation and communication system for the moon and deep space.

The plan is for 20 to 30 satellites to be placed in various orbits around Earth, the moon, and in between, which will provide high-bandwidth communication and real-time navigation services for a moon landing, moon base construction, and even a crewed landing on Mars.

While Nasa and its partners are focused on building the Gateway lunar station, China is seizing the initiative to create the critical infrastructure that deep-space exploration will rely on in decades to come.

Definitely.

For decades, China was excluded from much of the US-led international space community. The isolation forced China to build its own capabilities, and now the country is positioning itself as a global collaborator – and even a leader – in deep space.

China’s Chang’e missions have helped Europe land its first scientific instrument on the moon and enabled Pakistan to put its first satellite into lunar orbit. For its planned lunar base, China has brought in Russia as a major partner to potentially provide nuclear power systems.

The China-led ILRS is often seen as the counterpart to the US-led Artemis Accords. But unlike the more government-focused Artemis framework, the ILRS is open to space agencies, universities, non-profit groups, and private companies. More than a dozen national space agencies have already signed on.

China is also sharing its lunar samples with the world, a classic soft power move that echoes America’s own Apollo-era diplomacy. While Nasa restricts Chinese scientists from having access to Apollo rocks, China this year loaned Chang’e-5 samples to two US researchers – though they could not use Nasa funding because of legal restrictions.

China has pledged to distribute material from the Chang’e-6 mission, the first and only samples ever returned from the moon’s far side.

China is preparing its first planetary defence mission, targeting a 30-metre-wide near-Earth asteroid called 2015 XF261. The plan: slam one spacecraft into the asteroid to alter its path, while a second spacecraft stays behind to observe – a strategy inspired by Nasa’s 2022 Dart mission.

Meanwhile, all of China’s Chang’e probes have been given extra missions. Chang’e-2 orbited and mapped the moon in 2010, then flew into deep space and passed by the asteroid Toutatis before contact was lost in 2014.

After delivering nearside lunar samples in 2020, the Chang’e-5 orbiter flew to the gravitationally balanced, fuel-efficient sun-Earth L1 point for orbit control tests and space environment monitoring. It then returned to the moon and became the first probe to enter a distant retrograde orbit, followed by Nasa’s Orion spacecraft during the Artemis I mission.

Most recently, the Chang’e‑6’s lunar orbiter appears to have reached the sun-Earth L2 point, where it may be testing navigation and communications. The mission could pave the way for future Chinese astronomy flagship projects, including the Earth 2.0 exoplanet-hunting telescope planned for launch around 2028.

A year after China returns rocks from moon’s far side, debate rages over ancient crater

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3317868/year-after-china-returns-rocks-moons-far-side-debate-rages-over-ancient-crater?utm_source=rss_feed

A year after China returned the first rock samples from the moon’s far side, scientists are debating whether the mission has answered a central question in lunar science – and whether the country’s rising scientific dominance is challenging who gets to tell the story of the moon’s past.

While a team of Chinese researchers believes they may have nailed down the age of the moon’s largest and oldest crater – a colossal impact basin that could hold clues to the early solar system – other scientists, mostly from the West, remain unconvinced.

Some say the ancient rocks may have come from a different impact and were tossed to the landing site. Others suggest the rocks may not have come from an impact at all, but from magma that cooled slowly underground.

“I don’t think the 4.25-billion-year age is 100 per cent certain, but it’s the most credible number we have so far – more reliable than model-based crater counting or meteorites with unknown origins,” said planetary scientist Yang Wei of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing.

“It’s based on the only direct evidence we’ve ever collected and measured from the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin,” said Yang, who was not directly involved in the study but coordinates a nationwide research effort that gave select teams early access to samples from the Chinese lunar mission Chang’e‑6.

The findings, which he described as the most important among a collection of five papers submitted to the journal Nature for peer review last September, were rejected twice by a review panel dominated by Western scientists.

The paper was later published in National Science Review, a China-based journal. Four others, which detailed the lunar far side’s chemistry, water content and its volcanic and magnetic history, appeared in Nature’s print edition this week.

A Chinese scientist familiar with the review process, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said he felt some Western scientists were not ready to accept that Chinese researchers might solve such an important scientific problem.

“They didn’t want China to be the one to pin down the age of the SPA basin. Maybe it stings a little,” the scientist said. “But it doesn’t matter. The paper is published, and time will tell.”

In the National Science Review study, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences focused on norite, a type of rock made of two common lunar minerals.

Radiometric dating revealed two distinct age groups of norite particles in Chang’e-6 samples. One was about 3.87 billion years old, consistent with known impact events like Apollo or Schrödinger. The other was much older: 4.25 billion years.

The researchers argued that this older group was likely to have come from the formation of the SPA basin, since the samples were collected from within that basin and no older impact signals were detected. “Our preferred SPA impact age of [around 4.25 billion years] is broadly consistent with crater-counting age estimates from previous studies,” they wrote.

Clive Neal, a planetary geologist at the University of Notre Dame, said the rocks were likely misidentified – not true norites, but impact melts with a similar mineral make-up.

He also noted that the 4.25-billion-year age was significantly younger than what crater-counting models and radiometric data from SPA-linked meteorites had suggested. Neal said the team may have uncovered evidence of a major impact – possibly the one that created the Apollo basin, a crater believed to have formed after the SPA.

Qian Yuqi, a planetary geologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the 4.25-billion-year age was “very close to the lower limit of the SPA basin’s possible age”.

According to a paper Qian and colleagues published in early 2024, extensive intrusive magmatism – a slow, underground process where magma hardens without erupting – is common in the SPA basin. That means the rocks analysed by the Chinese team may not have come from an impact at all.

The five papers emerging from Chang’e‑6 sample analyses revealed a previously untold chapter of the moon’s history – one that, according to Yang, began more than 4.2 billion years ago when a 500km-wide (310-mile) asteroid slammed into the lunar far side.

The impact carved out a colossal basin and melted part of the moon’s deep interior, forming what the researchers call the SPA impact melt rock.

That rock told a story not just of ancient violence, but of surprising resilience. Even after the moon’s mantle was stripped of water and key elements, it somehow erupted again 2.8 billion years ago – possibly triggered by a sudden reawakening of the moon’s magnetic field. “Our work has just started,” Yang said.

Following the Chang’e‑6 mission’s return of nearly 2kg (4.4lbs) of samples from the moon’s far side, the China National Space Administration announced plans to open access to international researchers.

While it may take time to prepare the portions for global distribution, the move could allow for independent testing of one of lunar science’s biggest questions.

China’s Wang Yi says deeper US exchanges on the cards after talks with Rubio

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3317999/chinas-wang-yi-says-deeper-us-exchanges-cards-after-talks-rubio?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the sit-down with his American counterpart Marco Rubio in Kuala Lumpur on Friday had set the stage for deeper exchanges.

Speaking to Chinese media on Saturday, Wang said the talks had helped to manage US-China differences as the rival powers seek to manage tensions amid rising trade frictions. Both sides recognised that they represented the most important bilateral relationship in the world, with an impact beyond their respective borders, he added.

“The meeting was constructive, with both sides engaging in equal dialogue in the spirit of mutual respect,” Wang said, according to a statement from his ministry.

“I believe that it has enhanced the US’ understanding of China and paved the way for the next step of exchanges between the two countries’ diplomatic teams.”

The statement said Wang spoke to the Chinese press after attending the Asean and East Asia-related meetings in the Malaysian capital but did not say where the interaction took place.

Friday’s talks, Wang added, could be summarised as having strengthened engagement, prevented misjudgments, managed differences, and expanded cooperation between the two countries.

“From the perspective of historical evolution and humanity as a whole, China and the United States, as two major countries, share extensive common interests and broad space for cooperation,” he said. “Both sides have the responsibility and the opportunity to find a correct way … to get along.”

Wang and Rubio spoke for about an hour on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting, their first in-person talks since Rubio became US secretary of state in January.

A Chinese readout of Friday’s meeting described the talks as “positive, pragmatic and constructive”, saying the two sides agreed to deepen dialogue “at all levels across various fields” and to explore expanding cooperation while managing differences.

Rubio also spoke positively about the meeting. The US and China disagreed on some issues but the talks “gave us some things we can work on together”, he said.

The top US diplomat, who is also America’s national security adviser, hinted at a possible meeting between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping this year. The “odds are high” he said, but added that the two sides had to “build the right atmosphere and the right deliverables”.

On Saturday, Wang also told Chinese media that his talks with Southeast Asian counterparts over the South China Sea had grown increasingly calm and confident.

The disputed waterway was “clearly stable”, with no issues concerning freedom of navigation and overflight, he emphasised.

But he also condemned external actors for interfering in regional affairs and seeking to sow discord. Without naming any country, Wang said these nations had been “persistent in pointing fingers” and appeared to “fear that the South China Sea will not be in chaos”.

“Countries in the region have seen [through] these ‘old tricks’ very clearly,” Wang said.

Beijing’s claims over most of the South China Sea and its features are disputed by several Asean members, most notably the Philippines – a US treaty ally. Clashes between China and the Philippines in contested areas of the strategic waterway have also heightened regional tensions in recent years.

Beijing has previously accused Washington of interfering in the South China Sea disputes – including through its support for Manila – saying it was undermining regional stability.

Recalling his meetings with Asean foreign ministers, Wang said that he had advocated for a “new narrative” for the South China Sea, one focused on peace, stability and cooperation rather than friction or confrontation.

“Of course, there is still one country that remains out of step with the rest but I believe it will eventually come to its senses. Acting as a pawn for others will only lead to being sacrificed,” he warned.

Asked about the Trump administration’s “reciprocal tariffs” on Southeast Asian economies, Wang described the international situation as a “mix of change and chaos”, while urging countries to choose between unilateralism and multilateralism.

He sought to sharply contrast the Chinese and American approaches, saying that while China had embraced openness, the US had imposed hefty tariffs on trade partners, disrupting the stability of global supply chains and impeding global economic growth.

“It is irresponsible, unpopular, and unsustainable,” he said.

“China will continue to stand firmly with countries in the region, promoting unity, cooperation, and collective strength. China will always be an advocate of multilateralism, a defender of free trade, and a contributor to open development.”

China’s Tianzhou-9 cargo craft set for Tiangong space station resupply mission

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3317990/chinas-tianzhou-9-cargo-craft-set-tiangong-space-station-resupply-mission?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s Tianzhou-9 cargo spacecraft is ready for launch to resupply the Tiangong Space Station, according to state news agency Xinhua on Saturday.

The cargo spacecraft and a Long March-7 Y10 carrier rocket have been transported to the launch pad at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the southern island province of Hainan, according to Xinhua, which cited the China Manned Space Agency.

“The cargo spacecraft will be launched in the near future at an appropriate time,” the space agency said.

It said functionality checks and joint tests would proceed as planned, adding that facilities and equipment at the launch site were “in good condition”.

The cargo spacecraft will carry 6.5 tonnes of supplies, including consumables, propellants and equipment for medical and space technology experiments to be performed by astronauts on the Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 missions, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

The supplies also include two sets of domestically developed spacesuits that can be used for 20 spacewalks over four years – an upgrade in lifespan from the previous three years and 15 spacewalks.

The astronauts will also receive a set of core muscle training devices designed to help counteract muscle atrophy in microgravity.

The three-person crew aboard the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, which lifted off in late April, are on a six-month mission. The Shenzhou-21 mission is scheduled for later this year.

During the Shenzhou-20 mission, the crew will study regeneration in planarians, a type of flatworm known for its ability to regenerate organs. The experiment could provide insights into human health issues and injuries in space.

Another experiment is expected to yield advances in biochips for vascularised brain organoids – lab-grown miniature brain models integrated with microfluidic chips. These models can be used for in-depth studies of the brain.

Tianzhou-9 measures 10.6 metres (35 feet) long and 3.35 metres in diameter and consists of a cargo cabin and a propulsion cabin.

Its main tasks are to transport cargo, replenish propellant for the space station and incinerate waste from the station. It also supports the space station’s orbit control and space science experiments.

The Long March-7 rocket series has sent the previous eight Tianzhou cargo spacecraft into orbit.

The Long March-7 rocket is China’s new-generation medium launch vehicle. It uses kerosene, a flammable liquid hydrocarbon fuel, and liquid oxygen as propellants. It has a low-Earth orbit payload capacity of 14 tonnes and can dynamically recalculate its optimal flight path.

“The Long March-7 rocket is technologically mature. The Long March-7 series, including the Long March-7A, will conduct multiple launch missions,” CCTV reported, adding the rockets would continue to carry cargo spacecraft to transport food, water, fuel and scientific equipment to the space station.

Chinese healthcare graduate sells ice cream, ‘embarrassed’ alma mater forces clip removal

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3317454/chinese-healthcare-graduate-sells-ice-cream-embarrassed-alma-mater-forces-clip-removal?utm_source=rss_feed

A woman in China who graduated from medical school and is now selling ice cream on the street has captivated mainland social media after alleging that her alma mater urged her to delete her videos because her story made it feel “embarrassed”.

The woman, surnamed Li, graduated three years ago from the privately-run Zhongshan College of Dalian Medical University in Liaoning province, northeastern China, earning a bachelor’s degree in medical imaging. Her experience gained significant attention with a viral video released in early May.

After graduation, Li accepted a position at a major hospital in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, where she is originally from. However, she left the job for unspecified reasons, as she stated in her video.

In April, she began selling ice cream mixed with mango from a street stall in Hechi, Guangxi, explaining that she needed to earn money while preparing for the civil service qualification exam, as reported by the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.

Following the video’s viral success – garnering 5 million views and 100,000 likes – Li received a phone call at the end of June from a teacher named Chen, her class instructor. Chen urged Li to remove her video, claiming it had negatively impacted the school’s reputation and caused current students to worry about their future, according to Li.

Li stated that she promptly deleted the video and refrained from mentioning the school’s name again. “But some people from the school still left comments on my social media account, attacking and defaming me. This incident has disrupted my life and my ice cream business,” Li was quoted as saying.

In response, Dalian College denied requesting Li to withdraw her video, asserting their support for diverse employment opportunities. “We do not discriminate against any job, nor do we feel embarrassed by our graduates’ endeavours to establish their own business,” the school stated on social media.

Nevertheless, an unnamed official acknowledged that Li’s experience had “posed a bad impact” for the institution. “Her video contained some untrue messages. She seems to be hyping up,” the official commented without providing further details.

Li revealed that she mentioned her alma mater in the video after some internet users questioned the legitimacy of her bachelor’s degree. “So I can’t disclose the name of the college where I studied for four years with a tuition exceeding 100,000 yuan (US$14,000)?” asked Li.

She expressed frustration over the school’s denial of having required her to delete her video, prompting her to recently repost it on social media. “If you believe I defame you, you can take me to court,” Li declared.

Some internet users criticised the school, with one stating: “She earns money through her own efforts. It’s none of your business.”

Meanwhile, others sided with the institution, asserting: “The woman mentioned the school’s name, aiming to grab public attention,” as one netizen pointed out.

Zhongshan College of Dalian Medical University is a small institution in China.

China and Egypt deepen ties as Beijing boosts influence in bid to solve Mideast crises

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3317860/china-and-egypt-deepen-ties-beijing-boosts-influence-bid-solve-mideast-crises?utm_source=rss_feed

Upon his arrival at Cairo International Airport on Wednesday, Chinese Premier Li Qiang recalled the enduring legacy of the ancient Silk Road, a centuries-old link that laid the groundwork for close trade and cultural exchanges between China and Egypt.

That connection now thrives as China recreates the network through its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, attracting billions into Egypt’s infrastructure and various sectors.

Chinese companies in Egypt have notably built Africa’s tallest skyscraper, set up the country’s first electric light rail and helped to modernise its electricity grid.

On Thursday, Li met Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, agreeing to deepen belt and road collaboration in trade, finance, manufacturing, renewable energy, technology and cultural exchanges.

Li also pledged to encourage more Chinese companies to invest in Egypt.

Chinese investment is prominent across Egypt, notably in projects such as the central business district in the New Administrative Capital east of Cairo – featuring Iconic Tower, Africa’s tallest skyscraper – and the Suez Canal Economic Zone.

Egypt’s strategic importance lies in the Suez Canal, the shortest maritime route linking Asia and Europe via the Mediterranean and Red Seas, making it a critical hub for global trade, especially for China’s commerce with Europe and Africa.

Sisi welcomed China’s growing economic role, highlighting interest in debt swaps and increased investment in renewables, electric vehicles and tourism. “China is a key partner in Egypt’s economic future,” he said.

Observers say China is leveraging Egypt’s crucial location at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East to strategically boost its belt and road plan, aiming to foster trade, improve security, and address regional hotspot issues.

This comes as China seeks to expand its influence to solve crises in the Middle East, such as the Gaza conflict and tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, amid a growing geopolitical rivalry with the United States.

US President Donald Trump recently hosted leaders from five African countries – Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal – sending a message that the US approach to Africa had moved from a focus on traditional aid to one emphasising trade, resources, investment and mutually beneficial economic partnerships.

Li’s visit to Cairo came amid growing disquiet in Egypt over Israel’s activities in Gaza, and discussions involving Trump concerning the potential resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Cairo, a long-standing American ally, has categorically rejected this proposal, deeming it a direct threat to Egypt’s national security and a damaging blow to the Palestinian cause. This stance aligns with China’s consistent rejection of any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza into Egyptian territory.

Li affirmed China’s readiness to maintain close communication with Egypt to “promote an early ceasefire in Gaza”, ensuring immediate humanitarian aid delivery and achieving a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian cause.

Li and Sisi also discussed the need for consolidating the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran and resuming diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis through peaceful means.

Andrea Ghiselli, a lecturer at the University of Exeter and head of research at the TOChina Hub’s ChinaMed Project, noted that China had in the past supported Egyptian proposals, adding that Beijing’s diplomacy in crises outside Asia was often influenced by regional consensus.

“Arab countries have become an increasingly important audience for China’s diplomacy in the context of the US-China rivalry”, Ghiselli said.

Given Egypt’s traditional diplomatic clout and its emergence as an important destination for Chinese companies looking to offshore production, “Egypt naturally is a critical interlocutor”, Ghiselli added.

He emphasised that Egypt was strategic both in its own right and within the context of its relationship with the US. Hence, Ghiselli said, “It is not surprising that China is talking about greater coordination with Egypt over this issue.”

John Calabrese, a non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, suggested that coordinated positions with China could amplify Egypt’s stance, particularly if the issue reached the UN Security Council.

Calabrese said the timing and substance of Li’s visit might reflect how China sought to capitalise on regional and geopolitical openings – especially when Washington’s attention was divided or distracted.

He said it might also be a response to “demand signals” from Egypt, which officially joined the Brics bloc of emerging nations last year. He said Egypt had “grown frustrated with US policy” – especially with respect to Gaza – and seemed intent on sending a message to or lessening its dependence on Washington.

Sun Degang, director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, pointed to a major development that in recent years had extended beyond the established trade and investment ties.

“China-Egypt defence cooperation, such as joint military rehearsals and arms sales, are a new frontier of cooperation,” he said, referring to the growing military collaboration between the two nations.

This shift is particularly evident as Egypt undertakes a significant military pivot from the West, exemplified by its acquisition of China’s advanced HQ-9B air defence system and their historic “Eagles of Civilisation 2025” joint air force drill involving Chinese J-10C fighters and YU-20 tankers. The 18-day exercise ending in early May was the first joint air training between China and Egypt.

Chinese unicorn Moonshot launches AI model Kimi K2 in red-hot open-source market

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3317986/chinese-unicorn-moonshot-launches-ai-model-kimi-k2-red-hot-open-source-market?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese start-up Moonshot AI has released a new open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model, called Kimi K2, that is touted to excel in frontier knowledge, maths, coding and general agentic tasks, as the company looks to maintain an edge against rivals such as DeepSeek.

Beijing-based Moonshot said Kimi K2 was developed with a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture and boasts 1 trillion total parameters, with 32 billion so-called activated parameters – specialised computational units engaged for specific tasks, according to the firm’s blog post on Friday.

MoE is a machine-learning approach that divides an AI model into separate sub-networks, or experts – each focused on a subset of the input data – to jointly perform a task. This is said to greatly reduce computation costs during pre-training and achieve faster performance during inference time.

Moonshot said it open-sourced two versions of Kimi K2. The foundation model, Kimi-K2-Base, was optimised for researchers and builders who want full control for fine-tuning and custom solutions. By contrast, Kimi-K2-Instruct was post-trained for drop-in, general-purpose chat and agentic AI experiences.

Kimi K2 is now freely available via its web and mobile applications.

Moonshot’s latest AI model reflects a broader trend in the industry towards open-source development, which has enabled developers – from start-ups like DeepSeek to larger tech firms such as Baidu and Alibaba Cloud – to improve efficiency and attain broader adoption of their AI products.

The open-source approach gives public access to a program’s source code, allowing third-party software developers to modify or share its design, fix broken links or scale up its capabilities.

The Qwen family of AI models developed by Alibaba Cloud – the AI and cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the South China Morning Post – has powered the world’s top 10 open-source large language models (LLMs), according to a February report by the collaborative machine-learning platform and community Hugging Face. That has made Qwen the world’s largest open-source AI ecosystem, surpassing Meta Platforms’ Llama community.

Apart from Moonshot, the other members of China’s new “AI tigers” have pursued an open-source strategy, including Zhipu AI and MiniMax. AI start-up Stepfun – backed by Shanghai municipal government-owned Capital Investment Co and Tencent Holdings – introduced two open-source multimodal models earlier this year.

With Kimi K2, Moonshot – in which Alibaba is a major backer – is expected to gain fresh attention in the global AI market after DeepSeek’s breakthrough release of its open-source V3 model in December and R1 in January, which were both built at a fraction of the cost and computing power that major tech companies typically require for LLM projects.

Kimi K2 possesses “advanced agentic intelligence,” according to Moonshot. That enables the model to understand how to use tools and get practical work done, including generating detailed salary analyses presented with statistical visualisation and interactive web pages.

Another example that Moonshot cited was how Kimi K2 can plan a user’s trip to London for a Coldplay concert. It autonomously managed tasks across multiple platforms and tools – including search engines, calendars, Gmail, flights, Airbnb and restaurant reservations.

So-called advanced model context protocol capabilities – an open standard that allows AI models to identify and use external tools and services – are expected to be introduced soon, according to Moonshot.

The company currently provides an application programming interface, compatible with OpenAI and Anthropic, that costs 4 yuan (56 US cents) per million input tokens and 16 yuan per million output tokens.

Just hours after Kimi K2’s release, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on social media platform X that the company would delay its much-anticipated open-sourced AI model, initially planned for release next week, to conduct further safety tests.

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Ancient Silk Road tombs in China join Unesco World Heritage list

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3317980/ancient-silk-road-tombs-china-join-unesco-world-heritage-list?utm_source=rss_feed

The Western Xia Imperial Tombs in northwest China has been designated as a Unesco World Heritage site – a recognition of the site’s importance as a centre of cultural fusion and commercial activity on the ancient Silk Road.

The group of burial sites, also known as the Xixia Imperial Tombs, officially received the designation from the United Nations cultural body on Friday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

The site dates back to the Western Xia dynasty (1038–1227), which was ruled by the Tangut people, an ancient branch of the Qiang ethnic group.

The site is located some 30km (19 miles) west of today’s Yinchuan, capital city of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

The 40 sq km (15 square miles) site is home to nine imperial mausoleums, their 271 accompanying subordinate tombs, 32 flood control works sites with walls and discharge trenches, as well as a five-hectare (12 acres) northern architectural complex site for purposes such as worship and management of the tomb area.

According to Xinhua, the World Heritage Committee said the site was a testament to the cultural fusion and interactions among diverse traditions that occurred during the period.

China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration said in a Unesco nomination document that the tomb complex was the largest and most intact archaeological site from the Western Xia dynasty to survive until the present day.

The Western Xia dynasty’s name comes from the fact that it was situated to the northwest of the Song dynasty territory controlled by the Han Chinese.

It also coexisted with the Liao dynasty and Western Liao dynasty, established by the Khitan people, the Jin dynasty founded by the Jurchen, various Tubo tribes, Uygur tribes and the Mongolian Empire ruled by the Mongols.

The Tangut people, composed of several tribes including the Tuoba, were nomadic and lived in the valleys of what is now southeastern Qinghai province and parts of Sichuan province.

The Tuoba tribe rose to become the leader of this tribal alliance and surrendered to the Tang dynasty in the early 7th century. The tribe was given the surname Li from the Tang royal family, which they used until the Western Xia dynasty was established in 1038.

Later, the Tubo Kingdom, or Tibetan Empire, forced the Tanguts to relocate to today’s eastern Gansu province, Ningxia, and northern Shaanxi province.

The National Cultural Heritage Administration said the group of tombs belonging to the Western Xia ruling class “attests to Xixia’s crucial role as a distribution centre on the Silk Roads during this period”.

The territory of the Western Xia was located between the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the southern edge of the Inner Mongolian Plateau.

It had the Yellow River to the east, Yumen Pass – or Jade Gate Pass, a strategic fort along the ancient Silk Road – to the west, Xiaoguan Pass to the south, and controlled the northern desert, according to the document.

“It held a strategically crucial position, controlling the vital Silk Road passage,” the agency said.

It added that 7,100 artefacts had been excavated from the site, including architectural components, stele inscriptions, objects for daily use, weaponry and armour fragments, sacrificial animal-shaped sculptures, animal skeletons and jewellery.

These “testify to the architectural technology, ceramic manufacturing, metallurgy, stone carving and other technologies of the Xixia civilisation”, according to the agency.

Analysing the placement of the tombs, the agency said the Tangut ruling class had been influenced by the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui – arranging buildings and space in an environment to achieve harmony.

“Tangut people had long-standing contacts and encounters with Han people. The siting and construction of their imperial mausoleums therefore were deeply influenced by the Chinese traditional theory of feng shui geomancy, which was profoundly used by dynastic China,” it said.

It noted the Western Xia Imperial Tombs faced southeast, with high mountains to the northwest, and Xingqing prefecture and the Yellow River in the east.

The mausoleums face the river and are set against the mountains, with a high and open terrain. The central axis of each mausoleum aligns with a specific peak of the Helan mountains.

The traditional mausoleum architecture of ancient China also influenced the architecture of the Western Xia Imperial Tombs.

“While most buildings in the nominated property are rammed earth structures, they used to have wooden structures and bricks and tiles, thus forming an architectural style that features rammed earth structures imitating wooden structures,” it said.

The site also features unusual structures, such as mausoleum pagodas, that are not seen in imperial mausoleums of any other period.

Also among the unique structures are stele pavilions with a round plan, which have thick walls built with adobe bricks and are different from common wooden stele pavilions with a square design.

The tomb chambers feature an earthen cave with a vaulted roof. Its wall surface was protected by wooden boards, which might have originated from the Tangut habit of dwelling in earthen houses.

“Since the conquest of the [Western Xia] dynasty by the Mongol Empire in 1227, this group of imperial burial sites has been preserved in the form of ruins until today,” the agency said of the authenticity of the site.

In 1972, the Ningxia Museum surveyed the site and excavation began.

Since 1988, the government has designated the site with the highest level of protection.

The addition of the imperial tombs brings China’s total number of World Heritage sites to 60, according to Xinhua.

The report quoted Rao Quan, China’s vice-minister of culture and tourism, as saying that “China will remain steadfast in fulfilling its obligations under the World Heritage Convention”.

Rao added that China would continue to improve the protection of cultural and natural heritage, as well as conservation capacity and standards.

China ‘luckiest driver’ survives after half of truck teetering on edge of collapsed bridge

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/environment/article/3317334/china-luckiest-driver-survives-after-half-truck-teetering-edge-collapsed-bridge?utm_source=rss_feed

Less than 10 days after a Chinese truck driver narrowly escaped a landslide that left his vehicle precariously balanced on a collapsed bridge, he returned to the disaster-stricken area to assist with relief efforts, moving many online.

The 44-year-old driver from Jiangxi province, You Guochun, earned the title of “China’s luckiest driver” from the online community after miraculously surviving a landslide in southwestern Guizhou province.

On that fateful day, incessant heavy rainfall triggered a landslide, causing a long bridge above a river to collapse. You was driving his heavy-duty truck on that very bridge when the disaster struck.

He immediately applied the brakes, but nearly half of the truck surged over the broken bridge, leaving it suspended 30 metres in the air.

During a live-stream, You revealed that he was transporting 22 tonnes of mineral powder that day, and it was the truck’s weight that ultimately prevented it from plummeting.

He noted he was driving slowly at only 50km/h, keeping his foot above the brake the entire time, which allowed him to stop the vehicle just in time.

Miraculously, the truck’s tractor did not detach from the trailer, an occurrence that could have easily happened, according to some online observers.

Several vehicles stopped behind him, and their drivers exited to film the scene. You was heard urging them to halt their advance and instructing them to stop the vehicles behind.

Rescuers arrived 80 minutes later and advised You to avoid sudden movements to prevent the tractor from shaking and disconnecting.

They climbed onto the top of the trailer and set up a ladder for You to ascend and safely return to solid ground.

The leader of the rescue team stated that while the operation was not technically difficult, it was incredibly perilous: “I dared not breathe heavily for fear of further collapsing the bridge.”

You emerged with minor injuries, and his truck suffered only slight damage, which has since been repaired. Local authorities reported that three vehicles were hit by the landslide, but all were empty.

Five days later, You returned home to his wife and daughter. The first thing his wife said was: “I hope you return safely every time.”

Following the incident, he live-streamed several times on social media, amassing over 300,000 followers.

“He was so lucky to have fully loaded his truck that day; otherwise, he would not have survived!” one commenter expressed.

You admitted he felt fear during the incident but has since fully recovered without trauma.

He stated he has no intention of selling the truck and will continue driving it until it breaks down.

In an act of gratitude, You decided to give back to those affected by the landslide. On July 3, he set out on another journey with his red truck to Guizhou, over 1,000km from his home.

This time, he loaded the truck with 1,500 bottles of water, 500kg of crispy rice granola bars – a specialty from his hometown – and various food supplies to donate to the locals in Guizhou.

He adorned the truck with a red banner reading, “Your friend from Jiangxi says ‘thank you’.”

This gesture garnered him widespread acclaim.

“Your friends from Guizhou say ‘thank you’ back to you. Wishing you safety on your journeys,” a person commented under You’s video.

Plunging pork and poultry prices put pressure on Chinese farmers

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3317886/plunging-pork-and-poultry-prices-put-pressure-chinese-farmers?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s major protein categories – from pork to poultry – fell into a severe state of oversupply in the first half of this year, with prices declining across the board and widespread losses throughout the supply chain.

Analysts said weak end-market demand and high inventory levels are weighing heavily on the breeding sector, and that while marginal improvements are expected in the second half of the year, the overall scope for recovery remains limited.

The trend highlights the fragility of China’s economic recovery under persistent deflationary pressure, with losses now common among livestock farmers.

Many farmers have taken to social media to lament their plight.

“I haven’t made any money since February, and I can’t afford to replace the cages even though they’re broken,” a farmer in Shandong province said on Monday in a post on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, adding that she was losing over 300 yuan (US$42) a day on her more than 6,000 egg-laying hens.

China’s consumer price index, a key gauge of inflation, entered positive territory in June for the first time since January, but food prices were down 0.3 per cent year on year, the fifth straight month of decline, Lynn Song, Greater China chief economist at Dutch bank ING, said on Wednesday.

Most types of food remained in deflationary territory, with the price of pork, down 8.5 per cent, and the price of eggs, down 7.7 per cent, exerting the most downward pressure. Aquatic products, up 3.4 per cent, and fruit, up 6.1 per cent, were among the few categories that saw price increases.

Chicken and duck farmers have been hit hard by weak demand, with prices falling to new lows in recent years, according to commodity market information provider Sublime China Information (SCI).

A short-term rebound in poultry prices is expected in the second half of the year, potentially driven by seasonal consumption peaks such as the National Day holiday in October. But Sun Yanan, a senior analyst at SCI, said: “Considering the unexpectedly weak terminal demand, coupled with high corporate frozen inventory constraints, the expected positive impact on demand is limited.”

The supply of white-feather broilers rose by nearly 16 per cent year on year in the first half of the year, and broiler duck output increased by close to 25 per cent, SCI data showed.

Meanwhile, the average price of white-feather broilers dropped by around 7 per cent year on year to 7.04 yuan/kg (44.5 US cents a pound). In February, the price for live broiler chicks fell to 5.58 yuan/kg – the lowest since 2018 – and it dipped again to around 5.6 yuan/kg early this month in some regions.

Meat duck prices also remained under heavy pressure, with average prices falling by more than 15 per cent in the first half of this year, and those of some duck by-products, such as duck necks, plunging by over 40 per cent.

A report by industry data provider Waterfowl Market last week said the entire supply chain – from breeding to slaughter – had slipped into losses. It warned that at least one-third of current duck production capacity might need to be eliminated to restore market balance.

The hog market has not been spared either. In June, leading listed pig producers in China reported declines in average selling prices on both a year-on-year and month-on-month basis.

According to data from the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planning agency, the average price per kilogram of live hogs fell to 14.45 yuan in the second week of June – the lowest level in 17 months and well below the 2020 peak of 37.83 yuan/kg.

SCI forecasts that live hog prices will remain at a low level in the second half of the year, ranging between 13.76 and 15.07 yuan/kg.

To curb further losses caused by oversupply and persistently low pork prices, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs plans to reduce the national breeding sow inventory by 1 million, bringing the total down to 39.5 million, CLS.cn, a financial and technology news platform, reported last month.

Chinese lead poisoning scandal sparks backlash, echoing earlier controversies

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3317959/chinese-lead-poisoning-scandal-sparks-backlash-echoing-earlier-controversies?utm_source=rss_feed

A lead poisoning scandal at a kindergarten in northwest China – and the local government’s attempt to cover up wrongdoing – has sparked public backlash, and observers say the case highlights a familiar pattern often seen in the wake of high-profile safety incidents.

Liu Qifang, the father of a girl who attended the kindergarten at the centre of the scandal, received a phone call from an unknown caller last week, according to South Reviews magazine on Tuesday.

The caller confirmed Liu’s identity, then curtly said “5.416” and hung up.

The number was a reference to his daughter’s results from a blood test in Tianshui in Gansu province, where the kindergarten is located. That test said his daughter’s blood lead level was 5.416 micrograms per litre (mcg/L), much lower than the 100mcg/L level deemed elevated in children by Chinese health authorities.

Liu decided to have his daughter tested in Xian, capital of neighbouring Shaanxi province, as reassurance. That test result came out to 232mcg/L – 40 times the number he was told in Gansu.

Other parents shared similar stories with the media. After the scandal was revealed, they received normal test results over the phone from people they believed to be local government workers.

One parent at the Xian hospital told news portal The Paper that a worker had tried to persuade them to take the children back to Gansu for testing, saying that “90 per cent of the children tested all right”.

Tianshui authorities did not respond to phone calls from the Post.

Discrepancies in the test results have led to questions and public backlash.

On Tuesday, a team of provincial investigators published a statement concluding that kindergarten canteen staff, with the consent of administrators, had used decorative paint in pastry, resulting in 233 out of 251 children having abnormal blood lead levels.

Lead poisoning can cause irreversible damage to the brain and central nervous system, leading to intellectual and behavioural impairments. It can cause problems such as anaemia, hypertension and kidney dysfunction. In severe cases, it may result in coma, seizures and death.

Eight people, including the kindergarten’s principal, were detained by local police. But the gesture did little to quell the controversy. The public was sceptical of the official explanation, with some unconvinced that a chef would add inedible pigments to food.

Others suspected the lead exposure did not happen through food but rather via water or air pollution. Some made connections to an earlier lead poisoning case in Tianshui.

In 2006, more than 200 villagers in Tianshui were found to have abnormal blood lead levels but received normal test results from a centre designated by the local government, news site Zhejiang Online reported at the time.

They started to suspect the culprit was water pollution from local chemical plants, but government officials said the companies had passed environmental evaluations before being allowed to operate, according to the report.

The Tianshui officials reacted the way many local governments do when faced with public safety incidents – and it backfired. When safety concerns arise in China, it is common for authorities to monitor and stifle public opinion and news reports out of fear that they could cause instability and result in local cadres being punished.

Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, called attempts to conceal the scandal “a foolish act”.

He pointed to a similar case, reported by Caixin magazine, in which two artists were detained by police from Yulin, Shaanxi last month for their performance art about local water pollution, including a video meant to tell the public about cancer risks and other diseases linked to the pollution.

Local governments are also known to block reporters and censor the internet in response to public safety concerns.

For example, in November, a car rammed into a crowd in in Zhuhai in Guangdong province, killing 35. When the Post visited the site, police were deployed around the gymnasium and hospitals where victims were being treated.

During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Wuhan government censored discussion on the topic and local police disciplined a doctor who revealed early cases in a WeChat group. But eventually the crisis could not be contained. In response, Chinese authorities purged Communist Party heads in the region over their handling of the matter.

A Beijing-based criminal lawyer who represented victims in a previous lead poisoning case told the Post it was quite common for local governments to cover up the truth or even fabricate information to maintain social stability. But in the end, the truth is typically revealed and local governments become the target.

The lawyer called for governments to be entirely transparent when dealing with public health or security cases. He also called for independent investigations into such cases.

“These incidents are usually related to local government’s political performance, so their own investigation might be unjust or interfered with,” he said.

Chinese authorities have long recognised this tendency in local governments. Last month, in a cautionary commentary published online, the publicity department of the Zhejiang provincial party committee said that many cadres did not know how to properly respond to public opinion and often made matters worse by procrastinating in response, hiding the truth, making quick conclusions without research, and placing the blame on others.

“A poorly handled response to public opinion not only risks diverting attention from core issues, but also has negative repercussions, causing the government to lose its voice, credibility and public trust,” the commentary warned.

Investigations into the Tianshui lead poisoning case are under way. The Gansu provincial government has called on local authorities to take campus food safety seriously. Central authorities have yet to comment on the matter.

Fang predicted that the local government would eventually receive a punishment to avoid public discussion of other, more sensitive issues, but similar incidents would still happen across the country.

“This is just like how the 2006 lead poisoning case did not prevent this one from happening,” he wrote in his newsletter.

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Chinese law firms in ‘pivotal moment’ as they answer the call to go global

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3317864/chinese-law-firms-pivotal-moment-they-answer-call-go-global?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese lawyers are making inroads into the global legal services market in response to growing demand from their compatriots abroad and a push from Beijing.

They say that as more Chinese companies expand their footprint overseas, many prefer to get legal support from Chinese lawyers and have more trust in them, but winning over clients from elsewhere is a challenge at a time of rising geopolitical tensions.

Beijing has been pressing for more legal professionals to offer their services abroad to protect Chinese assets as its mega trade and investment strategy the Belt and Road Initiative marches into a second decade.

As of last year, Chinese law firms had established some 207 offices overseas – more than 35 per cent of them located in countries involved in the belt and road strategy, the Ministry of Justice said in April.

That marked an increase of 70 per cent from 2018, when there were 122 Chinese legal offices abroad.

“Lawyers play an important role in supporting Chinese companies in their global expansion and it’s essential for us to stay attuned in these changing times and to respond proactively,” said Liu Zhiqiang, a lawyer and executive director of Yingke Law Firm’s office in Budapest, Hungary.

“If China’s legal profession seeks innovation, transformation and further growth, then going global is no longer optional – it’s a necessary and inevitable path forward.”

Much of this expansion by Chinese companies is happening in countries that are part of the belt and road scheme. More than 17,000 overseas Chinese companies had been set up in belt and road countries by the end of 2023 with a combined US$40 billion in direct investments, according to a Ministry of Commerce report in 2024. That was a 31.5 per cent rise from the previous year.

The Chinese law firms that have followed tend to operate on a small scale when they branch out overseas. Generally they offer business consultation and dispute services, but they can also handle communication between Chinese clients and Chinese government officials, and coordinate legal matters with host countries.

“When Chinese companies – especially small and medium-sized ones – go global, they tend to choose Chinese lawyers due to cost effectiveness, shared language, cultural familiarity and the overall ease of communication,” Liu said.

They are also seen by Chinese companies as trustworthy when it comes to national security matters and protecting sensitive data.

Against the backdrop of a growing strategic rivalry with the United States, China has tightened its grip on national security and expanded its legal toolbox in a bid to counter foreign sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction.

“Clients may wonder, can sensitive information – such as internal decision-making processes – be safely entrusted to a foreign law firm and is information and data security truly guaranteed?” Liu said

“And more importantly, in situations involving major national interest, can that firm be fully relied upon to act in their best interest?”

He noted that some of the big state-owned Chinese companies operating overseas wanted to know in the tender process if a law firm was based in a Five Eyes country – the intelligence alliance between the United Kingdom, the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Terence Wong, a partner at the Hong Kong-based law firm Loeb & Loeb, said it was a “pivotal moment” for the profession in China.

“Chinese law firms are no longer just chasing global expansion for prestige. They are serious players in international legal services by leveraging their deep ties with Chinese companies,” he said.

Wong said many Chinese law firms were aligning their global strategies with national initiatives, including the belt and road, and positioning themselves as both “commercial and policy-savvy partners” to the Chinese government.

That view was echoed by Zhu Cuiying, director of the Seoul office of Chinese law firm DeHeng.

She said geopolitical considerations were a factor for Chinese companies when they expanded overseas.

Zhu gave the example of a Chinese company operating in South Korea that might need to reconsider its ownership structure and supply chains if it wanted to export to the US, which has tightened scrutiny of supply chains and the origins of subsidies.

Liu in Budapest agreed. “The biggest challenge [for Chinese companies abroad] lies in the increasing geopolitical tensions, which have prompted the EU to introduce a growing number of policies aimed at restricting Chinese products,” he said.

China is Hungary’s largest trading partner outside the European Union and leading Chinese electric vehicle makers like BYD and battery firm EVE Energy have set up production bases in the country.

Wong, based in Hong Kong, also pointed to the geopolitics factor, and the increased scrutiny of Chinese law firms and their clients.

He said Chinese law firms “must evolve in capability, brand positioning and strategic thinking to make a lasting global impact”.

“Watching how they overcome these challenges will be fascinating over the next decade,” Wong said. “Gaining the trust of non-Chinese clients and breaking into truly international mandates is still a work in progress.”

Why ‘uneasy alliance’ between US tech titans and Maga may backfire in China rivalry

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3317851/why-uneasy-alliance-between-us-tech-titans-and-maga-may-backfire-china-rivalry?utm_source=rss_feed

The “uneasy alliance” between America’s tech elite and Donald Trump’s populist right base could undermine the country’s competitiveness against China in the long run by cutting off talent and global markets, according to analysts.

They also pointed to growing ties between the tech sector and the defence industry – including a new initiative enlisting senior tech executives to the Army Reserve – saying the “tech hawks” could step up threats against China.

The political influence of tech leaders has expanded since Trump’s return to the White House in January, and analysts say they could have a big impact on China strategy in the coming years – though the public fallout between Trump and billionaire Elon Musk highlights the fragility of the alliance.

Shi Bowei, a research fellow at the Zhejiang Party School, said the trend of US tech firms deepening cooperation with the defence sector was one to watch.

“Will tech leaders shift away from their traditional stance of avoiding excessive foreign entanglements and instead embrace a more assertive, interventionist posture – evolving into aggressive ‘tech hawks’ or even zealous advocates of militarism?” Shi wrote on Tuesday in American Studies, a journal published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He also said tensions between the tech elite and the Make America Great Again camp could ultimately undermine efforts by the tech right to reshape US politics.

Shi said the positions, influence and political trajectory of America’s “pragmatic and opportunistic” tech elite would have a huge bearing on the outcome of US-China tech competition.

On China policy, he noted that most of Trump’s tech backers were pushing for continued pressure to contain Chinese technological development and for further decoupling in hi-tech sectors.

Kyle Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, said the Trump-Musk split reflected broader tensions between Maga and the tech right, whose priorities were “fundamentally different or even at odds” – even though they shared goals like deregulation and dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.

He said their “uneasy alliance” could backfire when it came to competing with China.

“By aligning themselves with the anti-immigrant stances of the Maga base, the tech right may end up cutting off the one resource they need the most to compete with China, which is foreign talent,” said Chan, who is also an adjunct researcher at US think tank the RAND Corporation.

Adam Thierer, a senior fellow for the Technology and Innovation team at the R Street Institute think tank in Washington, said growing tensions between the tech right and populist right – on trade, immigration, antitrust and even culture – were straining the coalition that helped Trump get re-elected.

He said that as the balance of power appeared to be shifting in favour of the populist right, US tech firms might disengage from global markets – even as Washington makes competing with China on AI a priority.

“This would undermine US tech leadership globally and allow China to play a more active role in shaping global technology markets going forward,” he said.

Over the past year, a powerful group of tech figures has forged strong ties – independent of Musk – to the White House and federal agencies, shaping policy on crypto, AI and defence. They have placed allies in key roles, including former Uber executive Emil Michael, who was recently confirmed to a top Pentagon position, and investor David Sacks as the White House’s crypto and AI tsar.

Chan also said the tech sector’s embrace of the national security establishment would shape the US posture towards China.

“Not so long ago … [for] Silicon Valley, China used to be seen as an incredible business opportunity,” he said. “Now the reverse is true: the ‘China threat’ factor is now a business driver for Silicon Valley’s work with the US defence industry.”

Adam Segal, director of the digital and cyberspace policy programme at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the tech right remained motivated by the tech rivalry with China.

“Musk was one voice closer to the president who probably argued for limits on tech competition, at least in areas where he has economic interests in the PRC … but so far the benefits for the tech right of aligning with Maga definitely outweigh the costs,” he said.

“They still see common ground on defence procurement reform, pushback against EU and domestic regulation, and China.”

Josef Gregory Mahoney, a professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University in Shanghai, said American tech executives were split between those who wanted access to the Chinese market and those who wanted to thwart rivals from China – the latter aligning more closely with Washington’s current strategy.

In US-China tug of war, Australia puts itself first

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3317927/us-china-tug-war-australia-puts-itself-first?utm_source=rss_feed

For much of its history, Australia’s identity has been defined by distance – geographical, political, psychological. Now, with global tensions rising, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is testing whether that distance might yet be a source of strength.

The answer, he seems to believe, lies in recalibrating Australia’s relationships with friends and rivals alike. As both critics from the political left and independent observers assail the cost and risks of Aukus – and the right demands ever-greater defence spending – Albanese has chosen his moment to assert a new doctrine: not America first, nor China first, but Australia first.

In doing so, he has looked to the past for inspiration. At last weekend’s commemoration of wartime leader John Curtin, Albanese delivered a speech that signalled this new direction, just days before his arrival in Beijing for a state visit.

He lauded Curtin as the “father” of the US-Australian alliance – now “a pillar of our foreign policy” – not only for turning to Washington following Britain’s disastrous surrender of Singapore to invading Japanese forces during World War II, but for insisting that Australia’s foreign and defence posture must be rooted in strategic reality, not tradition.

“Curtin restored in Labor what he revived in Australia: unity and purpose in times of crisis and uncertainty; ambition and cooperation in pursuit of opportunity, and above all, the confidence and determination to think and act for ourselves – to follow our own course and shape our own future,” Albanese said last Saturday of his long-ago predecessor as Labor party leader.

Albanese’s speech followed an emphatic election victory in May, granting his government another three years in office and, with support from the Greens in the Senate, the latitude for bold policy decisions. There is no indication his administration will abandon the Aukus nuclear-submarine programme or the Anzus alliance with the United States and New Zealand, both of which retain broad public backing; a recent Lowy Institute poll found six in 10 Australians surveyed believed the country should do more to deter China militarily.

But the return of Donald Trump to the White House has caused trust in the US to plummet, with only a third of Australians now regarding America as a responsible global actor and a mere quarter seeing Trump as a competent leader. The Lowy poll also found deep wariness of China, with 80 per cent expressing concern over Beijing’s ambitions, and just 16 per cent viewing President Xi Jinping as a responsible head of state.

Albanese’s speech was, in part, a direct answer to recent US demands that Australia raise defence spending to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product. He had earlier curtly rejected such calls, testily asserting that Australia’s defence strategy would remain a sovereign imperative. James Curran, a professor of modern history at the University of Sydney and author of Australia’s China Odyssey: From Euphoria to Fear, called it Albanese’s most significant address as prime minister.

“He was clearly giving a polite ‘two fingers’ to Washington’s calls we increase our defence spend,” Curran said. “He invoked the Curtin myth and World War II to make the point that we have a close relationship with the United States. But he made it very clear that it is the Australian government that will decide what is in Australia’s national interest.”

While Albanese’s government has outlined ambitious plans to modernise the military, deep dysfunction exists within the defence sector. Reports suggest dozens of senior officers and bureaucrats face imminent dismissal as part of a sweeping shake-up.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has argued that boosting spending without tackling structural issues such as workforce shortages, procurement inefficiencies and an institutional culture lacking transparency and accountability would do little to enhance capability. Sober minds in Washington may recognise this logic, and in any event, Australia’s long-standing ties with the US – rooted in shared values, culture and history – give Canberra significant bargaining power, even with a volatile Trump administration.

These bonds run deep, tested in conflicts from World War I onwards. Australia hosts a network of joint military facilities, including those vital for signals intelligence, missile launch confirmation across Asia and the Middle East, and relaying communications to warships in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. A rapidly expanding naval base in Western Australia is set to house British and US nuclear-powered submarines from 2027, while the country’s Northern Territory hosts rotating deployments of US marines and nuclear-capable bombers.

Australia also forms the southern anchor of the “democratic defence diamond”, according to Troy Lee-Brown, a research fellow at the University of Western Australia’s Defence and Security Institute, referring to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, grouping that links India and Japan to the US-Australia axis.

“The Quad gives considerable strategic depth to handle contingencies across the Asia-Pacific, and Australia is essentially a huge unsinkable aircraft carrier,” he said. “It is a vital deployment and logistics hub for America’s military presence in the Asia-Pacific.”

Albanese’s recent assertion of sovereignty comes as Australia quietly fumes over the imposition of tariffs on its exports by the US – its third-largest trading partner after China and Japan – despite a free-trade agreement signed in 2005.

His speech also reflects the shifting role of Australia as a middle power in a region of some 4 billion people confronted with the most volatile strategic environment since the second world war.

Allegiances across the region are rapidly evolving under the twin pressures of Chinese assertiveness and the Trump administration’s apparent disregard for established alliances, as Lee-Brown observes.

“A lot of countries in Southeast Asia were split, some in the Chinese camp, some in the US camp, some in the middle,” he said. “But with the behaviour of the Trump administration, most are going to end up in the China camp.”

“India is interesting in that they’ve been forging ahead with their ‘Act-East’ policy. India is really pushing its relationships with Singapore and Indonesia, but also the Philippines with its sale of BrahMos missiles, and its strategic alliance with Vietnam.”

Long dismissed by its detractors as an arrogant newcomer to the region relevant only by virtue of its relationship with the US, Australia’s transformation since the abandonment of the White Australia policy in the early 1970s has been profound. Today, while half the population claims British or European ancestry, one-third of its 28 million people are immigrants – many from China, India, the Philippines and Vietnam – with large diasporas from elsewhere in Asia strengthening Australia’s ties to its immediate neighbourhood.

According to this year’s Lowy Institute poll, Australians generally hold Japan and Singapore in particularly high esteem, with South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia close behind. More than half view Indonesia and India favourably.

The institute’s 2024 Asia Power Index ranked Australia fifth behind the US, China, India and Japan. Susanna Patton, director of Lowy’s Southeast Asia programme, said Australia scored highly for diplomatic and cultural influence, as well as economic exchanges. Its rating for defence networks slipped marginally, yet it remained second only to the US and ahead of Japan.

“I’ve got a view that goes against a lot of what you hear about Australia’s engagement with Asia, which tends to be very negative and tends to be framed through the prism that Australia’s engagement with Asia used to be better than what it is now,” she said. “But if you look at the facts of Australia’s current relationships in Asia, they are much more substantial and much more positive than they have been in the past.”

Australia’s trading relationships with China, Japan and South Korea are robust, and trade with India has surged since the signing of a free-trade agreement in 2022.

Trade with Southeast Asia has grown in nominal terms over the past 20 years, though the region’s share of Australia’s total trade remains stuck at around 15 per cent. Similarly, investment in the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – one of the world’s largest trading blocs – remains modest, comprising only 3.4 per cent of Australia’s total overseas investment in 2022.

Speaking on Thursday at an event in Kuala Lumpur, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong offered Southeast Asia reassurances about her country’s “role in the region”.

“Australia still believes in the logic of the post-war economic order,” she told the audience at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies’ Malaysia Forum on Australia and Southeast Asia. “Economic security doesn’t have to be code for putting up walls. It is about making the right investments, with the right partners, at the right time.”

Touching on the issue of sovereignty, Wong said “there are some who want to define Australia’s security simply in terms of what China does or the United States does in the region. Or even more simply define Australia by our traditional allies and partners alone.”

“This has never sat well with me,” she said. “We may be bound by the geography that fate has chosen for us, but we are strengthened by the partnerships that we choose for ourselves.”

Paradoxically, Australia’s devotion to free trade has undermined its economic diversity. Over four decades, it has become a champion of open markets, signing 18 free trade agreements, including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. But its exports are now dominated by “rocks and crops” – low value-added outputs such as minerals, energy and agricultural goods highly vulnerable to economic ups and downs.

Harvard University’s Growth Lab ranks Australia 105th out of 145 countries for economic complexity – a proxy for resilience. Since 1995, it has tumbled 43 places on the Atlas of Economic Complexity, now nestled between Botswana and the Ivory Coast. The country’s lack of export diversification, the index cautions, could threaten its future prosperity.

In 1964, Donald Horne’s book The Lucky Country described Australia as a nation rich in resources but hindered by unimaginative leadership. Two decades later, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew warned Australia to reform or risk becoming “the poor white trash of Asia” – a reminder that mineral wealth alone is neither necessary nor sufficient for enduring prosperity and influence.

Wang Yi reiterates Beijing’s rejection of South China Sea ruling

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3317953/wang-yi-reiterates-chinas-rejection-south-china-sea-ruling?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi restated Beijing’s rejection of the 2016 South China Sea arbitration ruling on Friday, on the eve of the ruling’s ninth anniversary, amid renewed tensions and growing speculation about a potential second legal challenge.

Calling the decision a “farce”, Wang said the case, brought by the Philippines against China’s South China Sea claims and ruled on by a tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, was “orchestrated and manipulated by external powers”.

Their purpose “was to destabilise the South China Sea for their own benefit”, Wang said during the annual East Asian foreign ministers’ meetings in Kuala Lumpur.

He said China works to maintain stability in the region and has been speeding up the negotiation of a binding South China Sea code of conduct with Asean.

“All attempts to stir up trouble or sow discord will ultimately fail,” he added.

The Philippines filed the case with the court in 2013, but Beijing refused to participate.

The court, in China’s absence, ruled on July 12, 2016, in support of most of the Philippines’ submissions, including its contention that China’s extensive claim via the “nine-dash line” appearing on Chinese maps since 1953 was invalid under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

Additionally, the court ruled that China’s land reclamation projects in the area were environmentally harmful.

The ruling also held that no land features in the disputed Spratly Islands could be classified as “islands”, meaning that China could not claim exclusive economic zones around the reefs it occupies, while the Philippines could extend its zone from its coastline to include those reefs.

Despite having signed Unclos in 1982 and ratified it in 1996, China strongly rejected the ruling and improved ties with former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte by “putting aside” the ruling during his 2016-2022 term.

However, tension has escalated since the current Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, took office.

It has been reported that Manila is considering filing a new UN arbitration regarding the maritime conflicts.

In his remarks on Friday, Wang repeated China’s declaration of “four noes” in the case – no acceptance, no participation, no recognition and no implementation.

He contended that the case addressed the issues of territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation, which exceed the jurisdiction of both Unclos and the arbitration tribunal’s authority.

China and other major world powers, he said, had excluded maritime delimitation when they joined the convention.

“The tribunal’s handling constituted an overreach, abusing the convention’s dispute resolution mechanism and undermining international maritime rule of law. They are violating the convention under the banner of the convention,” Wang said.

He added that the Philippines did not seek prior consultations with China before filing to the tribunal, and that therefore the initiation of the arbitration was legally flawed.

He also accused Manila of breaking its commitment to the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China calls for South China Sea disputes to be solved through dialogue, as well as its bilateral promises to Beijing.

Wang also condemned the tribunal’s “flawed and erroneous” decision to classify the Taiping Island (Itu Aba) of the Spratlys – a 0.5-square-kilometre island with fresh water and vegetation occupied by Taiwan – as a “rock” that could not sustain an exclusive economic zone.

Beijing sees the self-governed island of Taiwan as a rogue province, to be reunited eventually with the mainland, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take it by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.

“If this standard were applied globally, the international maritime order would be rewritten, potentially depriving many nations ... of their maritime rights,” he said.

“Are you also willing to give up your claims?”

Chinese man jailed for spiking colleague’s drink with ‘truth serum’ to steal work plan

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3317166/chinese-man-jailed-spiking-colleagues-drink-truth-serum-steal-work-plan?utm_source=rss_feed

An employee in China shocked many by spiking a colleague’s drink with a “truth serum” on three separate occasions in an attempt to steal his work plan.

The scheme began when a man surnamed Li, from Shanghai, came across a so-called “truth serum” during a business trip.

The seller claimed, “Just a few drops will make people tell the truth.” This intrigued Li, motivating him to test its effects.

Although it remains unclear what type of company Li worked for and the significance of the work plans, he ultimately selected his colleague Wang as the test subject, intending to extract Wang’s plans through the serum.

On August 29, 2022, during a dinner in Xuhui District, Li secretly added the “truth serum” to Wang’s drink, mixing it with yellow wine and beer.

As a result, Wang experienced dizziness and altered consciousness, prompting him to seek medical attention on August 30 and 31.

On October 13, 2022, during another dinner in Yangpu District, Li repeated the act, once again mixing the substance with beer. Wang suffered from dizziness and vomiting again.

The third and final incident occurred on November 6, 2022, when Wang, still unaware of the danger, joined Li for dinner.

While Wang was briefly distracted, Li seized the opportunity to add the “truth serum” to his drink, camouflaging it with chrysanthemum tea and tricking Wang into drinking it.

Soon after, Wang developed dizziness and lost consciousness, leading him to visit the hospital the following day.

It was only after this third episode that Wang began to suspect foul play, recalling that he had experienced similar symptoms after their previous two meals.

Upon medical examination, Wang’s urine and hair samples tested positive for sedative components – specifically clonazepam and xylazine, both of which are potent central nervous system depressants.

Notably, clonazepam is classified as a Class II psychotropic drug under national regulations, possessing both medicinal and illicit properties.

Subsequent investigations revealed that the so-called “truth serum” Li administered contained both clonazepam and xylazine.

When confronted by public prosecution authorities, Li fully confessed to all three instances of administering the “truth serum” to Wang.

Recently, the Shanghai Jing’an District People’s Court found Li guilty of inducing drug use through deception.

He was sentenced to three years and three months in prison and fined 10,000 yuan (US$1,400).

Wang’s current condition and potential long-term side effects remain undisclosed.

Prosecutors have issued strong warnings regarding hidden drugs, noting that such substances are highly deceptive – often disguised as everyday items like milk tea, popping candy, biscuits, or regular beverages – with appearances, smells, and tastes nearly indistinguishable from normal food and drinks.

The incident has shocked many on mainland social media.

One person asked: “What kind of work plan requires this level of performance? Are we talking about a deal worth millions or tens of millions?”

Another commented: “All this just for work – it’s absurd. But one thing’s for sure, it definitely isn’t some job that pays just a few thousand yuan a month. Going this crazy for that little money would be insane.”

China has 60 drugs under trial to rival Ozempic in US$150 billion weight-loss market

https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3317715/china-has-60-drugs-under-trial-rival-ozempic-others-us150-bn-weight-loss-market?utm_source=rss_feed

When Hong Kong office worker W.K. Chan began putting on weight as a teenager, her doctor said it was due to hormonal imbalances that slowed her metabolism. She reached a peak weight of 100kg about a year ago, but has since lost 25kg.

The secret to losing a quarter of her weight? Chan, who asked not to be identified by her full name, was one of the city’s first 200 chronic obesity patients to receive access to a new weight loss drug, originally developed for diabetes. At a cost of HK$2,700 (US$344) each month, it was not cheap.

“I’m lucky since my family pays for my drug bills, but my friends who want it can’t afford it,” she said. “My doctor said I can reduce the dosage and the costs provided I keep up with my low-sugar diet and do cardiovascular exercises to maintain my weight.”

Chan’s friends and others with similar health problems may soon have better and more affordable access to the drugs that treat both diabetes and obesity, analysts said.

That is because the patent on semaglutide – the drug that mimics the naturally-produced hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that regulates blood sugar, appetite and digestion – expires in China next year. In other markets, the patent will expire in 2031 or 2032. Semaglutide is sold by Novo Nordisk as Ozempic.

Analysts said cheaper generic versions of the drug could then be launched by rivals, bringing down prices. Up to 20 generic players in China will vie for market share and exert downward pressure on prices, according to a report published in May by Boston-based L.E.K. Consulting.

In addition, over 60 novel GLP-1 drug candidates were undergoing late-stage clinical trials in China, and these would potentially compete directly with semaglutide and rival product tirzepatide developed by US-based Eli Lilly, it added. The two products dominate the global weight loss drug market.

In April, Beijing launched a nationwide weight management campaign to address what it said was “a major public health threat”.

According to a study commissioned by the National Health Commission, some 34.3 per cent of adults were overweight while another 16.4 per cent were obese in 2018, up from 22.8 per cent and 7.1 per cent in 2002, respectively.

Just over 70 per cent of the population would be overweight or obese by 2030, and if the problem was not addressed effectively, it would consume 22 per cent of the nation’s total healthcare budget, according to the commission.

The US Food and Drug Administration approved semaglutide for type 2 diabetes in 2017 and extended approval for obesity and related diseases in 2021.

Pharmaceutical firms jumped in, encouraged by an untapped market unhindered by high prices, and the proven efficacy of GLP-1 drugs that could reduce a patient’s weight by 12 to 20 per cent within 50 weeks, while claiming a relatively safe profile with the most common side effects limited to gastrointestinal discomfort, said Chen Ziyi, head of Asia healthcare research at Goldman Sachs.

Semaglutide was the world’s second bestselling drug last year, generating US$20.8 billion in sales from two formulations for diabetes and US$8.4 billion from a formulation for chronic weight management, after Merck’s cancer drug Keytruda that raked in US$29.5 billion, according to the pharmaceutical publication Drug Discovery & Development.

Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide recorded sales of US$11.5 billion from diabetes prescriptions and US$4.9 billion from weight loss use.

“GLP-1 obesity drugs will help drive record overall prescription drug sales growth and catapult Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to the top of the company rankings by the end of the decade,” London-based consultancy Evaluate wrote in a report a year ago.

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk were No 9 and No 11, respectively, in terms of global pharmaceutical revenues last year, according to Drug Discovery & Development.

Industry estimates for the global anti-obesity drugs market range from US$100 billion to US$150 billion by 2035. Sales last year were around US$30 billion, according to US healthcare data provider IQVIA.

In comparison, the global PD-1/PD-L1 immunotherapies market, the biggest oncology drugs category by sales, is projected to grow 11.9 per cent annually to reach US$110 billion by 2031, up from US$50 billion last year, according to research firm iHealthcareAnalyst.

“Even the largest category of oncology drugs may be smaller than anti-obesity medications in terms of sales potential, mainly because the prevalence of obesity is much higher than that of other chronic diseases,” Chen said.

In mainland China, semaglutide was approved for diabetes in 2021 and as an anti-obesity medication last year, while tirzepatide was given the marketing greenlight for both uses last year.

China’s weight loss drugs market could grow to 40 billion yuan (US$5.6 billion) in 2035 from a low base, according to Goldman’s Chen. Sales are primarily driven by Novo Nordisk, which reported US$285 million in GLP-1 drug sales for diabetes in China in the first quarter, and US$11 million in sales for weight loss applications.

Chen said his projection accounted for “hard core” medical demand from obese patients who tend to have other health issues like cardiovascular and kidney diseases, and need longer-term usage of the drugs, as well as demand from overweight users who may need it for only three to four months.

“Weight loss drug demand will depend on the duration of usage, their pricing and companies’ marketing strategies,” Chen said. “Even at 40 billion yuan, the market is big enough to attract many domestic and international firms to invest in its research and development.”

New entrants with novel products would compete with the incumbents on the depth, speed and permanence of weight loss achievable, as well as price and usage convenience, he noted. The ability to claim less severe side effects such as nausea and muscle loss would also give newcomers an advantage.

Five Chinese firms have applied for marketing approval for generic versions of semaglutide, according to Goldman Sachs.

On June 27, Jiangsu province-based Innovent Biologics said it received Chinese regulatory approval for mazdutide, which it claimed was the world’s first to mimic the natural hormones of GLP-1 and glucagon, the latter of which plays a crucial role in regulating blood glucose levels.

Listed in Hong Kong, Innovent licensed the China development and marketing rights for mazdutide from Eli Lilly in 2019. It has also applied for approval to use the drug for treating diabetes in China.

Using the once-weekly injected drug, some 610 overweight or obese participants in its clinical trial achieved an average weight loss of 14.8 per cent by week 48, and an 80 per cent reduction in liver fat content, Innovent said.

In January, industry media Fierce Pharma ranked mazdutide No 7 out of the top 10 most anticipated drugs to be launched this year, with projected sales of US$1.3 billion in 2030.

Innovent, which did not respond to queries about its market launch date, sales channels and pricing, could generate over 600 million yuan of revenue from mazdutide this year and reach peak sales of 3.5 billion yuan in 2029, according to a July 1 report by Zheng Yurou, an equity analyst at investment research firm Morningstar.

However, the future was uncertain, said Goldman’s Chen. “No one has a crystal ball to see what the landscape will be like in 2027,” he said. “It is too complicated, given this will also be the first time a major blockbuster not covered by the Chinese government’s national health insurance drug reimbursement scheme faces the onslaught of generics.”

Sales channels and pricing tactics would determine the growth of various market segments, which would include demand from moderately overweight people who might use the drugs on an “off-label” basis, Chen noted. This refers to usage and prescriptions for conditions and in dosages not yet approved by drug regulators.

“It is going to be a hybrid market with decent percentages of sales from each of the accessible channels – hospitals, retail outlets, online channels,” Chen said. “Besides medical demand, you also have people who will use it for two months to fit into a tight dress for a wedding.”

The current retail prices of GLP-1 drugs in China range from 2,700 yuan to 4,800 yuan per month, but could be lower for off-label use, much lower than in the US, he noted.

Many users were likely to pivot to cheaper options if the efficacy profiles were similar or slightly less superior, as long as they were within a few percentage points, said Morningstar’s Zheng, adding that the longer-term race lies in next-generation products, especially orally administered ones.

Nomura’s head of China healthcare research Zhang Jialin expected price competition to intensify from 2027, adding that Innovent would likely invest in the development of non-traditional sales channels of retail and online pharmacies where the incumbents had yet to establish a strong presence.

While GLP-1 drugs could effectively signal to the brain to eat less and slow down the pace at which food was digested, they needed to be taken as an adjunct to a healthy diet and exercise, said Francis Chow Chun-chung, founding president of the Hong Kong Association for the Study of Obesity.

Chan, the Hong Kong office worker, took that advice. “My weight loss was more pronounced than many others on the drug since I heeded my doctor’s advice to supplement the weekly injection with moderate exercise,” she said.

“I had a bit of a rebirth moment after the treatment. I gained confidence in myself and now have more choices when shopping for clothes,” she added.

US calls for closer South Korea, Japan defence ties amid ‘unprecedented’ China-North threat

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3317928/us-calls-closer-south-korea-japan-defence-ties-amid-unprecedented-china-north-threat?utm_source=rss_feed

America’s highest-ranking military officer has called for closer trilateral defence ties with South Korea and Japan in response to what he described as an “unprecedented” military build-up by North Korea and China.

The remarks by General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, come amid growing pressure on Seoul to shoulder more of the cost of hosting 28,500 US troops and to support their expanded role beyond the Korean peninsula – a move that could test South Korea’s willingness to align more closely with US regional strategy.

“Our focus in the United States remains on re-establishing deterrence and doing so needs and requires the trilateral cooperation between our three countries,” Caine said at a meeting on Friday with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Admiral Kim Myung-soo and General Yoshihide Yoshida, in Seoul.

“The DPRK [North Korea] and China are undergoing an unprecedented military build-up with a clear and unambiguous intent to move forward with their own agendas,” he added.

Following the meeting, the three military leaders issued a joint statement condemning Pyongyang’s “unlawful” weapons development and reaffirming efforts to work towards the complete denuclearisation of North Korea.

They also addressed concerns over Pyongyang’s deepening military alliance with Moscow, including the reported deployment of the North’s troops to help Russia in its war on Ukraine, and Russia’s potential transfer of military technology to the North, according to the statement.

Caine’s visit comes amid growing calls in Washington for South Korea to shoulder a larger share of defence costs and align its military spending closer to Nato levels – up to 5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2035.

The issue of burden-sharing was reignited earlier this week by US President Donald Trump, who blasted South Korea’s defence contributions during a cabinet meeting, calling them insufficient.

“We rebuilt South Korea. We stayed there. It’s OK. We rebuilt it. And they pay us very little for the military,” Trump said. “They should be paying for their military,” he added, citing South Korea’s economic strength.

Recalling his past negotiations during his first term, Trump added, “I said for South Korea as an example, you know, we give you free military, essentially very little, and I think you should pay us US$10 billion a year.”

If pursued, Trump’s demand would represent nearly a ninefold increase over Seoul’s projected contribution for 2026.

Trump also reiterated that South Korea should bear the full cost of its military protection.

His comments came a day after he announced plans to impose a 25 per cent tariff on South Korean imports starting August 1 – a move that extends the original tariff deadline by three weeks.

Ahead of the US presidential election in November last year, the allies concluded a five-year deal under the 12th Special Measures Agreement (SMA) outlining cost-sharing for US troops stationed in South Korea. Under the SMA, Seoul agreed to increase its contribution by 8.3 per cent to US$1.47 billion in the first year.

South Korea’s foreign ministry reaffirmed on Wednesday that it would adhere to the terms of the agreement.

Jin Sung-joon, the top policymaker for the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, on Thursday denounced Trump’s remarks as “excessive and outrageous” and “disrespectful” to a key ally.

He also expressed concern over Trump’s distortion of facts – including the incorrect claim of 45,000 US troops stationed in South Korea, when the actual figure stands at about 28,500.

Jin further refuted Trump’s assertion that the US provided military support to South Korea free of charge, saying Seoul already contributed about US$1 billion annually, not including substantial indirect costs such as rent-free use of military bases and large-scale purchases of advanced US weaponry.

South Korea’s contribution had continued to grow in line with inflation and was not cut under the Biden administration, contrary to Trump’s claims, Jin added.

“The government must first correct the US’ distorted understanding of the facts,” Jin said, urging Seoul to work with Washington to “reverify the truth” about cost-sharing.

Meanwhile, Defence Priorities, a Washington-based think tank, released a report on Wednesday recommending a sharp reduction in US Forces Korea, from 28,500 troops to about 10,000.

Titled “Aligning Global Military Posture with US Interests”, the report warned that American troop levels in South Korea should be further reduced if Seoul restricted US operational flexibility in regional crises.

“The ground personnel left would be primarily for support, sustainment, logistics, and maintenance,” the report stated, “leaving the responsibility for combat operations in the event of any crisis on the peninsula to South Korean forces.”

The report was authored by Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at the think tank, and Dan Caldwell, a former senior adviser to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Doo Jin-ho, a senior analyst at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, said South Korea should consider taking the lead in renegotiating the SMA and doubling its contribution.

“The increased costs could be spent in enhancing the visibility of the deployment of US strategic assets” on the Korean peninsula, Doo told This Week in Asia on Friday.

In a related development, National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said on Wednesday that Seoul had proposed a “package deal” in tariff negotiations with the US, combining economic and security issues.

“We raised a range of issues spanning trade, investment, procurement and security, and suggested moving forward with negotiations by taking this comprehensive package into account,” Wi said upon returning from Washington.

“I proposed holding a Korea-US summit at an early date to help facilitate mutually beneficial agreements on key pending issues, and [US Secretary of State Marco] Rubio expressed his support.”

Cha Doo-hyeogn, a senior researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the potential realignment of US forces in South Korea – designed to enhance their strategic flexibility for deployment beyond the peninsula – had been under consideration for two decades in response to growing threats from China.

“If South Korea wants to maintain the alliance with the US, it has no other choice but to accept the realignment,” he said, “and it should consider increasing its contribution to regional security.”

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No-fly zone: what brought about China’s largest power bank scandal

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3317936/no-fly-zone-what-brought-about-chinas-largest-power-bank-scandal?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese manufacturers of power banks – the ubiquitous portable batteries used by travellers to charge smartphones, tablets and laptops – are under increased public scrutiny, following a spate of incidents in which defective units were found to have caught fire during commercial flights.

That prompted the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to impose an emergency ban on air passengers carrying substandard power banks, a safety precaution that went into effect on June 28.

Portable lithium-ion batteries without the China Compulsory Certification (3C) safety mark – a mandatory quality assurance standard for many products sold on the mainland – were barred from domestic flights, according to the CAAC.

The rule, however, left many air travellers confused and resulted in piles of abandoned power banks at Chinese airports.

Under regulations that aviation authorities in Hong Kong and across Asia started implementing from April 7, airline passengers were barred from recharging power banks and using them to charge electronic devices during flights. Stowing power banks in the overhead cabin bins was also prohibited.

Here is what we know so far about how this power bank scandal escalated.

In March, a power bank with a capacity of 20,000 milliampere-hours – made by Shenzhen-based Romoss Technology – was found to have caught fire in one of the overhead compartments of an inbound Hong Kong Airlines flight from Hangzhou, the capital of eastern Zhejiang province.

The aircraft, with 160 passengers and eight crew members, was forced to land at Fuzhou Changle International Airport in the capital of southeastern Fujian province.

Last month, another Romoss power bank caused a blaze at a Beijing dormitory, which prompted a notice from 21 universities to stop using the firm’s portable batteries.

Romoss on June 16 recalled 490,000 power banks, covering three different models, owing to battery cell issues.

Another major Chinese power bank maker, Anker Innovations, announced its own product recall a few days later. It involved 710,000 portable battery chargers across seven models. The company attributed the issue to an unidentified supplier, stating that “unauthorised changes to raw materials” compromised insulation and led to overheating with repeated use.

Neither Romoss nor Anker has publicly named the suppliers responsible for the faulty battery cells.

An investigation by state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) found that the recalled power banks had defective battery cells contaminated by metallic particles, which reflected insufficient governance and supervision in the manufacturing supply chain.

CCTV identified Amprius (Wuxi) Co as the battery cell supplier of Romoss. Following the broadcaster’s report, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) moved to either suspend or revoke the 74 3C certificates that were issued to Amprius.

The regulator expected to conclude its three-month review of power bank products and batteries by the end of July.

With the company’s lithium-ion battery cell inventory frozen by regulators, Amprius chairman Wang Nianju told CCTV that the company had suspended production until the government investigation was completed.

Amprius has yet to comment on its own supply chain issues. According to market speculation, Amprius had outsourced production to downstream suppliers, which illegally replaced the heat-resistant ceramic layer with cheap plastic ones that can short-circuit battery cells.

Anker, meanwhile, suspended all sourcing arrangements with Amprius and started getting battery cells from other suppliers.

Romoss this week said it had suspended production for at least six months and closed its stores on major Chinese e-commerce platforms after its massive power bank recall.

Anker, as well as Xiaomi, Baseus and Ugreen – which also get their battery cells from Amprius – were ranked online last year among the country’s top 10 power bank suppliers.

So far, there are no new power bank recalls reported in China.

There has been some soul-searching about how a fierce price war and rigid cost-control measures among about 100 domestic power bank vendors led to a severe compromise in product quality.

The average price of a Romoss power bank, for example, had dropped from 140 yuan to around 70 yuan (US$20 to US$10) over the past four years, while a quality battery cell usually costs from 40 yuan to 50 yuan.

China’s market regulator is now trying to build up a system, from market entry requirements to quality compliance, in a bid to reduce defects in the manufacturing supply chain.

US puts jet-drone teams to bigger test in race with China for air supremacy

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3317912/us-puts-jet-drone-teams-bigger-test-race-china-air-supremacy?utm_source=rss_feed

The US military has raised the difficulty level with a coordination test of its crewed fighters and “loyal wingman” drones as it races against China towards the next frontier of air dominance.

Chinese military observers said the People’s Liberation Army was matching the United States in this technology.

The Air Force Research Laboratory said earlier this month that pilots operating an F-16C Fighting Falcon and an F-15E Strike Eagle each controlled two XQ-58A Valkyrie drones in an air combat training exercise.

The exercise was a test of real-time integration between crewed and semi-autonomous systems, according to the laboratory, which is the US Air Force’s main scientific research and development centre.

Built by defence firm Kratos, the drone first flew in 2019 as part of the air force’s push to explore the “loyal wingman” concept in which uncrewed aircraft are directed by crewed fighters.

While the Valkyrie has previously flown with different types of crewed fighters, analysts said the most recent test was more complex, with a formation that could be scaled up.

“This kind of simulated combat drill is a logical next step, given that the Valkyrie has been flying for quite a while now,” said Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military aviation analyst.

“Commanding and controlling two drones at once raises the difficulty substantially – it demands more attention from the pilot, greater tactical judgment, and the ability to maintain broader battlefield awareness.

“We are also working on similar technologies in China, although there has been little public reporting on it. China’s loyal wingman drones capabilities are on par with the United States.”

The US Air Force described the exercise as a “major leap” in human-machine teaming, referring to the Valkyries as “autonomous collaborative platforms”. The goal is to integrate such platforms into future air combat scenarios, reducing pilot workload while improving situational awareness and combat effectiveness.

The Valkyrie is a low-cost, long-range, high-speed drone designed for a variety of missions including strike, intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance, electronic warfare, decoy operations, and communications relay, according to media reports.

As early as 2020, an F-22 Raptor and an F-35A Lightning II were seen flying in formation with a Valkyrie.

In 2024, the US Marine Corps tested the Valkyrie in a loyal wingman role alongside their F-35B stealth fighters. The drone also proved its ability to launch smaller uncrewed systems during another test.

The drone is 30 feet (9.1 metres) long with a 27-foot wingspan; and has a dry weight of 2,500lbs (1.13 tonnes), a Mach 0.72 cruise speed, and a maximum range of about 3,000 nautical miles, according to media reports.

Chinese military analyst Song Zhongping said such tests showed how drones, under the control of crewed fighters, could effectively extend the operational reach of crewed aircraft.

“This is essentially a method to extend the combat radius of a fighter jet by using drones under its control,” Song said.

“China’s newest fighter jets already have this ability,” he said, adding that teaming with drones was becoming standard for both fifth- and sixth-generation aircraft.

Earlier this month, new images of China’s two-seat variant of the J-20 stealth fighter emerged online. Defence watchers say the second seat is intended for a mission systems officer to control loyal wingman drones.

State broadcaster CCTV has shown footage of the J-20 flying in formation with three GJ-11 stealth drones – evidence that China is actively experimenting with crewed-uncrewed teaming.

Song added that China’s sixth-generation fighters, which reportedly made their first flights late last year and have since undergone multiple rounds of testing, also had the potential to support loyal wingman operations.