• China promised the Philippines billions in development aid. Why did it fall so short?
• US House looks to revive China Initiative to ‘maintain America’s competitive edge’
• Trump’s copper tariffs fail to stop US metal being shipped to China
• China on Thai-Cambodian conflict; Taiwan recall vote: SCMP daily highlights
• League of Legends world championship returns to China as mainland esports sector grows
• China’s Unitree debuts US$5,900 humanoid robot in race to make cheaper products
• Trump’s Arctic strategy stirs debate over China’s polar shipping ambitions
• Chinese mum ties mentally disabled son to herself while working, draws public attention
• Shanghai conference sets stage for US-China face-off in heated race for AI supremacy
• Pfizer, Chinese biotech firm 3SBio complete worldwide licensing deal for cancer drug
• Why Trump is attacking China’s dominance in humble graphite
• Labubu retailer Pop Mart focused on taking Chinese brand to world, CEO says
• Chinese man wins lawsuit against ex-boss, awarded US$2,600 for attending online meetings
• China takes mediation role in Thai-Cambodian conflict, calls for restraint
• EU-China cooperation ‘only right choice’, Premier Li Qiang says at business symposium
• Beijing, EU agree on plan; Nvidia CEO Huang delights Chinese fans: SCMP’s 7 highlights
• Questions grow as China mourns 6 engineering students lost in mine accident
• Hong Kong stocks snap 5-day gain as investors await latest China-US trade talks
• In a first, Chinese team captures rare quantum friction effect in folded graphene
• China zoo refunds annual pass for girl with cancer, donates US$1,700 from wishing well, moves many
• China unveils the largest crystal for high-powered laser weapons
• What do we know about the site of China’s mega dam in Tibet and what is its significance?

China promised the Philippines billions in development aid. Why did it fall so short?

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3319654/china-promised-philippines-billions-development-aid-why-did-it-fall-so-short?utm_source=rss_feed

China pledged US$30.5 billion in development aid to the Philippines between 2015 and 2023 – the most for any Southeast Asian country – but only a sliver of that funding ever arrived, according to new data from an Australian think tank report.

Of the total pledged, just US$700 million was actually disbursed – a shortfall analysts attribute to derailed infrastructure projects, changing political winds in Manila and rising tensions with Beijing. These factors have not only stalled flagship ventures under the Belt and Road Initiative but also cast doubt on the long-term viability of Chinese development finance in the region.

The report by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, released on Sunday, found that while the Philippines received the highest total commitment from China among Southeast Asian nations, it ranked near the bottom in actual disbursements.

Indonesia, by contrast, received and spent US$20.3 billion out of the US$20.7 billion Beijing had pledged, mostly on energy and transport projects.

The bulk of China’s pledged financing to the Philippines was made during the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who held office from 2016 to 2022 and pursued closer ties with Beijing through a wave of high-profile infrastructure agreements.

But many of those projects never materialised, and under President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, engagement with China has slowed considerably.

“The lack of follow-through on China’s infrastructure promises in the Philippines is largely a political story,” Grace Stanhope, a research associate at the Lowy Institute overseeing the research, told This Week in Asia.

“There was much more ambition in the relationship and several large megaproject deals were signed” under Duterte, she said. “But under Marcos, there is much more caution and very low levels of new commitments.”

Three major Chinese-backed railway projects were cancelled in 2023, amid rising maritime tensions between Manila and Beijing over their overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea.

These included the proposed Mindanao Railway, which was supposed to have broken ground in 2022. That same year, the Philippine Department of Transportation reported that China had failed to respond to repeated follow-up requests on funding.

The Department of Finance later informed the Chinese embassy that the Philippines was “no longer inclined” to pursue financing for the railway, following remarks from a senior Chinese economic official who cited “geopolitical factors” as a constraint.

Two other railway projects – a 380km line connecting Laguna to Bicol and a 71km line linking Subic Bay to Clark – also failed to take off. The latter has since been incorporated into the Luzon Economic Corridor, to which the US pledged $15 million in investments during Marcos’ visit to Washington earlier this week.

Of the many belt and road-linked proposals, only one – the 4.5 billion peso Chico River Pump Irrigation Project – was completed. China also donated 1 billion pesos (US$19.5 million) in defence equipment.

Other infrastructure projects such as the Kaliwa Dam “will continue to generate disbursements in coming years, but we don’t really expect to see much growth”, Stanhope said.

Chester Cabalza, president of the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, said ongoing tensions in the South China Sea had limited the scope of economic cooperation.

“China will sustain its absence or declining trade in exports and imports with the Philippines under the Marcos administration due to the ongoing maritime security dilemma,” he told This Week in Asia.

Yet others argue that the shortfall in Chinese funding cannot be explained by geopolitics alone.

“The failure in the delivery of funding from China goes beyond a fundamental deterioration in Philippines-China relations,” said Matteo Piasentini, a geopolitical analyst and international relations lecturer at the University of the Philippines.

“Make no mistake: the effective delivery of development assistance is always complex and contentious. It depends on multiple factors, including bureaucratic coordination, budgetary constraints, and more,” he told This Week in Asia.

He noted that other factors could include the Philippines’ deep-rooted ties with alternative donors such as Japan, and the possibility that “the Philippines jumped late on the bandwagon of China’s charm offensive in Southeast Asia”.

“I believe the Philippines has, on several occasions, demonstrated its willingness to engage in dialogue. However, the current leadership perceives the risk of external influence or economic coercion to be too great at this time,” Piasentini added.

The study comes at what the report described as an “uncertain moment” for Southeast Asia, whose “highly successful export-driven economic model is at risk” from US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and declining foreign aid from major Western donors.

The Philippines, a key US ally, secured a modest tariff reduction following Marcos’ Washington visit, with Trump agreeing to lower duties on Philippine exports from 20 per cent to 19 per cent.

Although Manila seems to be “relatively well-protected from the tariffs” compared to other Asean member states, Stanhope said Trump’s punitive levies continued to threaten economic growth and development, which would further be compounded by aid cuts.

The Philippines’ largest finance providers are multilateral development banks such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Stanhope said there were no signs these banks would decrease spending, but cautioned that “those announcements could be coming, if the countries cutting their aid budgets also reduce contributions to these banks”.

Piasentini, meanwhile, said tariffs and investment were not necessarily linked to trade, adding the Philippines “still has the opportunity to strengthen bilateral ties with multiple regional and extra-regional partners, despite looming tariffs from the US”.

Cabalza told This Week in Asia that Trump’s tariff strategy amounted to a “salami-slicing trade-off in the region” – referring to a tactic of offering incremental, selective benefits to divide or pressure rivals – which he said had further polarised the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), pushing member states to choose between aligning with the US or China.

Despite the fallout from Chinese funding, the Philippines’ economy has remained resilient and could withstand a “frustrating 19 per cent tariff from an ally”, according to Cabalza, who suggested Manila focus on “Japan and other like-minded countries [in bringing] more funding into the country”.

US House looks to revive China Initiative to ‘maintain America’s competitive edge’

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3319623/us-house-looks-revive-china-initiative-maintain-americas-competitive-edge?utm_source=rss_feed

The US House is poised to advance a key spending bill that could revive the controversial “China Initiative” – a programme that unfairly targeted Chinese-American researchers, derailed careers and devastated lives long after it was ended in 2022.

The Fiscal Year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations bill does not name the programme directly, but language in the accompanying report calls for its re-establishment to “maintain America’s competitive edge” and “counter China’s malign ambitions to steal American research”.

A scheduled committee meeting to debate the bill was cancelled on Wednesday, but experts said the provision was likely to remain as the legislation moved towards the Senate.

Originally launched in 2018 to combat alleged economic espionage, the China Initiative was widely criticised as racially biased and ineffective. The Department of Justice officially shut it down following a series of failed prosecutions and mounting backlash from the scientific community.

“As a victim of the past China Initiative, I am disheartened by ongoing efforts in Congress to reinstate the misguided programme,” said Gang Chen, a mechanical engineer at MIT who was arrested in 2021 before all charges were dropped.

“It is not only discriminatory, but also harms America’s ability to attract top global talent – ultimately weakening, not strengthening, our national security,” he said in a statement released by the Asian American Scholar Forum, a US-based non-profit organisation that advocates for academic belonging and equity in Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities.

Chen is among more than 1,000 US researchers and university staff led by Stanford physicists Steven Kivelson and Peter Michelson in signing a letter that urged lawmakers to remove the provision. The letter, dated July 22, warned that reviving the initiative would deter talent, damage innovation and inadvertently advance China’s own recruitment efforts.

“The China Initiative in its original form proved to be more harmful than beneficial – it served the recruitment goals of the [People’s Republic of China] better than any ‘talent programme’ they ever implemented,” the letter said, citing the exodus of prominent Chinese-American scientists to China after being targeted.

There were six Nobel laureates among the signatories, including physicist Steven Chu and chemist Carolyn Bertozzi.

Denis Simon, a leading expert on US-China science and technology cooperation and former executive vice-chancellor of Duke Kunshan University – a China-US joint venture in Jiangsu province – said the provision was unlikely to survive Senate negotiations.

“It’s very unlikely this will make it into law,” he said. “But the political signal is harmful – it sends a clear message that parts of the House majority want to revive a more aggressive [Department of Justice] posture towards Chinese-American scholars.”

He said Chinese-Americans had played a vital but long-overlooked role in US economic growth, higher education, technological innovation and cultural life – contributions that had helped strengthen American society for generations.

Republican lawmakers have repeatedly tried to revive the China Initiative since its termination. In September, they introduced the “Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security From CCP Act”, which passed the House as part of a broader “China Week” push, but it stalled in the Democratic-led Senate.

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Trump’s copper tariffs fail to stop US metal being shipped to China

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3319594/trumps-copper-tariffs-fail-stop-us-metal-being-shipped-china?utm_source=rss_feed

Aaron Forkash, a scrap metal dealer based in California, plans to continue exporting copper to Asia even after US President Donald Trump’s new 50 per cent tariff on the metal comes into force on August 1.

The Trump administration has said the import duty will help revive the US copper industry by making it more profitable to produce the metal at home.

But the truth is that it is actually cheaper and easier for American scrap dealers to ship copper to China and other Asian economies than to another part of the United States – and that is unlikely to change after the tariff kicks in, dealers said.

“I don’t know how tariffs are going to work,” Forkash said. “All I can do is compare (prices) on a day-to-day basis.”

Many other American scrap dealers are also expected to continue exporting to copper-hungry China, analysts said, as the tariffs are unlikely to resolve fundamental issues in the US metals industry such as a lack of processing capacity.

That means China – the world’s top importer of processed copper – should still be able to get the metal it needs once the supply diversions caused by a surge in US copper deals ahead of the new tariff taking effect subside.

The US has long been heavily dependent on imports of copper – a highly conductive metal used to make everything from microchips to car engines – with American manufacturers mostly relying on shipments from South America.

Meanwhile, US scrap dealers like Forkash find it easier to sell their metal to overseas buyers, as they can save money by shipping copper to Asia on “backhauls” – meaning ships returning to their points of origin after delivering goods to the US.

Shipping copper domestically is not only more expensive, but also complicated due to a lack of copper processing capacity at home and a reluctance among US traders to buy scrap copper for fear that it may be sourced from stolen electrical parts.

Those dynamics are not going to change any time soon, especially given the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s ever-shifting tariff policies, analysts told the Post.

“The US is likely to continue to be a major exporter of scrap copper,” said Rajiv Biswas, CEO of the Asia-Pacific Economics research group in Singapore. “The US copper refining sector lacks sufficient capacity to process all US scrap copper domestically.”

“Furthermore, there is considerable trade policy risk for companies to invest in new US copper smelting and refining capacity, since the planned US copper tariffs could be lowered or removed completely at any time,” he added.

So far, the main impact of Trump’s tariff announcement has been to send copper prices surging to record highs around the world – including for scrap dealers in the US.

Alco Metals, a dealer based on the east side of the San Francisco Bay, has been paying extra high prices in July for the tonnes of copper that it exports every day to Asia. Prices surged as firms rushed to front-load shipments of copper to the US ahead of the import duty coming into effect.

Michael Bercovich, the firm’s chief operations officer, said that the higher-than-expected tariff had raised prices on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for metal futures, meaning Alco had to pay more for scrap sold by the likes of electrical contractors and plumbers.

So far, the firm’s Asian clients were reluctantly paying the higher prices, according to Bercovich. “It has made it a little harder for our buyers,” he said from the company’s compound, where hills of scrap sat just inside its gates.

A grocery bag of scrap copper currently fetches US$150 to US$200, a roughly 15-year high, Forkash said.

Copper prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) remain “tight” despite the increases in the US, the Swiss investment bank UBS said in a June 10 research note.

Rising US copper prices driven by the tariff announcement had also “diverted large refined copper shipments” from South America and Africa to the US market and reduced the supply to Asia, said Paula Xu, manager of non-ferrous research for the data provider MySteel.

But China’s copper supplies are likely to hold steady from now onwards, as August 1 nears and pre-tariff US front-loading winds down, analysts said.

“The US time window is rapidly closing, with copper cargoes being diverted away from the US towards China,” Biswas said.

China imported 28.114 million tonnes of copper ores and concentrates last year, up 2.1 per cent over 2023, according to the Shanghai Metals Market trading platform.

Eventually, China can absorb copper that exporters find too expensive for US-bound shipments under 50 per cent tariffs, the American Institute of Economic Research said in a July 9 paper.

“Having significantly expanded its domestic smelting capacity over the last two decades, Beijing may be able to absorb diverted shipments at favourable prices, reinforcing its industrial base at a time of intensifying strategic competition with Washington,” the paper said.

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China on Thai-Cambodian conflict; Taiwan recall vote: SCMP daily highlights

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3319634/china-thai-cambodian-conflict-taiwan-recall-vote-scmp-daily-highlights?utm_source=rss_feed

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider .

China and Europe should foster a “healthy” economic relationship characterised by both competition and cooperation, the Chinese premier told European Union leaders and businesses on Thursday.

China will continue to play a “constructive role” in helping to ease regional tensions, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday, as Thai and Cambodian troops exchanged fire on their border for a second day.

Chinese researchers have manufactured the world’s largest barium gallium selenide (BGSe) crystal, a breakthrough that could pave the way for ultra-high-power laser weapons capable of zapping satellites from the ground.

Polling stations in Taiwan are set to open on Saturday as the island holds a landmark vote in a sweeping recall campaign that could tilt control of its legislature back to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and test whether anti-Beijing sentiment remains the defining force in Taiwanese politics.

China plans to amend a decades-old pricing law as part of an ongoing campaign to curb the vicious price wars plaguing several industries – a deep-rooted issue that threatens to wipe out corporate profits and fuel deflationary pressure.

As US President Donald Trump reiterates his desire to acquire Greenland – part of a broader push to assert influence in the Arctic – Chinese scholars are debating whether the world’s second-largest economy should become more involved in the region particularly by developing shipping routes.

China’s new Information Support Force (ISF) has stepped up joint training with other military branches, showcasing an integrated combat system and increased mobile and decentralised deployment capabilities, according to the official paper of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

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League of Legends world championship returns to China as mainland esports sector grows

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3319653/league-legends-world-championship-returns-china-mainland-esports-sector-grows?utm_source=rss_feed

China this year will again serve as host to the League of Legends World Championship, the esports industry’s biggest tournament for a single title, raising hopes for another finals run by a mainland team.

The annual professional competition, also known as the Worlds, will kick off in Beijing from October 14 and then move to Shanghai for the quarter-final and semi-final rounds from October 28 to November 2, according to US video game developer and tournament organiser Riot Games, a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings.

The 2025 Worlds final will take place on November 9 in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan province.

This year’s competition will see 17 teams vie for prize money and the Summoner’s Cup, the trophy awarded to the Worlds final winner.

Edward Gaming, a professional esports team based in Shanghai, was the last Chinese group to hoist the Summoner’s Cup when they won the 2021 Worlds in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland.

Holding the 2025 Worlds in China reflected the strides made on the mainland esports sector, which has become big business, as clubs financed by the country’s young tycoons made an impact in the global arena.

China’s esports industry returned to growth in 2024, as revenue rose 4.6 per cent from a year earlier to 27.6 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion), according to a report released by the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association in December. This was attributed to government support and private-sector efforts by mainland video gaming giants Tencent and NetEase.

That growth reversed the 1.3 per cent year-on-year drop in 2023, when a decline in esports live-streaming – which accounted for more than 80 per cent of the total domestic market – dragged down revenue.

The 2025 Worlds would mark the third time that the tournament was held on the mainland, which previously hosted the event in 2017 and 2020.

The Worlds 2020 in Shanghai generated a record high of more than 1 billion hours of viewing online, according to data from Riot Games.

The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in China for two consecutive years, but the 2021 Worlds was moved to Reykjavík amid travel restrictions on the mainland owing to the pandemic.

From 2022 to 2024, the competition was held in the US, South Korea and Europe, respectively. Riot Games held the first Worlds in 2011.

Before Edwards Gaming’s victory in 2021, another mainland professional esports team, FunPlus Phoenix, won the Worlds in 2019 when the tournament was held in Berlin, Madrid and Paris.

is a multiplayer online battle arena game that was developed and first published by Riot Games in 2009. Riot Games became a Tencent subsidiary through a series of transactions, when the Chinese firm bought a 93 per cent stake in 2011 and acquired the remaining 7 per cent equity in 2015.

China’s Unitree debuts US$5,900 humanoid robot in race to make cheaper products

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3319637/chinas-unitree-debuts-us5900-humanoid-robot-race-make-cheaper-products?utm_source=rss_feed

Unitree Robotics, which is gearing up for an initial public offering (IPO), unveiled its R1 humanoid model priced from 39,999 yuan (US$5,900), making it affordable for individual developers and consumers.

Marketed as “born for sport”, the R1 was seen doing a cartwheel, walking on its “hands”, throwing a punch, lying down then standing up, and running down a hill, according to a video posted on Chinese social media on Friday.

The machine weighs 25 kilograms and features 26 joints. The company has not disclosed other details.

The R1 is the cheapest humanoid robot from the Hangzhou, Zhejiang province-based unicorn. Two earlier models, the G1 which stands 130cm tall and weighs 35kg, and the H1 at 180cm and weighing 47kg, start at 99,000 yuan and 650,000 yuan, respectively.

These prices are cheaper than offerings from Chinese rivals. In March, Hong Kong-listed UBTech Robotics released a life-size humanoid robot for research purposes, priced at 299,000 yuan. Shenzhen-based EngineAI’s PM01 model, released in December, was on sale for 88,000 yuan as of the end of March, but it is only 138cm tall.

Outside China, Tesla’s general-purpose Optimus robot, which is not yet commercially available, could cost more. On an earnings call in January, CEO Elon Musk said the robot’s production cost could be under US$20,000 if annual output reached 1 million units, although final pricing would be determined by market demand. The company aimed to produce several thousand units this year, he said at the time.

But there are some models cheaper than Unitree’s R1. Last month, AI community Hugging Face released a full-size, open-source humanoid robot, HopeJR, that was priced at only US$3,000, after it announced in April the acquisition of Pollen Robotics based in Bordeaux, France.

Unitree’s R1 launch comes just a week after it announced its IPO plans. Last Friday, the firm submitted tutoring documents to China’s securities regulator, a key compliance step before it formally applies for a listing. It plans to prepare the necessary application documents by December, according to the Friday announcement.

The company was on track to become the first humanoid robot maker to list on a mainland bourse. Earlier this month, Shanghai’s AgiBot said it would buy a controlling stake in publicly traded Swancor Advanced Materials, paving the way for a back-door listing. But AgiBot said that was not its intention.

Trump’s Arctic strategy stirs debate over China’s polar shipping ambitions

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3319561/trumps-arctic-strategy-stirs-debate-over-chinas-polar-shipping-ambitions?utm_source=rss_feed

As US President Donald Trump reiterates his desire to acquire Greenland – part of a broader push to assert influence in the Arctic – Chinese scholars are debating whether the world’s second-largest economy should become more involved in the region particularly by developing shipping routes.

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) – the shortest passage between the Asia-Pacific region and western Eurasia – has drawn growing attention as global warming makes its icy waters navigable for longer periods each year.

Trump, who has pledged to buy or annex Greenland, views the Arctic as vital to advancing US commercial and strategic interests – from securing natural resources to countering Chinese and Russian influence.

His ambition, outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law on July 4, allocates nearly US$9 billion for icebreakers – a “historic investment in US Arctic security” aimed at putting “America back in charge of the frozen frontier”, according to the White House.

As Washington increases its focus on the region, China – a “Near-Arctic State” and observer of the Arctic Council – must seize new shipping opportunities, according to Zhang Cheng and Su Anqi, scholars at Wuhan University.

“Arctic shipping routes offer advantages in terms of cost and efficiency over traditional routes, making them a potential new pathway to counter US geopolitical containment,” they wrote in the June issue of China Review.

“By enhancing its hard power [in shipping] and reshaping soft rules, China can effectively respond to geopolitical competition in the Arctic,” they said.

But not all Chinese scholars are convinced. Many question the commercial viability of such routes, which would require massive investments in ports and other infrastructure in a challenging and uncertain environment.

As the world’s largest exporter, China already wields major influence in global shipping through its extensive infrastructure and strategic investments across the world.

By partnering with Russia – which controls just over half the Arctic Ocean’s coastline – Beijing could help develop a broader network linking ports, land routes and energy supply chains, the Wuhan University scholars said.

“The strategic value of Arctic shipping routes has transcended mere economic benefits, emerging as a pivotal lever for China to reshape the global trade network,” they said. Developing these routes could reduce dependence on the Malacca Strait and mitigate geopolitical risks in oil transport, they added.

Following Western sanctions after the start of the Ukraine war, Russia has turned to China for help in developing Arctic infrastructure – though progress has been slow despite positive speeches from the two countries’ leaders.

Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO halted its Arctic voyages along the Northern Sea Route after the West imposed sanctions on Moscow in 2022. Only a few smaller, privately owned Chinese shipping firms currently use the passage.

Zha Daojiong, a professor of international political economy at the School of International Studies at Peking University, cautioned that Arctic shipping routes were still a long way from becoming commercially viable.

For safety reasons, all the passages tested so far – including by Chinese icebreaker and shipping companies – remain within or near the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) claimed or administered by coastal states, Zha said.

“Should China join the race in making use of the Arctic as a shipping route? It all depends on a cost-benefit analysis on the part of the shipping industry. But it would certainly not be in China’s interest to be at the proverbial table of the Arctic just for the sake of it,” Zha said.

Wang Yiwei, a professor at the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, said Russia was once wary of Beijing’s Arctic ambitions. But since the Ukraine war, Moscow has pushed for closer cooperation as it urgently needs icebreaking, shipping infrastructure, subsea cable deployment and other critical technologies to counter pressure from Nato and the US, he added.

However, the limited economic payoff from the Northern Sea Route continues to deter many Chinese companies, especially given the rise of the China-Europe Railway Express – a quicker alternative to traditional sea routes linking the two continents.

“Ultimately, economic viability is the deciding factor – governments can steer policy, but execution depends on enterprises’ participation.”

Chinese mum ties mentally disabled son to herself while working, draws public attention

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3319096/chinese-mum-ties-mentally-disabled-son-herself-while-working-draws-public-attention?utm_source=rss_feed

A street cleaner in China who tied a string from the wrist of her mentally disabled son to her own while she worked has gained significant attention on mainland social media.

However, this new-found fame has disrupted her life, as online influencers have flocked to film her, with many inquiring about the donations she has received, according to Fujian TV.

In early July, a video clip captured by a pedestrian, featuring a female street cleaner and her son near a popular tourist site in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, went viral during a heatwave that saw temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius.

“This is a mother and son. One hand holds the broom that sustains her livelihood, while the other holds her son,” the passer-by captioned in the video.

The mother’s identity has not been disclosed. However, an acquaintance, surnamed Wang, revealed that she is in her 50s, and her son, in his 30s, has mental disabilities.

“She has to bring her son to work because she cannot afford to hire someone to care for him. The string helps keep him safe, preventing him from wandering into traffic or colliding with pedestrians,” Wang explained to the media.

“Now, many people are approaching her, asking about the donation amounts she’s received. This has led her to consider changing jobs,” she added.

According to a representative from the Lianhu District Environment Sanitation Group, the mother has been employed there for two years.

“She is just an ordinary frontline worker. She has never solicited public donations based on her son’s mental illness,” the representative, who chose to remain anonymous, stated.

The company provides cleaners with a daily allowance of 25 yuan (US$3.50) during hot weather and offers consolation items, such as rice and cooking oil, to underprivileged families like hers during important traditional festivals.

“She is now applying for a transfer to another position due to the disturbances from internet users seeking to see her,” the employee noted.

The incident has sparked widespread discussion on mainland social media.

“Not disturbing them is the best help we can offer,” remarked one user.

Another added: “The umbilical cord severed at birth has been reconnected by his mother once again.”

Shanghai conference sets stage for US-China face-off in heated race for AI supremacy

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3319607/shanghai-conference-sets-stage-us-china-face-heated-race-ai-supremacy?utm_source=rss_feed

Shanghai will host its eighth annual flagship artificial intelligence (AI) conference this weekend as China ramps up competition against the US for supremacy in the fast-developing technology.

The three-day World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), with the theme of “Global Solidarity in the AI Era”, will kick off on Saturday with an opening keynote from Premier Li Qiang, who also headlined last year’s event. A high-level meeting on global AI governance will be held in tandem with the conference.

The main forum, taking place at the Shanghai World Expo Centre, will feature a line-up of renowned international scientists and business leaders. Nobel laureate and “AI godfather” Geoffrey Hinton, Harry Shum, council chairman at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Turing Award winner Andrew Yao are among the participants.

Prominent business leaders who will speak include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, MiniMax founder Yan Junjie and SenseTime CEO Xu Li, along with senior executives from Siemens and Schneider Electric.

The conference represents an opportunity for China to showcase to the global AI community its latest advancements amid a heated race between the world’s two largest economies.

On Wednesday, the White House released a 28-page AI Action Plan designed to further strengthen exports of American AI technology to China and limit the spread of Chinese AI models, as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping plan to shape the rules governing the fast-moving technology.

In a speech, US President Donald Trump laid out the stakes of the tech arms race with China, saying it would be “a policy of the United States to do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence”.

The conference will concurrently host over 100 sub-forums and related events on topics ranging from AI applications in science and industry to safety, agents and humanoid robotics. The expo, which is expected to draw more than 800 exhibitors, will showcase more than 3,000 AI-related products, including 40 large language models, 50 AI-powered devices and 60 advanced robots, according to the organiser.

Major Chinese tech companies – including Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings and SenseTime – will host sub-forums where they are expected to provide updates on their proprietary AI models, as well as lead discussions on the latest trends in AI.

Alibaba, the Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant which is doubling down on its AI investment, will host a forum on Sunday featuring electric vehicle maker Zeekr and US business management platform Salesforce, to discuss how to promote the large-scale application of AI agents. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

SenseTime – founded by scientists including the late AI visionary Tang Xiao’ou, a former professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong – is expected to launch a new generation of its SenseNova AI model series, while announcing a new partnership with Huawei Technologies’ AI semiconductor brand Ascend. Huawei’s CloudMatrix384, an Ascend chip-based “supernode” computing architecture, will be on display at WAIC.

Humanoid robots, heavily backed by local governments and private sector investments this year, will be another spotlight of the exhibition, with dozens of related companies participating.

Although US companies represent a very small proportion of exhibitors, they will be some of the biggest names there. These include electric vehicle maker Tesla, as well as cloud computing giants Amazon Web Services and Google, according to the exhibitor list.

Some important AI players, however, are missing from the guest list. They include DeepSeek – the Chinese start-up whose low-cost, high-performance reasoning models shocked the global tech community at the start of this year – and Nvidia, the US chip giant whose graphics processing units (GPUs) are powering the development of major AI models.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang visited China earlier this month, where he met commerce officials and tech leaders, and praised AI developments in China. Nvidia also announced the resumption of H20 GPU sales to China after a previous ban in April.

Pfizer, Chinese biotech firm 3SBio complete worldwide licensing deal for cancer drug

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3319601/pfizer-chinese-biotech-firm-3sbio-complete-worldwide-licensing-deal-cancer-drug?utm_source=rss_feed

Pfizer and 3SBio have completed a licensing agreement that grants the US pharmaceutical giant worldwide rights to sell the Hong Kong-listed firm’s cancer drug, marking the largest deal ever for a single drug in China’s biotech industry.

First announced in May, the deal will see 3SBio – based in Shenyang, capital of northeastern Liaoning province – receive a US$1.25 billion upfront payment from Pfizer for the exclusive right to sell its cancer drug, SSGJ-707, outside China.

Under the terms of their agreement, Pfizer will also pay 3SBio up to US$150 million to solely develop and commercialise SSGJ-707 within the mainland, the two companies said on Thursday.

Pfizer also agreed to buy 31.1 million new shares in S3Bio, or a 1.3 per cent equity stake, for HK$785 million, according to a stock exchange filing. The deal at HK$25.2055 per share represents a 17 per cent discount to its market price on Thursday.

3SBio’s shares fell 6.41 per cent to HK$28.45 on Friday.

The transaction reflected the strong momentum of Chinese biotech firms in the field of drugs research and the increased interest from major foreign pharmaceutical companies to license their intellectual property.

Multinational companies favour Chinese drug assets because of their “cost efficiencies, accelerated timelines and promising quality”, US brokerage Jefferies said in the report “Shopping in China’s Biotech Supermarket” published earlier this month.

Chinese firms made 73 presentations at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, up from one a decade ago, according to the report. The event enabled more drug developers to showcase their latest research and find potential partners to accelerate the development of drug candidates across international markets.

In the first half of this year, the total transaction volume of drug licensing deals between Chinese biotech firms and overseas pharmaceutical companies reached US$66 billion, which surpassed the full-year amount in 2024, according to a report by China Post Securities earlier this month. This momentum is expected to extend into the year’s second half, the report said.

3SBio, meanwhile, plans to use about 80 per cent of the proceeds from the Pfizer deal for global research and development on projects in its pipeline, the firm said on Thursday. The rest of the sum was earmarked for general corporate purposes.

Cancer drug SSGJ-707, which is currently undergoing several clinical trials in China, targets non-small cell lung cancer, metastatic colorectal cancer and gynaecological tumours.

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Why Trump is attacking China’s dominance in humble graphite

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3319491/why-trump-attacking-chinas-dominance-humble-graphite?utm_source=rss_feed

Whatever it’s been called – plumbago, black-cawke, wadd, black-lead – through century after century, graphite has been nothing if not humble. Last week, the United States slapped a 93.5 per cent duty on graphite imports from China. Share prices soared for graphite miners outside China, from Australia to Canada and South Korea. For some exporters, Trump’s tariffs are not an ill wind.

The drama comes down to the global surge in the electric vehicle (EV) market, and the humble but essential role played by graphite in lithium-ion batteries. Graphite will never play a more important role, it seems, than in the battery anodes of the future, whether in EVs, solar and wind energy storage, or smartphones.

Before the US storm over Chinese graphite blew up, I had a serendipitous encounter this summer with graphite – that greasy, black, slippery, uncharismatic carbon cousin to diamonds. I never expected that a holiday soaking up the charms of Britain’s bucolic Lake District would alert me not just to the long and largely unnoticed history of graphite, but to its diverse and dual-use properties that drew more parallels between 16th century England and US President Donald Trump’s national security obsessions than I could have imagined.

The first records of graphite coming from the Seathwaite Mine in Borrowdale in the Lake District date back to the 1550s. It is still talked of as the world’s only large graphite deposit found in a solid form, which allowed it to be cut into sticks. At first employed by Lake District farmers to mark their sheep, graphite’s use soon proliferated. It was used to rustproof cooking stoves, in glazing pots and as a lubricant in ships’ rigging. Mixed with wine or ale, it was also used medicinally to treat colic and gallstones, though its effect remains open to question.

What made graphite critical was its use as a separating layer in iron moulds. This enabled Queen Elizabeth I and her navy to produce smooth, high-quality cannonballs that likely played a part in her crushing defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Who would have thought that graphite could be so indispensable to national security?

Because of the strategic importance of graphite, the Seathwaite Mine was taken over by the Crown, and guardhouses were constructed around the mine to protect its resources – a 16th century version of export control that I am sure both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump’s tariff warriors would appreciate.

In the meantime, graphite’s value found a second, much more humble, but equally useful role, as a writing instrument. A commercial pencil factory was set up in nearby Keswick, one of the world’s first. Even after Seathwaite’s graphite had long been exhausted (commercial production ended in 1891 when the mine was closed), pencil-making continued to thrive.

The Derwent Cumberland Pencil Company was taken over in 1980 by the US company ACCO Brands, and moved to nearby Workington, but Keswick today retains its global reputation for pencil-making, along with its quaint pencil museum. The world still uses 14 billion pencils a year and despite the explosion in demand for graphite in battery anodes, pencils still account for a significant share of global graphite use.

Since the 1550s when the British Crown perceived the strategic value of graphite, and through the 18th century adoption of pencils, the global dual-use role of graphite has been transformed.

From a few tonnes a year from the Seathwaite Mine in Cumbria, global output has surged to 1.6 million tonnes last year. China is by far the world’s largest producer (its biggest mine in Heilongjiang has an annual production capacity of 200,000 tonnes). China is also thought to have the world’s largest reserves, estimated at 81 million tonnes, ahead of Brazil with 74 million tonnes.

And while it is not China’s pencil output that is keeping US national security wonks awake at night, its massive and still-growing dominance of the global market for the anodes that go into batteries is another matter. Most of the anodes in lithium-ion batteries are made of graphite and 93.5 per cent of the global supply of these anodes comes from China. So this week’s massive anti-dumping duty strike on Chinese graphite is nothing less than a panicked attack aimed at reducing US reliance.

According to the US Geological Survey, 76,000 tonnes of graphite were consumed in the US in 2023 but none of it was locally produced. With graphite anodes sitting at the heart of batteries in everything from mobile phones and energy storage in solar and wind power plants to the growing millions of EVs on our roads, that may be a vulnerability worth panicking about.

Last year, the Geological Survey said five companies were currently exploring or developing graphite-mining projects in the United States. But these will take years to crank up to meaningful production. Meanwhile, the US duties on Chinese graphite send a clear signal to graphite miners across the world: the US wants their exports. Right after the news broke, Syrah Resources in Australia saw its share price rise by 22 per cent, while Canada’s Nouveau Monde Graphite’s was up by 26 per cent and South Korea’s Posco Future M’s up by 20 per cent.

Who knows if Trump’s national security advisers can succeed in eroding China’s dominant graphite position. But one lesson is clear: even the most humble of minerals can have dual uses that can jeopardise national security and scupper the grandest of ambitions. This was clear in the 1550s. Graphite can still surprise us 450 years later.

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Labubu retailer Pop Mart focused on taking Chinese brand to world, CEO says

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3319580/labubu-retailer-pop-mart-focused-taking-chinese-brand-world-ceo-says?utm_source=rss_feed

A new wave of Chinese consumer companies, led by toymaker Pop Mart, is seeking a greater global presence, reflecting China’s strategic pivot towards exporting its brands, and not just products.

“We originally hoped to become China’s Disney; now we hope to become the world’s Pop Mart,” the company’s founder and CEO, Wang Ning, said in an interview with state broadcaster China Central Television on Thursday.

“We use China’s manufacturing industry and market to incubate artists from all over the world, and bring their creations back out to the world.”

Pop Mart, a retailer with an intellectual property-focused business model, has seen its international revenue soar with the explosive global popularity of its Labubu dolls.

The plush character with pointy ears, jagged teeth and signature mischievous grin, has gained high-profile fans like Lisa from K-pop group Blackpink and global music icon Rihanna, and is often sold out around the world.

The company’s revenue from markets outside mainland China surged 375.2 per cent to 5.07 billion yuan (US$708.35 million) last year and is set for further growth.

“This year, overseas sales will likely surpass domestic sales,” Wang said, noting that sales in North America were expected to exceed sales in Southeast Asia, its top-performing overseas market last year.

Wang said he hoped to make Pop Mart “a new generation world-class Chinese consumer brand.”

While China has long been known as the world’s factory – with its vast manufacturing capabilities powering rapid expansion – companies like Pop Mart are increasingly looking to export their brands rather than mere products.

To succeed, they must capture the hearts and minds of global consumers through strong brand value and cultural recognition, strategy consultant Emerald Gao said at a recent lecture at Shanghai’s Fudan University.

“Pop Mart’s success is not just because of its products, but because it created a cultural phenomenon and an emotional resonance,” she said.

Its collectibles tap into the global trend of “emotional consumption” among young people.

Wang told CCTV that several film studios – including at least one in Hollywood – were seeking to collaborate with Pop Mart to produce a movie based on the Labubu character.

The blind box format of some of Pop Mart products also provided emotional value through the unboxing experience, Wang said, adding that it was a “very good combination” for trendy toys that “inherently lack playability”.

Gao said lifestyle retailer Miniso was another Chinese company making significant strides globally through strong brand value, successfully penetrating markets like Southeast Asia by pioneering an innovative “light luxury department store shopping experience”.

The company, which was operating more than 3,200 stores overseas at the end of March, has even found success in Japan, a market recognised for its consumers’ high expectations regarding quality and design.

Over the next five years, it aims to add between 550 and 650 new stores overseas each year, founder and CEO Ye Guofu told state-run China Daily last year.

Chinese man wins lawsuit against ex-boss, awarded US$2,600 for attending online meetings

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3318965/chinese-man-wins-lawsuit-against-ex-boss-awarded-us2600-attending-online-meetings?utm_source=rss_feed

A man in Beijing has won a lawsuit against his former employer, who has been ordered to pay him overtime compensation for repeatedly requiring him to attend online training sessions after work hours.

The case has garnered significant public attention and has been labelled a “landmark” case following its report by the Workers’ Daily on July 17.

The man, referred to as Wang, began his employment at an engineering company in Beijing in July 2020 as an engineer and was terminated in June 2023. Details regarding his salary at the company remain undisclosed.

He filed an arbitration application, seeking more than 80,000 yuan (US$11,000) in overtime pay from the company, whose name was not revealed in the report.

According to Wang, his former employer frequently required him to participate in training via online applications, such as Ding Ding and WeChat, outside of regular working hours.

The company mandated that if an employee did not attend these meetings, they would need to make a “voluntary donation” of 200 yuan (US$28), Wang stated.

He provided screenshots of his online training participation and chat records with colleagues as evidence to substantiate his claim.

The company denied that these online trainings should be classified as overtime, asserting that any overtime arrangements needed prior approval from management.

Furthermore, they argued that employees were only required to log on to these online sessions without any obligation to speak, and they could even choose not to listen to the content. Thus, they contended that it could not be proven that the workers were actually performing work, according to the company.

The company further claimed that the donation policy was unrelated to these training activities.

Since the arbitration authority did not support his overtime claim, Wang subsequently took the matter to court.

The Beijing No 2 Intermediate People’s Court, which recently heard the case, deemed that the evidence provided by Wang demonstrated that the company had arranged online training after his official working hours.

Although the company argued that the worker’s responsibility was merely to log on, the court concluded that the session itself encroached on the worker’s personal time.

Moreover, the court emphasised that the worker had a duty to attend these meetings and that the donation policy indicated it was a compulsory task assigned by the employer.

“These activities occurred after working hours, with the employee lacking the option to decline participation. Therefore, they should be classified as overtime,” the court stated.

However, the court noted that on several occasions, Wang logged on to these training sessions significantly later than their scheduled start time.

Ultimately, the court ruled that the company must compensate Wang with 19,000 yuan (US$2,600) for overtime.

The news portal gmw.cn, overseen by the central government and aimed at the intellectual community, commended the court’s decision, labelling it as having “landmark significance”.

“With the evolution of communication tools, the encroachment of work into employees’ personal lives is increasingly prevalent. Even when not physically present in the office or officially off duty, a message on a mobile device can pull them back into work,” an editorial from the news portal remarked.

“This compels employees to be online at all times, amounting to an exploitation of their time. This form of ‘hidden overtime’ should not be overlooked by the law,” the commentary concluded.

China takes mediation role in Thai-Cambodian conflict, calls for restraint

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3319558/china-takes-mediation-role-thai-cambodian-conflict-calls-restraint?utm_source=rss_feed

China’s ambassador to the United Nations has called for a de-escalation in the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia and confirmed that Beijing is playing “a mediation role” after the sudden border clash on Thursday.

In an interview broadcast on state-owned CCTV on Friday, Fu Cong said that “China is playing a mediation role to facilitate communication between the two sides, and hopes the situation will stabilise as soon as possible”.

Fu also urged the two nations to “exercise restraint” and “stabilise the situation” during the interview.

“Cambodia and Thailand are not only China’s good neighbours, but also friendly neighbours to each other and important members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations” he said.

“Asean has a long-standing tradition of resolving differences through peaceful means, and we hope that peace will once again prevail in this case.”

Thai and Cambodian armies clashed along their shared border on Thursday, in a major escalation that included artillery fire and rockets. The conflict has led to multiple deaths within 24 hours, believed to be mostly civilians.

Thailand and Cambodia have long-standing border disputes, primarily over contested areas near ancient temples. The sudden clash is believed to be related to a landmine explosion in a contested area on Wednesday that wounded five Thai soldiers.

Thailand accused Cambodia of laying new landmines in the contested border area, but the latter denied the charge and said the device might be a leftover from its civil war, which ended in 1975.

Liu Zongyi, a senior fellow and director of the Centre for South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said the conflict is likely to remain contained, with both China and Asean prioritising regional stability.

Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held discussions with his Thai and Cambodian counterparts at an Asean-China summit in Kuala Lumpur, as Beijing took steps to de-escalate its neighbours’ border dispute.

In his meeting with Maris Sangiampongsa, the Thai foreign minister, Wang expressed Beijing’s hope that both sides would act with “goodwill towards each other” and “properly resolve the issue through friendly dialogue and consultation”.

Wang added that China aimed to “play a constructive role” in resolving the conflict, according to a Chinese foreign ministry transcript.

In a separate discussion with Cambodia’s deputy prime minister Prak Sokhonn, who also serves as foreign minister, Wang emphasised that China would “maintain an impartial, fair and just stance” in addressing “the needs of the parties concerned”.

“The issue will eventually be solved through diplomacy … as both Thailand and Cambodia are members of Asean, both China and Asean will play a very proactive role in mediating this issue,” Liu said.

According to Liu, there are advantages in Beijing taking a mediation role because the country is close to both Bangkok and Phnom Penh.

On Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in the regular daily briefing that Beijing would “promote peace talks in its own way”, urging the two nations to “resolve differences appropriately”.

“We are deeply concerned about the current developments and hope that both sides will resolve the issue through dialogue and consultation,” he said. “China upholds a fair and impartial stance and has been and will continue to promote peace talks in its own way.”

Amid the escalating conflict, China’s embassies in both Thailand and Cambodia have issued advisories warning its citizens not to approach the border.

According to Thailand’s defence ministry, at least six areas along the border have seen exchanges of fire since Thursday. The conflict continued on Friday, the Cambodian army said.

Several media outlets have reported that Thailand has conducted air strikes using the US-made F-16 fighter jet.

Although Thailand is a treaty ally of the United States, Bangkok has bought an increasing number of weapons in recent years from China, which maintains close relations with both of its Asian neighbours on the defence front.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Thailand is the third largest buyer of arms from China, following Pakistan and Serbia, with Chinese weapons accounting for around 44 per cent of its major military imports in recent years.

Cambodia is not only a major buyer of Chinese weapons, the two countries have also forged strong defence ties. They have held several military exercises since 2018, such as the Golden Dragon drills, and Phnom Penh has also reportedly given China access to the Ream naval base.

EU-China cooperation ‘only right choice’, Premier Li Qiang says at business symposium

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3319547/eu-china-cooperation-only-right-choice-premier-li-qiang-says-business-symposium?utm_source=rss_feed

China and Europe should foster a “healthy” economic relationship characterised by both competition and cooperation, the Chinese premier told European Union leaders and businesses on Thursday.

At a business symposium held on the sidelines of the EU-China Summit on Thursday, Li Qiang urged both sides to find new grounds for collaboration.

“China and the EU can further leverage their complementary economic strengths, focusing on areas such as services trade, technological innovation, the green economy, and third-party cooperation to cultivate more new growth drivers for collaboration,” Li said, according to Xinhua.

“Looking back at the 50-year history of diplomatic relations between China and Europe, cooperation remains the only right choice for both sides.”

Amid rising protectionism and unilateralism, if China and Europe join hands in upholding free trade and multilateralism while deepening economic and trade collaboration, they can serve as a stabilising anchor for economic globalisation and the stability of global industrial and supply chains, Li was quoted as saying.

Li and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, along with other Chinese and EU officials, attended the symposium, which hosted nearly 60 representatives from business chambers and companies.

Thursday’s summit was the 25th between the two sides, and it was held in Beijing to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations.

The relationship between China and the EU has been fraught in recent years, despite continuous dialogue as both sides seek to avoid a full-blown trade war.

In particular, the EU has accused China of exporting industrial overcapacity, deliberately flooding its markets with subsidised products – especially in tent-pole sectors like electric vehicles (EVs) – and Brussels says this action distorts trade and threatens local businesses.

Li said China will further remove investment restrictions for foreign companies in the country, strengthen intellectual property protections and ensure fair competition, while hoping that the European side will provide Chinese enterprises operating in Europe with a fair and non-discriminatory business environment.

The European side has no intention of “decoupling” from China and welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest and do business in Europe, von der Leyen said at the symposium, according to Xinhua.

After the business round table, von der Leyen stated at a press conference that she had warned her Chinese hosts that the European market would not remain open to Chinese goods if Beijing did not act on its industrial imbalances.

Trade ties had “reached an inflection point”, she said.

“In crucial sectors, like, for example, steel, solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries and others, the subsidised production does not match the domestic demand in China, and therefore overcapacity produced here goes to other markets,” von der Leyen said.

“The Chinese leadership has started to look into this issue under the term ‘involution’, and expressed willingness to support more the consumption and less the production part. This is important. We need to see progress on this issue, because without progress, it would be very difficult for the European Union to maintain its current level of openness.”

Jens Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, delivered a keynote address during the symposium, saying that significant imbalances in the bilateral relationship must be addressed, with industrial “involution” in China leading to the bloc’s growing trade imbalance with China but also posing a challenge for some European industries.

Meanwhile, executives from major European companies expressed confidence in the long-term potential of the Chinese market, despite near-term challenges, including a lack of market access and the need for a more transparent regulatory environment, according to a statement from the chamber.

“The 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the EU and China presents the opportunity to not only acknowledge the many successes but also give our relationship a service check,” Eskelund said.

“It is important to recognise that the current direction of travel is not sustainable,” he added. “It is positive that both sides are continuing to engage in frank discussions at the highest level in order to arrive at a more viable model of engagement that can see us through the next 50 years and beyond.”

Beijing, EU agree on plan; Nvidia CEO Huang delights Chinese fans: SCMP’s 7 highlights

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/3319522/beijing-eu-agree-plan-nvidia-ceo-huang-delights-chinese-fans-scmps-7-highlights?utm_source=rss_feed

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider .

The EU and China agreed on a new mechanism to help smooth the export of rare earth elements and magnets, as Brussels pushed Beijing to take its trade concerns seriously, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after a summit in the Chinese capital on Thursday.

Chinese aerospace engineers have a revolutionary software design that they say will allow them to overcome a major barrier to stealth aircraft development.

Thailand launched air strikes on Cambodia on Thursday as a simmering border dispute erupted into open conflict, with soldiers on both sides exchanging fire and Cambodian troops unleashing rockets that killed at least 12 Thais, most of them civilians.

A Chinese company has converted a giant cargo ship into a mobile fish farm as part of a project that aims to boost the nation’s food security by repurposing old vessels for use in aquaculture.

On the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau, China envisions a future powered by the roaring waters of the Yarlung Tsangpo, also known as the Brahmaputra. The river will be the site of a mega dam – the world’s most ambitious to date – that promises to bring clean energy, jobs, infrastructure and prosperity to the region.

Construction on the world’s largest hydropower dam began on Saturday, according to Premier Li Qiang, who called it the “project of the century”. But the project is not just about electricity and economic benefits – the stakes are far higher. Regional security, ecological stability and the future of one of Asia’s great rivers all hang in the balance.

Four Hong Kong Airlines passenger flights touched down at the city’s airport while the highest typhoon signal was still in force on Sunday, with experts saying such landings were possible under the right wind and operational conditions.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang captivated millions of Chinese fans by donning a Tang suit and speaking in rusty Mandarin at the third China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE), marking his third visit to China this year.

Questions grow as China mourns 6 engineering students lost in mine accident

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3319536/questions-grow-china-mourns-6-engineering-students-lost-mine-accident?utm_source=rss_feed

Calls have been growing in Chinese state media and from the public for stricter safety measures and a thorough investigation into the deaths of six university students who fell into an industrial flotation tank on Wednesday.

The students, from Northeastern University in Liaoning province, were on a field trip to the China National Gold Group’s Wunugetushan copper-molybdenum mine in Inner Mongolia when the incident happened. A teacher was also injured.

According to state news agency Xinhua, the government of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region has assembled an accident investigation team to determine the cause, clarify the nature of the incident, and propose corrective measures.

The team had arrived at the accident site and started investigating, Xinhua said on Friday.

Meanwhile, various media outlets in China have been reporting new details of the accident, which is believed to have occurred when a grating panel gave way, pitching the group into the slurry-filled tank.

State-owned China Media Group reported on Thursday that on-site staff shut down the operation immediately when they heard students crying out that people had fallen into the flotation tank.

The staff began evacuating the rest of the group of students and teachers to safety and also rescued a teacher who was suspended in mid-air, it said.

According to the report, the company’s mine emergency response team arrived at the scene 38 minutes after the students fell into the tank, which occurred at around 10.20am on Wednesday morning.

The first of the students was pulled from the tank at around noon, while the last was removed at around 12.40pm, it said.

China Media Group said that the deceased, aged between 20 and 22, were part of a group of 51 students taking part in a flotation production internship as part of their mineral processing engineering study programme.

On-site learning in the flotation workshop during the summer is a mandatory part of the internship, it said, adding that Northeastern University has organised two rounds of visits since signing an agreement with China Gold Group in 2023.

The state-owned, publicly listed company issued a statement on Thursday to say it had suspended production at its Inner Mongolia subsidiary. Its stock price closed 4.4 per cent lower at the end of the day’s trading.

China Youth Daily said on Thursday that an investigation report obtained from Northeastern University had identified a repaired crack on one side of a welded joint in the steel grille plate above the flotation cell.

The weld had fractured under a concentrated load, causing the entire grille plate to flip and fall off, according to the article which was based on the findings. The investigation report itself has not yet been made public.

According to China Youth Daily, the grille plate was replaced in February, but the company had not conducted testing on all the welds. There were also no signs on the platform limiting the number of people permitted to stand on it at one time, it said.

Northeastern University has already initiated its internal accountability procedures and suspended all on-site internships at mines, the China Youth Daily report added.

In a commentary published on Thursday, Xinhua called for all relevant parties to draw lessons from the accident and strengthen awareness of safety.

There must be no delay in pursuing the truth of the accident, it said, and demanded answers on why the grille collapsed. The commentary also questioned if the plant had fulfilled its responsibilities in routine safety inspections and equipment maintenance.

“Safety can never be overemphasised. As summer study tours and practical learning programmes continue across the country, all organisers must draw lessons from this incident, strengthen their awareness of systemic safety, and ensure that such tragedies never happen again,” Xinhua said.

Shanghai-based media outlet The Paper also published a commentary on Thursday, calling for a serious investigation into the cause of the accident and a clarification of accountability to prevent further tragedies.

The outlet also said that the country’s future engineering talent must be safeguarded.

“China’s engineering education has rapidly advanced, giving rise to the world’s largest pool of engineering talent – a critical force behind the country’s high-quality development,” it said.

“For engineering students, visiting factories and construction sites to observe and practice is a key part of their education. Their safety must be fully ensured.”

The tragedy garnered wide public attention, becoming one of the most searched topics on Chinese social media. As of Friday, posts about the accident and the fate of the students had reached 70 million.

Some commenters expressed their anger, such as Robin who wrote, “all that so-called workplace safety is just for show. The best kind of safety would be having the boss walk up there themselves every day – but that kind of scenario only exists in dreams”.

There have also been many questions on social media platforms about how the flotation tank could have caused the fatalities and when the investigation results will be announced.

Among the comments were calls for stricter safety measures, such as Flying Cow, who said that staff should be present to ensure the safety of visitors. Many others questioned why none of the students were wearing a safety rope.

According to The Paper on Thursday, the remains were sent to a funeral home on Wednesday afternoon where staff gave an assurance that they would be properly and thoroughly attended to.

Hong Kong stocks snap 5-day gain as investors await latest China-US trade talks

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3319523/hong-kong-stocks-snap-5-day-gain-investors-await-latest-china-us-trade-talks?utm_source=rss_feed

The run-up that drove Hong Kong stocks to the highest level in three and a half years took a pause on Friday before a new bout of trade talks between China and the US over the weekend.

The Hang Seng Index fell 0.6 per cent to 25,509.55 as of 10.12am local time, halting a five-day gain. The Hang Seng Tech Index dropped 1.1 per cent. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index slid 0.4 per cent, and the Shanghai Composite Index retreated 0.2 per cent.

Li Auto slid 3.1 per cent to HK$115.10, and peer BYD lost 1.9 per cent to HK$129.40. Alibaba Group Holding shed 1.5 per cent to HK$118.50, while Tencent Holdings sank 0.6 per cent to HK$553.60.

Investors need more conviction from the third round of China-US tariff talks to sustain the momentum that carried the Hang Seng Index to an almost 30 per cent gain this year. It is widely expected that the two nations will extend a 90-day tentative deal reached in April.

The Hang Seng Index rose by nearly 3 per cent this week as fears faded that the US tariff approach would derail global growth and stoke inflation. The US struck a deal with Japan, imposing a lower-than-expected 15 per cent rate, and is reportedly close to reaching an agreement with the European Union that would not trigger retaliation from the bloc.

Biotech firm Nanjing Leads Biolabs surged 120 per cent from its offer price to HK$77 on its first day of trading in Hong Kong.

Other major Asian markets mostly edged lower. Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 both slipped 0.6 per cent, while South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.1 per cent.

In a first, Chinese team captures rare quantum friction effect in folded graphene

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3319438/first-chinese-team-captures-rare-quantum-friction-effect-folded-graphene?utm_source=rss_feed

A strange thing happened when a team of scientists folded a series of ultra-thin sheets of graphene in their laboratory in China.

The researchers from the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics found that friction did not increase as the material got thicker. In fact, some of the thicker folds slid more easily.

The revelation was a bonus for the team – not only had they become the first to directly observe friction between solid materials at the quantum level, they had seen something that could help with the development of ultra-efficient machines and tiny devices that barely wear out.

“This is the first experimental evidence of quantum friction between two solid surfaces,” the team said on social media.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications this month, could help in designing low-power nanodevices and controlling friction in advanced quantum materials, according to the team.

The team traced the curious friction effect to how bending changed the way electrons moved inside the material, locking them into fixed energy levels and making it harder for motion to turn into heat.

From tyres gripping the road to creaking knees, friction is everywhere. For centuries, scientists thought it came from rough surfaces rubbing against each other, with microscopic bumps and sticky patches resisting motion and converting energy into heat.

That classical view works well at the everyday scale but breaks down when materials are just a few atoms thick. Even perfectly smooth surfaces, such as sheets of graphene or carbon nanotubes, can still produce friction.

One explanation is quantum friction: resistance that comes not from physical contact, but from how electrons inside materials respond to nearby movement. When one surface moves past another, tiny shifts in electric charge can lead to drag and energy loss, even without touching.

In 2022, researchers studying water flow through carbon nanotubes found that water moved faster through narrower tubes – the opposite of how it occurs in normal plumbing. They traced the effect to quantum friction: fewer electrons in the narrower tubes meant less “pushback” against the flowing water.

Building on that idea, the Chinese team built a system that allowed them to fold graphene at the nanoscale and measure friction under ultra-cold conditions.

As they added more layers to the fold, they noticed that friction did not follow classical rules. In some cases, the thicker folds glided even more easily, a clear sign that something else was at play.

The team discovered that bending the graphene created an internal strain that reorganised the motion of electrons. The electrons snapped into fixed energy levels – known as pseudo-Landau levels – which made it harder for energy to leak away as heat, effectively lowering friction.

The team said its experiment focused on a specially prepared graphene system at ultra-cold temperatures, with the next step to test whether similar effects occur in other materials and under more practical conditions.

Studying quantum friction across different materials and temperatures, they said, could help scientists better understand – and one day control – energy loss in real-world devices.

China zoo refunds annual pass for girl with cancer, donates US$1,700 from wishing well, moves many

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3318942/china-zoo-refunds-annual-pass-girl-cancer-donates-us1700-wishing-well-moves-many?utm_source=rss_feed

A zoo in eastern China refunded a girl’s annual pass after she was diagnosed with cancer and donated all the coins from its wishing well to support her family.

Two-year-old Xiaoran from Jiangsu province was a frequent visitor to Nantong Forest Safari Park, making five trips in just two months.

The zoo spans over 2 square kilometres and is home to nearly 20,000 wild animals.

An adult ticket costs 180 yuan (US$25), while Xiaoran’s parents bought her an annual pass for 588 yuan (US$80), allowing unlimited visits.

In mid-June, Xiaoran was diagnosed with a rare muscle cancer, common in children, known for its high recurrence risk.

Her mother, Huang, shared that the expensive treatment had become a significant financial burden on the family.

Seeking help, Huang reached out to the zoo for a refund on the annual pass.

The zoo quickly agreed, refunded the fee, and allowed Xiaoran to retain her pass privileges, even inviting her back for free visits once she recovers.

The staff also collected all the coins from the wishing well, donating 12,083 yuan (US$1,680) to Xiaoran’s family, along with an additional 50,000 yuan in cash.

Ren Shuanglu, head of the zoo’s operations centre, said it took staff over 20 hours to gather and count the coins from the wishing well.

He explained that visitors toss coins for health and good fortune, and the zoo typically donates this money to the Red Cross each year.

In China, taking coins from wishing wells is considered akin to stealing others’ wishes; however, doing so for charitable purposes is believed to invoke good luck.

Xiaoran’s family was deeply moved by the zoo’s compassion.

“We have received support from many kind-hearted individuals since Xiaoran fell ill, but we are especially grateful to the zoo for bringing hope to our child,” her mother told Litchi News.

Zoo director Ren stated that their mission extends beyond protecting animals and nature; they also aim to share warmth with people.

On July 11, several staff members visited Xiaoran’s home with plush animal toys while delivering the donation.

The story has resonated with many mainland social media users, with related topics garnering over 9 million views on Weibo.

One online observer commented: “Thank you to the warm-hearted zoo for transforming the kindness behind those wishes into tangible help.”

“Life is so fragile. Cherish every day, and may every child battling illness be blessed,” another user remarked.

China unveils the largest crystal for high-powered laser weapons

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3319446/china-unveils-largest-crystal-high-powered-laser-weapons?utm_source=rss_feed

Chinese researchers have manufactured the world’s largest barium gallium selenide (BGSe) crystal, a breakthrough that could pave the way for ultra-high-power laser weapons capable of zapping satellites from the ground.

The synthetic crystal, measuring 60 millimetres (2.3 inches) in diameter, efficiently converts short-wave infrared lasers into mid- to far-infrared beams that can penetrate atmospheric windows for long-distance transmission.

Crucially, it can withstand laser power as intense as 550 megawatts per square centimetre – exceeding the damage threshold of existing military-grade crystals by an order of magnitude.

The resulting laser frequency converter – measuring 10×10×50 mm (0.4x0.4x2 inches) – dwarfs conventional optics, typically limited to tiny and thin components.

“This represents the largest specimen reported globally to date,” wrote the research team led by Professor Wu Haixin in a peer-reviewed paper published in June by the Chinese-language Journal of Synthetic Crystals.

For decades, self-damage in laser weapons has crippled their power and range. The US Navy’s 1997 MIRACL mid-infrared laser test, which accidentally melted its own components while targeting a satellite, underscored the challenge.

BGSe crystal was discovered by Chinese scientists in 2010 and shocked the world with its unprecedented performance. Western defence contractors rushed to replicate it but struggled with scalability.

Now, Chinese scientists detail how they achieved this advance in materials science.

The manufacturing process demands near-flawless execution, according to Wu and his colleagues at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In the material preparation stage, ultra-pure barium, gallium, and selenium are vacuum-sealed in quartz tubes for a process known as zone refining.

Tubes are heated to 1,020 degrees Celsius (1,868 degrees Fahrenheit) in a dual-zone furnace, creating a molten region. Then, over a month, crystals grow as tubes descend into cooler zones.

Newly formed crystals need to be held at 500 degrees (932 degrees Fahrenheit) for days, then cooled at 5 degrees per hour to eliminate defects.

Polishing techniques also matter. Diamond saws slice crystals along cleavage planes while cerium oxide slurry yields mirror-smooth surfaces.

The key takeaways include absolute exclusion of oxygen and humidity, ultra-precise temperature control and defect-erasing annealing, which is a heat treatment process, to enable crystal integrity at an unprecedented scale.

This technological leap coincides with China’s accelerated directed-energy weapons programme – driven by concerns over Starlink’s military role in Ukraine and space dominance. Major breakthroughs in other areas such as energy sources and heat control have also been reported recently.

Beyond warfare, the crystals can be used to boost medical diagnostics and hypersensitive infrared systems for missile tracking and aircraft identification, according to the paper.

These ultra-large crystals were “structurally intact, free of cracks and optically transparent” with test results suggesting superior performance, Wu’s team said.

They had already been applied in a wide range of cutting-edge research and development programmes since 2020, they added.

Crystals for non-weapon laser systems can be much bigger. The ZEUS (Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser system) laser at the University of Michigan, for instance, uses a large titanium-doped sapphire crystal to amplify its laser pulse to full power.

The crystal, nearly 18cm (seven inches) in diameter, took 4½ years to manufacture.

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What do we know about the site of China’s mega dam in Tibet and what is its significance?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3319485/what-do-we-know-about-site-chinas-mega-dam-tibet-and-what-its-significance?utm_source=rss_feed

China has officially broken ground on what is set to become the world’s largest hydropower dam on the Tibetan Plateau.

The dam is being built on the Yarlung Tsangpo in Medog – a remote yet geopolitically significant county close to the disputed border with India.

As well as becoming a major energy source, the dam is a key element in Beijing’s plans to develop the region and strengthen its border security.

However, it could also aggravate tensions with India as a result of a long-running border dispute and concerns about the impact on the environment and water security.

Medog, also known as Motuo in Chinese, is a border county in the southeast of the Tibet autonomous region, which lies in the foothills of the Himalayas.

The dam will harness the immense hydropower from the Great Bend, a steep canyon where the Yarlung Tsangpo makes a horseshoe turn, then drops about 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) over a 50km (30-mile) stretch.

As the river travels into India, it becomes the Brahmaputra river, which then flows through Bangladesh into the sea.

Medog’s mountainous setting meant it was once cut off from the rest of Tibet for much of the year, but in recent years the authorities have been building roads, tunnels and railways to better connect it to the outside world.

Its setting and ecological diversity have also seen it become a popular tourist destination in recent years.

The project has heightened concerns about the environmental impact locally and downriver in India and Bangladesh, where the Brahmaputra is a vital water source for millions of people.

Some Indian politicians have expressed concern that Beijing could use the dam as a “water bomb” that could cause flooding or cut supplies, while the environmental concerns include the risk of landslides and damage to fragile ecosystems.

China has insisted it will not use the dam to benefit at the “expense of its neighbours” and has said it will carry out rigorous geological surveys and environmental monitoring.

A further concern for New Delhi is its location just north of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto dividing line between Chinese and Indian-controlled territory.

Beijing claims the Indian-controlled state of Arunachal Pradesh that lies to the south as part of south Tibet.

The Chinese authorities have already been engaged on a series of infrastructure projects to boost connectivity and have reportedly been constructing and expanding hundreds of villages in a region where India has traditionally held the military advantage.

Lin Minwang, deputy director of Fudan University’s Centre for South Asian Studies, said the dam could bring in over a further hundred thousand people while more infrastructure projects would help “improve the [area’s] geopolitical status”.

However, Zha Daojiong, a professor at the School of International Studies at Peking University, said “observers will need to wait and see if the locality does become a magnet for migrants” given China’s declining birth rates.

A plan published by the authorities in Medog for 2021 to 2035 details schemes to develop a clean energy cluster and support the construction of a hydropower base.

The genesis of the project stretches back decades, with the Yarlung Tsangpo being designated a “long-term strategic reserve project” in 2003.

Field surveys were launched near the Great Bend in 2014 before the project was included in the most recent five-year plan.

Beijing authorised construction in December 2024 with work finally beginning this month.

The megaproject will have a cost of around 1.2 trillion yuan (US$167 billion), according to state news agency Xinhua, and once complete could produce up to 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, three times the output of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze.