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US President Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing on May 13 was Xi Jinping’s 18th meeting with a US president since he became China’s leader in 2013. Xi has previously held talks with presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as with Trump during the US leader’s first term. By comparison, Xi has had more than 40 physical meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the same period.
Tesla announced the roll-out of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in China, a week after its founder and CEO, US billionaire Elon Musk, visited the country as part of a tour led by President Donald Trump. The roll-out of the system will raise the self-driving game in a market where Level 3 (L3) automated driving has been legalised. “FSD Supervised” was now available in China and nine other countr...
At least one man was injured in a 10-vehicle pile-up on Hong Kong’s Tuen Mun Road during the Thursday morning rush hour. Police received the first report of the collision near Sham Tseng Fire Station on the Yuen Long-bound fast lane of the major highway at 7.47am, while an amber rainstorm warning was in force. A private car driver in his 30s reported hand injuries after his vehicle’s airbag deploy...
President Xi Jinping is expected to visit North Korea as early as next week, Yonhap news agency has reported, as Beijing and Pyongyang’s long-standing ties have grown warmer in recent months. “We have obtained intelligence indicating that President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea soon,” the South Korean agency said, citing a government source. Another government official told Yonhap that Xi migh...
Nvidia has not generated any revenue from H200 chip sales to China and remains uncertain whether the product will be allowed into the country, the US chip giant said on Wednesday, underscoring how geopolitics continues to cloud its access to one of the world’s largest AI markets even as global demand for its data centre processors surged to a record high. While Washington has approved licences for...
Few moments at the Bar are more joyful and surreal than watching one’s former pupil take silk: pride, disbelief and the sudden realisation that someone you still instinctively think of as “junior” is now being bestowed with unmistakable senior seriousness. Last Saturday was, therefore, a sentimental moment for me as I watched my former pupil, Bonnie Cheng, being honoured with the new status at the...
Hundreds of angry parents have criticised Hong Kong’s weather forecaster after children were required to attend school during heavy downpours, with many citing flooded streets and difficult commutes following the year’s first red rainstorm warning. The Hong Kong Observatory issued the red rainstorm signal at 2.40am on Thursday as intense rainbands battered the city, followed by a flooding alert fo...
Hong Kong emergency crews worked around the clock with robotic “water-pumping dragons” to clear widespread flooding in the northern New Territories after intense downpours triggered a brief red rainstorm warning early Thursday. The Hong Kong Observatory issued the red rainstorm signal at 2.40am as intense showers battered the city, following an amber warning that had been in force since 9pm on Wed...
Hong Kong emergency crews worked around the clock with robotic “water-pumping dragons” to clear widespread flooding in the northern New Territories after intense downpours triggered a brief red rainstorm warning early Thursday. The Hong Kong Observatory issued the red rainstorm signal at 2.40am as intense showers battered the city, following an amber warning that had been in force since 9pm on Wed...
The US military will deploy its Typhon midrange missile launcher and Himars rocket system to southwestern Japan next month for joint exercises with the Self-Defence Forces, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in a move apparently aimed at deterring China. The systems will be deployed to the Maritime Self-Defence Force’s Kanoya Airbase in Kagoshima prefecture during the Valiant Shie...
A Hong Kong migrant workers’ group has urged authorities to expand a pedestrian area in Central on Sundays, as a section of a landmark garden that serves as a popular gathering spot for domestic helpers will temporarily close for the construction of a pedestrian underpass. The subway is part of the tender requirements for a Central harbourfront site secured by developer Henderson Land Development....
A former top beauty make-up influencer who has made a whirlwind return to social media after disappearing from view has called on her fans to place their trust in her. The influencer, who previously used the handle @chengshian and had a combined 30 million followers on several leading platforms in China, stopped releasing videos in May 2023, news website Sina reported. She returned to the spotligh...
As the war in Iran disrupts global oil and chemical supplies, China’s coal-heavy energy sector is seizing an unprecedented opportunity. Dannie Peng visits the Changji Hui autonomous prefecture in Xinjiang – one of the country’s four major bases for large-scale, modern coal-chemical production – to see first-hand how a vast industrial ecosystem is rapidly taking shape on the ground. A four-hour dri...
Singapore’s plan to trial weaponised unmanned drones has put a spotlight on Southeast Asia’s fast-growing interest in systems that can track and strike at targets without putting operators directly in harm’s way. But as countries race to upgrade their drone and counter-drone capabilities, analysts say regulation, transparency and confidence-building will be crucial to prevent accidents or miscalcu...
Sixteen months into his second presidency, Donald Trump may be as unpopular as he has ever been among the American electorate – but his grip on his core base of Maga voters remains unshaken. That power was on full display over the last two weeks, as Trump ousted a string of fellow Republicans he considered apostates for not showing him enough personal fealty. The president’s revenge tour continu...
China needs a coordinated policy package of currency appreciation, tariff cuts and elevated labour benefits to rebalance its massive trade surplus, outspoken former Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan said on Tuesday. Speaking at this year’s Tsinghua PBCSF Global Finance Forum in Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, Huang described China’s 2025 record-breaking US$1.2 trillion merc...
In a sign of growing cooperation between the US and China in the wake of last week’s summit in Beijing, the US Justice Department announced on Wednesday the arrest in China of an alleged drug smuggler wanted by the US in connection with a sizeable shipment of illegal drugs into the US state of Georgia. As outlined in court records, Wei Gong, also known as David Gong, allegedly imported more than 1...
Chery Automobile, China’s largest car exporter by deliveries, expects its overseas sales of electric vehicles (EVs) to jump as much as 27 per cent this year, as a global energy crisis spurs demand for battery-powered vehicles. Zhang Guibing, the president of Chery International, said on Wednesday that pure electric and plug-in hybrid models were projected to represent as much as 70 per cent of the...
Chery Automobile, China’s largest car exporter by deliveries, expects its overseas sales of electric vehicles (EVs) to jump as much as 27 per cent this year, as a global energy crisis spurs demand for battery-powered vehicles. Zhang Guibing, the president of Chery International, said on Wednesday that pure electric and plug-in hybrid models were projected to represent as much as 70 per cent of the...
Hong Kong’s push into Central Asia aims to strengthen links between mainland China and the region while reinforcing the city’s role as a professional services hub for belt and road countries, although economic gains may take time, analysts have said. They added that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, given their strategic positions, were logical destinations for Hong Kong to pursue business opportunities ...
The Pentagon is planning to send a high-level delegation to Beijing within weeks to lay the groundwork for a potential visit by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the South China Morning Post has learned. Sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly, said the delegation was expected to be led by Elbridge Colby, defence undersecretary for policy and...
US President Donald Trump said his administration’s negotiations with Iran were “in the final stages” on Wednesday, while simultaneously warning of further attacks, as a fragile ceasefire concluded its sixth week with no sign of an end to the war. The US launched “Operation Epic Fury” close to three months ago, in a war that began with strikes inside Iran alongside key ally Israel, which has since...
The US special envoy to Greenland, the Arctic island coveted by President Donald Trump, said on Wednesday that Washington needs to rebuild its presence in the Danish autonomous territory. At the height of the Cold War, Washington had 17 military facilities in Greenland, but closed them over the years and currently has just one – the Pituffik base in the north of the island. Trump has repeatedly ar...
When it comes to tourism, Hong Kong is recovering footfall faster than spending and officials need to realise that the two are not the same. The city’s economy grew by 5.9 per cent year on year in the first three months, its strongest quarterly performance in almost five years, according to the Census and Statistics Department’s advance estimate. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po pointed to a 17...
We have put together stories from our coverage of Xi and Putin’s meeting in Beijing. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Xi and Putin’s united front – from tigers to trade: the summit takeaways Putin’s trip to Beijing came only days after US President Donald Trump’s closely watched visit to the Chinese capital, the back-to-back summits highlighting the s...
A former federal prosecutor in Florida sent to her personal email account a special counsel report from the investigation into US President Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents despite a judge’s order that it remain sealed, according to an indictment made public on Wednesday. Carmen Lineberger, who worked in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and managed its F...
A former British pirate radio station on Wednesday apologised “for any distress caused” after accidentally announcing the death of King Charles. The erroneous announcement was made on Tuesday afternoon due to a computer error at its main studio in Maldon in eastern Essex, Radio Caroline said in a post on social media. The error had triggered the so-called death of a monarch procedure “which all UK...
The United States announced on Wednesday criminal charges against former Cuban leader Raul Castro over his alleged role in the 1996 downing of two civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue, an incident that killed four people. The indictment, unsealed by Acting US Attorney Todd Blanche in Miami, includes charges of conspiracy to kill US nationals, destruction...
More than two-thirds of Harvard University faculty voted to cap the proportion of A-grades in undergraduate courses, instituting one of the strongest policies against grade inflation in US higher education in decades. Starting in the fall of 2027, no more than 20 per cent of a class, plus four additional students, can receive an A. Just under 70 per cent of the votes were in favour of the policy i...
More than two-thirds of Harvard University faculty voted to cap the proportion of A-grades in undergraduate courses, instituting one of the strongest policies against grade inflation in US higher education in decades. Starting in the fall of 2027, no more than 20 per cent of a class, plus four additional students, can receive an A. Just under 70 per cent of the votes were in favour of the policy i...
