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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 subscribing. 1. Chinese team aims to put ‘smart’ diabetes probiotic on US shelves within 2 years Chinese researchers have engineered a probiotic that ...
As Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong prepares to unveil plans to ease the strain on families during his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, a new survey points to a difficult question behind the city state’s record-low fertility rate: what if a substantial share of residents no longer want children at all? Nearly one in four Singaporeans aged 18 to 44 surveyed by YouGov in July said they had...
The premier of a Canadian province launched a blistering attack on US President Donald Trump on Thursday, calling him a “bad person” and “not to be trusted” and urging Canada to keep fighting rather than rush to make concessions in trade talks with Washington. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Canada has leverage in the talks even as his province weighs restoring US alcohol sales at Prime Minister M...
Solar expansion policies across China have led to a reduction in bird diversity, with wealthier and non-desert regions bearing the brunt of species loss, according to a study led by researchers in China and the US. They found that solar expansion had eaten into birds’ foraging and breeding grounds, and had left what habitat remained more fragmented, pitting China’s carbon reduction policies agains...
A five-year-old girl in northern China accidentally swallowed a 50-gram gold bar, sparking viral jokes online that she took the mainland nickname for children – “gold-devouring beasts” – far too literally. The Beijing Children’s Hospital, affiliated with Capital Medicine University, reported the case that was treated on August 16. The girl was brought to the hospital after accidentally swallowing ...
Japan executed on Friday a man convicted of an arson attack on a pachinko parlour in 2009 that killed five people, authorities said. It was Japan’s first hanging since Takahiro Shiraishi, the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people, was put to death in June 2025. Sunao Takami, the man executed on Friday, doused a pachinko parlour – a popular game mixing pinball and a slot machine...
A now-disbanded alliance behind Hong Kong’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil, along with two of its former leaders, have been found guilty of inciting subversion under the national security law for advocating an end to “one-party dictatorship” in mainland China. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, its former chairman Lee Cheuk-yan and former vice-chairwoman C...
The world has seen tremendous progress in the capabilities of robots in the past year. Robots can now walk, dance, run and perform increasingly sophisticated movements, yet impressive demonstrations do not equal commercial value. Beyond the hype surrounding China’s red-hot embodied robotics sector, one challenge confronts all players: data. Robotics has long faced the challenge of achieving widesp...
A reported trip to China next week by a cross-party group of Japanese lawmakers could carry “pronounced” symbolic weight but is unlikely to herald a thaw in ties between the two neighbours, Chinese experts suggest. For the first time since bilateral relations succumbed to a bitter chill 10 months ago, a delegation of Japan’s parliamentary members will visit Beijing from August 24 to 27, according ...
Hong Kong should press ahead with its proposed tax break on carried interest, the performance fees earned by hedge fund and private equity managers, after Singapore unveiled a rival tax-exemption scheme, according to industry participants. The bill, submitted to lawmakers in June and expected to come to a vote later this year, has sparked debate in the financial industry. Some participants argue t...
Russia’s Pacific Fleet said on Thursday it has conducted a missile test off a group of Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands amid an intensifying row over the disputed territory following President Vladimir Putin’s first-ever visit there last week. While it was unclear exactly when the test was carried out, the announcement comes after the Russian foreign ministry summoned Japanese Ambassador to ...
More consumers in Hong Kong have come forward to allege aggressive sales tactics across the beauty sector, including credit card abuse, unwanted physical contact and pressure to buy costly products, on the back of a crackdown on the local operations of a UK-based brand. Legal experts warned that such practices could breach the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, which prohibits harassment, coercion and ...
Japan has spent years casting the International Criminal Court as a pillar of the rules-based order. This week, its closest ally sanctioned the Japanese judge who leads it. The move has left Tokyo in an uncomfortable bind: defend Tomoko Akane, the Japanese president of The Hague-based court, and risk antagonising US leader Donald Trump, or temper its criticism and appear weak in the face of an att...
US authorities charged a woman who allegedly supported the Islamic State group with a terrorism offence on Thursday after she told an FBI informant she “wanted to destroy” the New York State Capitol building, court filings showed. Located in Albany near the Canadian border, the New York State Capitol is the nerve centre of the state government and contains both houses of the state’s legislature. J...
The US State Department said on Thursday that it had determined after a detailed investigation that Min Zin, an American political analyst of Chinese descent detained by Beijing last month, was being improperly held. That formal designation shifts the case from a State Department consular issue to one handled by its presidential office dealing with hostage affairs. Thursday’s terse statement, whic...
The US State Department said on Thursday that it had determined after a detailed investigation that Min Zin, an American political analyst of Chinese descent detained by Beijing last month, was being improperly held. That formal designation shifts the case from a State Department consular issue to one handled by its presidential office dealing with hostage affairs. Thursday’s terse statement, whic...
When the US government announced the addition of 43 Chinese companies to an import blacklist in late July over allegations of forced labour in the country’s western Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region – including several household food and apparel brands – the local reaction to the news was surprisingly calm. “It felt like a sudden batch of companies was added out of nowhere … but it shouldn’t have m...
Much of the Western debate about China begins with a category error. “Communism” is often treated as synonymous with a monolithic command economy, limited private enterprise and bureaucratic control over every commercial decision. Modern China does not fit that model. It is better understood as a mixed, state-led system in which private enterprise, foreign investment and fiercely competitive marke...
A US Army unit is offering its troops a special bonus if they re-enlist soon: four extra days off timed around the November release of the video game Grand Theft Auto VI. Commanders of the 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion based at Fort Stewart, Georgia, believe free time to indulge in the latest entry in the Grand Theft Auto series – in which players commit carjackings, battle police in shoot-outs a...
Peru’s new government has pledged to bring its free-trade agreement with Hong Kong into force this year as part of an effort to position the country as a commercial bridge between South America and the Asia-Pacific, even as its first comprehensive policy programme made no direct mention of mainland China or the Chinese-operated Chancay megaport. Prime Minister Luis Galarreta told lawmakers on Thur...
Peru’s new government has pledged to bring its free-trade agreement with Hong Kong into force this year as part of an effort to position the country as a commercial bridge between South America and the Asia-Pacific, even as its first comprehensive policy programme made no direct mention of mainland China or the Chinese-operated Chancay megaport. Prime Minister Luis Galarreta told lawmakers on Thur...
Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has returned to the country after a more than two-month absence that has fuelled fierce debate about his ability to rule after 44 years in power. Biya, who at the age of 93 is the world’s oldest serving head of state, landed in Yaounde in the late afternoon from Geneva, where he had been staying since June 7 on what his office called “a short private stay”. Camerooni...
China rejected a White House report on Thursday that accused its exporters of routing goods through Mexico and other countries to avoid US tariffs, hours after word emerged that Mexico was preparing to restrict Chinese products further. He Yadong, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce, told a regular press briefing in Beijing that the report “ignored facts and distorted reality by treating ...
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday urged China to join Washington’s latest efforts to economically pressure and isolate Iran after negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the six-month conflict collapsed. “Keep in mind, the Chinese get 50 per cent of their energy from the Gulf. So, it would do them a big service to get with the programme,” Bessent told CNBC when asked whet...
Christian metal band Demon Hunter is suing Netflix, alleging trademark infringement associated with the streamer’s hit film KPop Demon Hunters. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday by Hyde Lane, the corporate entity for Demon Hunter, against Netflix, Netflix Studios and AEG Presents, the live entertainment division of AEG, with claims that the defendants have “created a substantial likelihood of confu...
A Belgian university on Thursday suspended a US academic who spearheaded accusations of plagiarism against Jason Arday, the black ex-Cambridge professor found dead last week after resigning over the scandal. Researcher Nathan Cofnas – a self-defined “race realist” who was himself sacked from his Cambridge post two years ago – posted on social media: “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They ...
A Belgian university on Thursday suspended a US academic who spearheaded accusations of plagiarism against Jason Arday, the black ex-Cambridge professor found dead last week after resigning over the scandal. Researcher Nathan Cofnas – a self-defined “race realist” who was himself sacked from his Cambridge post two years ago – posted on social media: “I was just suspended by Ghent University. They ...
A hospital in east China has used reprogrammed stem cells to treat severe heart failure, with 90 per cent of patients showing significant recovery in heart function after the novel therapy. On Wednesday, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, affiliated with Nanjing University, released the long-term follow-up results of a phase 2 clinical study, which was published in the journal Nature Medicine. While dea...
Beijing has urged Washington to scrap planned tariffs of up to 100 per cent on imported drones, warning the measures unfairly target Chinese products and threaten global supply chains. The tariffs are not set to take effect until September 3, but Chinese drone shipments to the United States are already under pressure, with exports of some models plunging in July, the latest customs data showed. On...
An aeroplane pilot died on Wednesday after a violent collision with a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter near a runway at a small airport, but both state troopers aboard the helicopter survived, authorities said. The plane was coming down on the runway and veered into the helicopter that was near the ground, Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens, the state’s acting police commissioner, said during a ...
