As technological developments augur an era of renewed space exploration, China is aiming to become a major player. In the second part of this two-part series, Wency Chen and Ben Jiang examine the countrys strategy and progress on reusable rockets a field where the US has a tremendous lead. US commercial space firm SpaceX has been eager to tout its ...

Chen Youlin, a Chinese-American scientist, travelled back to China in October 2024 for a month-long holiday, including to celebrate his mothers 80th birthday. As he prepared to leave, authorities arrested him at the airport in Beijing. For more than 670 days, his wife, Rong Yufang, and other family members have not been able to see or speak with him. ...

The Himalayan disaster that tore through the China-Nepal border last month was a human calamity before it became a media story. A torrent of ice, rock, mud and debris swept through valleys, destroying key infrastructure, severing roads and communications, and leaving families desperate for news. In Gyirong county in the Tibet autonomous region, the disaster ...

The US has approved a US$24.3 billion sale of 48 F-35 stealth warplanes to Saudi Arabia, the State Department said Thursday, the kingdoms latest major arms purchase since the start of the Iran war. Saudi Arabia has long sought to buy F-35s, but officials from Israel currently the only country in the Middle East to operate the jets have voiced concern ...

Sanctioned Chinese companies are increasingly turning to open-source research to innovate and reverse-engineer restricted foreign technology, with a 72 per cent surge in scientific literature citations in their patent applications, according to a new study. While the United States said it expanded its Entity List to safeguard national security and preserve ...

A diminutive wild cat that inhabits Bolivias cloud forest has been identified as a previously unknown species, marking the first time a new living cat species has been formally named and described in more than a century. The cat, called Tilcayo by local communities, is part of a group called tiger cats found across much of South America. It was found in ...

Hong Kong authorities have hit out at a US congressional commission for colluding with anti-China politicians to hold a hearing on jailed former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and introducing a bill to intimidate local national security officials with sanctions. The government issued the condemnation on Thursday night after the US Congressional-Executive ...

Hong Kong authorities have said they will legislate against persistent sexual abuse of children and the act of sending images of genitals to others online without consent after consulting the public. In a consultation report published on Thursday, the Security Bureau stated that with the citys two professional legal associations expressing broad support for ...

Around 100 start-ups selected to join Hong Kongs flagship border tech hub will undergo mentorship programmes ranging from five to eight years, backed by industry heavyweights, the operator has revealed. Vincent Ma, CEO of Loop Hong Kong Park Company, said in an interview on Thursday that the start-ups were chosen to join the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation ...

Tertiary institutions seeking to establish campuses in one of three university towns planned for the Northern Metropolis megaproject will be given favourable consideration if they do not require a government loan to build their facilities, Hong Kongs education minister has said. The government has expanded all three university towns formally named in Chief ...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday, just a week ahead of President Xi Jinpings planned trip to the United States. Chinese state news agency Xinhua said in a brief report that the two diplomats held an in-depth discussion on high-level exchanges between the two countries. The call is expected ...

Amid rising tensions over artificial intelligence (AI) competition and global concerns about the technology, China appears to have an edge over the US and European Union (EU) in trust to regulate AI among mostly middle-income countries. A new Pew Research Centre report released on Thursday found that, on a median basis across 12 countries, more people trust ...

China and the United States are discussing possible announcements to strengthen military-to-military ties during Chinese President Xi Jinpings state visit to Washington next week, multiple sources familiar with the discussions told the South China Morning Post. Another item that is being discussed, and a possible deliverable, is restarting the arms-control ...

Callers to Hong Kong polices 999 hotline will be able to send real-time audio and visual information to the emergency call centre using instant messaging apps in 2028, Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung has said. The security minister revealed the timeline for the upgrade on Thursday, a day after Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced in his ...

Swedens conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced his resignation on Thursday after the left-wing opposition won a slim majority in parliament in the countrys general election. It is now the speaker of parliament who will lead the next steps on the path towards forming a new government. In order for this work to begin immediately, I hereby ...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyens state-of-the-union speech offered few details on new trade measures targeting China, but its sharp tone was designed to send a message to Beijing, analysts said. During her speech on Wednesday, von der Leyen warned that a second China shock was already affecting Europe and vowed that Brussels would use all ...

Hong Kongs plan to raise its gold holdings will further cement the citys status as an international financial centre, with the possibility of building vaults in the Northern Metropolis megadevelopment, according to authorities. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also said on Thursday the city was under no pressure to raise interest rates following a US ...

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has issued a withering rebuke to foreigners behaving badly in Thailand following a wave of scandals involving illegal businesses and landholdings including a cemetery, saying the cases have gone too far by breaching Thai law and hospitality. Facing mounting public backlash against illegal foreign ownership of swathes of ...

A Malaysian woman has died while scuba diving after she was caught in strong currents in Bali, Indonesia. According to local media portal Bali News, the victim, Siti Nuraini Rusidi, 40, was on a diving trip with a divemaster, boat captain and several other divers when the incident occurred at 11.10am local time on Wednesday. The trips divemaster, Eugenius ...

There are reasonable grounds to believe the US committed war crimes against civilians in Iran, who also face gross human rights violations from their own government, United Nations investigators said on Thursday. In their latest report, due to be presented to the Human Rights Council on Monday, the independent investigators urged the 47 countries in the ...

A main contractor and two subcontractors have been fined more than HK$900,000 each for their role in the death of a 38-year-old worker who was electrocuted while handling wiring for solar panels during wet weather at the Hong Kong Science Park three years ago. Magistrate Jeffrey Sze Cho-yiu said China Power International Development, the main contractor for ...

Chinese panellists and experts at the Xiangshan Forum have warned against Japans remilitarisation amid reports that Tokyo is considering raising its midterm defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. Japan might raise its midterm budget to 3-3.5 per cent of the countrys gross domestic product in line with Nato and other US allies, Bloomberg reported earlier ...

India and Vietnam could turn their competition for China plus one investments into a complementary partnership, analysts say, combining New Delhis scale and technology capabilities with Hanois manufacturing agility and links to East Asian supply chains. Such a shift could deepen both nations roles in global production networks across high-value industries ...

While the Chinese idiom, Having ink in their stomach, serves as a metaphor to commend the knowledgeable, the act of ingesting ink was a common practice among ancient literati. The earliest documentation of ink drinking dates back to the Northern and Southern dynasties (420589), where it was used as a sanctioned punishment for scholars with illegible ...

President Xi Jinping has reiterated calls for China to make its supply chains more resilient and self-sufficient while accelerating the creation of a modern industrial system underpinned by advanced manufacturing. Xis latest directives, issued at a national conference on advanced manufacturing in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday, were said to be aimed at ...