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Mainland Chinese money to drive 10% rise in Hong Kong...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

Surging mainland Chinese investment in Hong Kong’s commercial real estate sector has helped set the stage for a “measured recovery” in 2026, according to Colliers. Investment from the mainland rose to the highest level in five years in the last quarter of 2025, and deal value in 2026 was set to increase by 10 per cent, Colliers said. In the luxury residential segment, mainland capital accounted for about 80 per cent of transactions exceeding HK$100 million on The Peak and in Southern

Hong Kong to boost authorities’ powers to crack down...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Get faster notifications on the latest updates by downloading our app. Hong Kong’s new Legislative Council is holding its first meeting on Wednesday, with lawmakers set to focus on follow-up actions after last year’s Tai Po fire that claimed at least 161 lives. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu addressed the new batch of 90 lawmakers, highlighting

South Korea’s Yoon could become ‘martyr’ if given...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

When prosecutors in South Korea demanded the death penalty for ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol, he shook his head in disbelief and let out a contemptuous laugh – a moment that encapsulated his defiant posture throughout nine months of hearings. Yoon stands accused of being the “ringleader” of an insurrection stemming from his failed martial law bid in 2024 that plunged the country into political chaos. The public gallery, packed with Yoon’s supporters, erupted into protests, forcing the presiding...

Trump flips off factory worker after Epstein taunt

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

US President Donald Trump raised his ‌middle finger and appeared to direct profanity towards a factory worker who expressed ‍criticism of his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein controversy at a Michigan auto plant on Tuesday, video circulating online showed. The entertainment site TMZ first published video capturing the exchange, and the White House did not dispute its authenticity. “A lunatic was ⁠wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and...

Can Singapore’s farming future grow in Malaysia’s...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city state with high prices and little vacant land. The to-be agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbours, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is...

India proposes reopening government bidding to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

India plans to lift long-standing restrictions on Chinese companies bidding for government contracts, a move officials say is aimed at easing shortages and project delays as relations with Beijing show tentative signs of stabilising. The proposal, first reported by Reuters, would roll back curbs, imposed after the two countries’ deadly 2020 border clash in the Galwan Valley, that effectively shut Chinese firms out of a vast segment of India’s public procurement market. In October 2024, India

DeepSeek stays mum on next AI model release as...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek continues to keep the world guessing on when its next major release – the much-anticipated updates to its V3 and R1 models – will be launched, according to analysts, amid its recent publication of technical papers. The papers underscored DeepSeek’s efforts to improve the underlying infrastructure of AI systems in China at a time when geopolitical tensions and domestic production hurdles restricted the country’s access to advanced semiconductors to...

The Chinese century may already be here

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

Some people wonder whether China could carry out a sophisticated state-sponsored kidnapping like the US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife. And it’s not just that; there is state terrorism like remote assassinations by drones, which also end up killing a lot of civilian bystanders, not to mention breaching the sovereignty of their countries. The United States can apparently do that anywhere around the world. Such Hollywood-style cowboy militarism no doubt makes its...

China warns of covert mapping by foreign forces to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

China’s top counter-espionage agency has warned that overseas entities are attempting to steal the country’s geographic data through covert mapping operations that threaten national security. Foreign “anti-China hostile forces” have been deploying “various clandestine methods” to gather, steal and exploit China’s foundational mapping and geographic information, the Ministry of State Security said in a social media article on Tuesday. It said the data, crucial for infrastructure planning,...

China teen makes fraudulent returns on cosmetics...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

A Chinese teenager has been sentenced to six years in prison after he exploited a loophole in an online shopping platform’s refund policy to make thousands of fraudulent claims. The 17-year-old made 11,900 bogus refund applications without returning the goods and made four million yuan (US$570,000) from doing so. It was recently reported that a court in Shanghai issued a verdict in his case in July 2025. In March 2024, a cosmetics shopping platform reported to the police that it had become a...

Japan’s Takaichi, South Korea’s Lee unwind with...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung played drums together on Tuesday after their summit talks in Nara, the capital of her home prefecture, in a surprise event showcasing their amicable personal relationship. The leaders played two K-pop songs – “Dynamite”, a hit tune by world-famous boy band BTS, and “Golden” from the US Golden Globes-winning animated film Kpop Demon Hunters. Takaichi led the session by showing Lee how to play the drums, according

Registered births in Hong Kong hit record low in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

The number of registered births in Hong Kong plunged to a record low of 31,714 in 2025, despite a range of government incentives to encourage families to have more children, ending two years of growth, the Post has learned. The figure was also well below the government’s target of increasing births by 20 per cent from the previous historic low recorded in 2022. Experts and parents said the government needed to tackle the underlying causes of the city’s low birth rates. “Those incentives were...

Japan’s ‘love hotel’ mayor stages comeback,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/14

A former mayor who quit her job amid a scandal over an alleged affair with a married subordinate has staged a political comeback in Japan, in a result analysts say shows how attitudes towards women in public life are shifting. Akira Ogawa, 43, was re-elected as mayor of Maebashi, the capital of Gunma prefecture, on Monday, mere months after resigning under intense public pressure. Running as an independent, Ogawa secured nearly 63,000 votes – around 10,000 more than her closest challenger –...

HK$5 million plan to install anti-terrorism bollards...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/13

Authorities plan to spend HK$5 million (US$641,025) to install safety bollards near the popular Sogo department store in Causeway Bay as a precautionary measure against potential vehicle-ramming attacks targeting pedestrians in one of Hong Kong’s busiest shopping districts. In a paper submitted to Wan Chai District Council for discussion on January 20, police and the highways and transport departments outlined the plan for locations around 555 Hennessy Road. The proposal calls for bollards

US government approves Nvidia H200 chip exports to China

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/13

The US has officially green-lighted Nvidia to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips in China, as the Trump administration seeks to strike a balance between curtailing China’s AI progress and maintaining American AI firms’ global market share. The H200, US chip giant Nvidia’s second-most-advanced AI processor, can be shipped to China under conditions that include that its China shipments account for no more than half of the amount sold domestically, according to the Department of

Not ‘Trump-compatible’? China expert Rudd exits...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/13

Australia’s former prime minister and a prominent China scholar, Kevin Rudd, will step down as ambassador to the United States a year ahead of schedule, a move some analysts say underscores a fundamental shift in how Canberra must navigate a Washington increasingly centred on the personal rapport with US President Donald Trump. The resignation follows a period of heightened friction between Rudd and Trump, punctuated by the “America first” leader’s blunt public declaration in October 2025

US prosecutors resign over handling of Renee Nicole...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/13

Roughly half a dozen federal prosecutors in Minnesota have resigned and several supervisors in the criminal section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division have given notice of their departures amid turmoil over the federal investigation into the killing of a woman by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, according to people familiar with the matter. The resignations follow growing tensions over a decision by the Trump administration to block the state out

The AI boom needs electricity, but Western grids are...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/13

Near the end of last year, thousands of European travellers saw their holiday plans unravel after a prolonged power outage in the Eurotunnel – the underwater train passage linking Britain and France – caused by a fault in the overhead supply. For many, this brought back memories of chaotic scenes the previous April, when rolling blackouts struck much of Portugal and Spain. The United States also suffered from multiple power outages last year, including major disruptions in California – most...

Chinese student numbers at Harvard rise despite Trump...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/13

Enrolment at Harvard for Chinese students rose in the autumn from a year earlier, even as the Donald Trump administration moved to rein in visas for them and limit foreign enrolment and funding at the prestigious university. The number of students from mainland China rose from 1,390 in autumn 2024 to 1,452 in autumn 2025 – an increase of 4.5 per cent – according to Harvard data released on Friday. Hong Kong student enrolment rose from 68 to 73, while enrolment from Macau, which is in the

Is India fuelling an arms race in Asia or closing a...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/13

In 2025, India approved a number of major defence packages, together worth US$30 billion. Such rapid procurement approvals are relatively rare by Indian standards. However, what they signal to the region will depend less on such announcements and more on actual outcomes. To some observers, especially after India’s four-day clash with Pakistan during what the former called “Operation Sindoor” last May, the surge appears to mark the start of a regional arms race. That interpretation is...

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