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China warns travellers to avoid Seattle airport after...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

China has advised its citizens travelling to the US to avoid a Seattle airport, citing “malicious interrogation and harassment” of some 20 Chinese academics. The Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday that the academics had valid visas and were going to a conference but were denied entry after “unreasonable interrogation” by US border officers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The ministry said that any citizens planning to travel to the US in near future should improve their

China fast-tracks hydrogen strategy to ‘scale-up’...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Amid heightening global anxieties over energy security fuelled by the escalating conflict in the Middle East, China’s top energy regulator has pledged to accelerate the development of its hydrogen industry, hailing the fuel as a “strategic lever” to fortify national energy resilience. The National Energy Administration (NEA) called for “bold innovation” in the sector during a recent meeting reviewing the progress of hydrogen pilots and outlining future tasks, according to an official readout...

China single mum works at building sites, lifting...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

A single mother in China who has worked for 16 years carrying heavy bags of cement on construction sites to care for and fund her daughter’s education has moved countless people online. Wei Guiyun, 40, from Qidong County in Hengyang, Hunan province, central China, has gone viral online after sharing her story. In 2010, at the age of 24, she began the labouring job while raising two young children. At that time, her daughter was two and her son just a few months old. “With two children, the...

Indonesia’s Bali wants illegal rentals to be...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Indonesia’s push to bring thousands of unlicensed tourist stays into the legal fold is running into a familiar administrative obstacle in Bali, with operators saying the government wants faster compliance than the bureaucracy could allow. In December, the Ministry of Tourism said unlicensed accommodation providers in Bali, Yogyakarta, West Nusa Tenggara and West Java had until March 31 to register their hotels, guest houses, villas and homestays, in a move meant to improve service quality,...

Indian man charged with sexual assault of passenger...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

A man was charged in Australia on Tuesday with sexually assaulting a female passenger on board a Scoot flight from Singapore to Perth on Monday. The 52-year-old Indian national committed “non-consensual sexual acts” on a woman he was seated next to during the flight, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Western Australia Police Force said in a joint statement on Monday. The woman sought help from airline staff members and was later moved to another seat, the police said in the...

Europe lacks China strategy, needs new US approach,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Sven Biscop is a Belgian political scientist and strategist specialising in the foreign affairs and security of the EU and its relations with great powers. He is a director at the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels and a professor at Ghent University. He is also a senior research fellow at Renmin University in Beijing, where he teaches in the summer. Biscop is the author of many books, including 2024’s This Is Not a New World Order: Europe Rediscovers Geopolitics,...

Rise in mental illness cases among Hong Kong students...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Hong Kong’s education minister has said the surge in students diagnosed with mental illness partly reflects parents’ growing acceptance and openness about the issue, while academic pressures, social lives and physical health also play a role. The remarks by Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin came after the Education Bureau revealed that the number of secondary school students suffering from mental illness had doubled over the past five academic years, from 660 in 2020-21 to 1,330

We failed to check if workers smoked at Wang Fuk...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Two renovation subcontractors involved in a HK$336 million (US$42.9 million) project at a subsidised estate ravaged by Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades have conceded they did not regulate workers’ smoking behaviour before the inferno. The two engineering firms on Thursday also told an independent committee that they had partially replaced fireproof windows at Wang Fuk Court’s evacuation passages with movable wooden boards to allow workers’ easy access to scaffolding at the behest of main...

Bye-bye, US? Why China’s trade with Africa benefits...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Africa was China’s fastest growing export market in the first quarter of 2026, up 32.1 per cent year on year to US$60.66 billion, according to customs data, reflecting a continuing shift away from American trade. The growth outpaced other regions of the world, driven by high-value shipments such as machinery and vehicles as well as hi-tech equipment, including solar and battery technology. It continued a trend of Chinese manufacturers turning to the continent to offload excess capacity,...

Bullish narrative around India’s economy at odds with...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

At first glance, the rupee is staging a recovery. India’s battered currency has gained around 1.5 per cent since March 27, making it the best-performing currency in Asia, according to Bloomberg data. However, the recent bounce belies vulnerabilities in India’s economy that have been exacerbated by the energy shock emanating from the war in Iran. India is one of the most exposed among Asia’s leading economies, importing 90 per cent of its oil and more than half its liquefied petroleum gas....

Xi Jinping stresses ‘patience’ on Taiwan...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Communist Party chief Xi Jinping appears to be taking a patient approach to reunification with Taiwan, according to the island’s opposition leader and a member of her delegation who attended a rare meeting with Xi in Beijing. Xi met Cheng Li-wun, who leads Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang, and her delegation at the Great Hall of the People on Friday – the first talks between sitting leaders of the two parties in nearly a decade. Discussing the cross-strait relationship, Xi said the issues

Russian missiles and drones kill at least 17 across...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Russia unleashed its deadliest attack so far this year on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other cities overnight, killing 17 people, including a 12-year-old child, and wounding scores, in drone and missile strikes, officials said on Thursday. In Russia, a major Ukrainian drone attack on the Black Sea port of Tuapse killed two people, including a 14-year-old girl, injured seven, and sparked a large fire, Russian ‌officials and media reported. The port is home to a major oil refinery as well as

BTS comeback drives record 2.06 million tourists to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

South Korea welcomed a record 2.06 million foreign visitors in March, led by Chinese arrivals, government data showed on Thursday, with tourism spending lifted ‌by the comeback tour of K-pop supergroup BTS after a years-long hiatus. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the monthly record helped lift first-quarter arrivals by 23 per cent from a year ago to 4.76 million, also a record for a first quarter. It attributed the trend to the “worldwide popularity of [Korean] culture”,...

7 French tourists arrested after viral Songkran spray...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Thai police arrested seven French tourists after a viral Songkran confrontation in Phuket in which revellers surrounded a van, sprayed its driver with water and later ignored police orders to disperse. The incident came during Thailand’s annual new year festival, whose street water fights draw huge crowds across the country but have also sparked complaints this year about more aggressive behaviour in some tourist hotspots. Video shared on social media showed a crowd in Patong, a beach town on...

This video of ‘Iran capturing US pilot’ was filmed in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

With the rise of social media and generative AI, how much of what we see online is true? In this series, SCMP Fact-Check, the South China Morning Post investigates claims circulating online and debunks viral misinformation impacting the daily lives of Hongkongers. A video circulating online amid the US-Israel war on Iran falsely claims to show a downed American pilot captured alive by Iranians. “Iranians Captured F35 Pilot alive,” read the caption of a Facebook reel. The video appeared to show

Japan remains most trusted power in Southeast Asia...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Japan is expected to remain the most trusted power among Southeast Asian countries, even as it seeks to amend its pacifist constitution and continues its military build-up. However, Tokyo will need to be transparent about its motives and reassure others that its military-related actions contribute to regional security, according to analysts. In the latest annual survey conducted by the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Japan retained its ranking as the region’s most trusted power,...

University of Indonesia suspends 16 law students for...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

A leading Indonesian university suspended 16 law students on Thursday after a sexually explicit group chat about their female peers went viral, sparking a debate about gender violence in the Muslim-majority country. Screenshots of a conversation among 16 male students at the University of Indonesia were posted on social media this week, eliciting shock and anger from female peers and a wider societal discussion. The university said in a statement on Thursday it had suspended the young men for...

Chinese investors cheer Tesla’s AI chip progress,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Chinese suppliers of parts for Tesla’s electric vehicles (EVs) and robots saw their stock prices gain on Thursday morning as the US tech giant announced that its AI5 artificial intelligence inference chip was 45 days ahead of schedule. After a nearly 7.7 per cent jump in Tesla’s Nasdaq-listed stock on Wednesday, shares of the company’s Chinese suppliers were up by as much as 4.6 per cent on Thursday. Shanghai-listed Ningbo Tuopu Group and Shenzhen-listed Zhejiang Sanhua Intelligent Controls,...

New home prices in China’s biggest cities record...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

Mainland China’s first-tier home prices edged up 0.2 per cent in March, rising after nine months of losses and no change in February, but it is too soon to declare the property market stable without sustained improvement in homebuying demand, according to analysts. Compared with a month earlier, March home prices were flat in Beijing, rose 0.3 per cent in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and gained 0.2 per cent in Shenzhen, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on...

China trims US Treasury holdings amid rising debt...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/04/16

China continued to diversify its foreign exchange reserves in February, trimming its US Treasury stockpile even as overall overseas holdings of sovereign American debt rose to a record high. China’s stockpile of United States Treasuries fell to US$693.3 billion in February, down from US$694.4 billion in January, according to US Treasury Department data released on Wednesday. Although China slightly increased its US Treasury holdings in January, the uptick did little to alter a broader

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