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As Trump upends US foreign policy, analysts see fresh...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

It has been a turbulent year for the fraught US-China relationship. In the fourth part of a series looking back at the events of 2025, we examine the impacts of Trump’s foreign policy on global geopolitics. As the administration of US President Donald Trump ends its first year, expect the unabashed disrupter to continue applying a wrecking ball to long-standing US national security architecture, threatening global stability and jolting long-time allies, with China a major beneficiary, say...

US government admits liability for fatal Black Hawk...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

The US Justice Department said late on Wednesday the federal government was liable in the fatal January 29 collision of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines regional jet that killed 67 people near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It was the deadliest plane crash on American soil in more than two decades. The government admitted it “owed a duty of care to plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident” and that the pilots of the Army...

Philippines to get up to US$3.5 billion defence aid...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Washington is set to deepen its defence support for the Philippines after approving billions of dollars for a loan and a grant to its Southeast Asian ally next year to counter what an American senator has called “serious threats” from China and its partners. Philippine defence officials have welcomed the approval by the House and Senate in Washington as further evidence of the US commitment to their alliance, even as analysts caution that the bill under the US National Defence Authorisation

Beijing condemns Washington’s landmark US$11 billion...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Beijing has condemned Washington for its decision to sell about US$11 billion in weapons to Taiwan, calling it a grave violation of its sovereignty and a dangerous signal to separatist forces. Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Chen Binhua said on Thursday that the sale amounted to “flagrant interference in China’s internal affairs”. Chen said it also “gravely violates” the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques, particularly the August 17 communique

China confirms issuing of first general licences for...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Beijing confirmed on Thursday that it has begun granting general licences with lengthier terms for exports of rare earth elements to foreign companies, though business groups said more guidance was needed on the policy’s implementation. “With the accumulation of relevant export compliance experience, some exporters have initially met the basic requirements to apply for general licences,” said He Yadong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom), at a press conference. “To my

Power outage briefly leaves 5,000 Hong Kong...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

A power outage briefly plunged Hong Kong’s Kowloon City, a densely populated neighbourhood, into darkness on Thursday, with traffic lights malfunctioning, people trapped in lifts and about 5,000 households affected. Police said they received a report at 4.18pm that people were trapped in a lift at Kowloon City Plaza and that the shopping centre was in total darkness. The case was later classified as “assistance not required”. At 5.04pm, another report was filed with the force about...

SenseTime pushes open-source AI model to provide a...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Chinese artificial intelligence pioneer SenseTime has open-sourced a “world model” and kicked off its foray into the burgeoning field of embodied intelligence by releasing its first robotic dog. The Hong Kong-listed AI firm’s new venture, Ace Robotics, on Thursday released Kairos 3.0, an open-source model that simulates the physical world, and a developer platform called “KaiWu” that supports embodied intelligence applications. “Ace Robotics will promote the large-scale commercialisation of...

China slams EU subsidy probes as ‘egregious’ and...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

China’s Ministry of Commerce has expressed strong opposition to recent European Union investigations into Chinese companies and vowed to use necessary means to defend their rights. “The European Union has recently launched a series of Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) investigations targeting Chinese enterprises … such actions are egregious, with clear targeting and discriminatory intent,” ministry spokesman He Yadong said during a press conference on Thursday. Last week, Brussels launched

China’s youth-unemployment rate eases, new rival in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. As trade deficit mounts, is EU offering China what it wants to buy? Facing an ever-increasing trade deficit with China, Europe has limited options to balance the situation in the short term even though it still holds an edge in key sectors including pharmaceuticals, machinery and components, analysts said. 2. China FM Wang Yi reaffirms Beijing’s backing

China’s CATL marks trailblazing deployment of...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s largest maker of electric vehicle (EV) batteries, has started deploying humanoid robots at scale within its Zhongzhou production base in Luoyang, a city in central Henan province. The company on Wednesday described its deployment at scale as a “world’s first”, as humanoid robots built by start-up Spirit AI performed complex tasks with speeds that matched those of skilled human workers. Spirit AI’s Xiaomo robots have been assigned to plug in...

US lawmakers killed a proposal targeting science...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

The US Congress passed its annual defence bill on Wednesday, easing concerns among researchers by dropping a controversial proposal targeting US-China scientific collaboration, even as it imposed new restrictions on Chinese biotechnology companies. The SAFE (Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation) Research Act would have denied federal funding to any US researcher working with scientists from China and several other countries, but it did not make it

Alibaba deepens ecosystem push with Qwen-Amap tie-up...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Alibaba Group Holding is folding its mapping and navigation platform Amap into its Qwen artificial intelligence app, in a tie-up the company says will sharpen Qwen’s real-world “life services” just weeks after the app’s debut. The integration, announced on Thursday, lets Qwen users handle travel and lifestyle requests – from restaurant and hotel recommendations to route planning and turn-by-turn navigation – in a single conversational interface. Alibaba owns the South China Morning

Why AI chatbots are unlikely to bring about human...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

In the past three years, we have experienced an extraordinary level of hype around artificial intelligence. AI as a concept has been around for nearly 70 years but the discussion has exploded since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022. ChatGPT uses a technology called a large language model (LLM). It is not the only AI technology, but it’s the one that has seemingly drawn all the attention. It is the model that enables ChatGPT and other chatbots to write impressive prose and even poetry,

Hong Kong Palace Museum says Egyptian exhibition will...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

A display of hundreds of ancient Egyptian artefacts will be the Hong Kong Palace Museum’s most profitable exhibition yet, the institution has said, while also revealing that nine other shows are in the pipeline for next year. Director Louis Ng Chi-wa said on Thursday about 76,000 people had visited “Ancient Egypt Unveiled: Treasures from Egyptian Museums” in the first four weeks of its run. “We expected it would be popular, but it is even more popular in terms of both visitor numbers and

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific investigates wrong taxiway...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways is investigating an incident in which one of its planes used a wrong taxiway in Manila, causing delays to two other flights, according to the airline. The airline said on Thursday it was cooperating with relevant authorities in an investigation into the incident involving flight CX918 from Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport to Hong Kong on Wednesday. “During taxi for departure, the aircraft made incorrect use of a taxiway,” a spokesman...

China jails smugglers of weapon metal antimony,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

A Chinese court has convicted 27 individuals of smuggling more than 166 tonnes of antimony, a critical mineral used in weapons, semiconductors and flame retardants, in a significant enforcement action under Beijing’s tighter export controls for dual-use items. The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court in Guangdong province ruled that the group had illegally shipped the critical mineral without obtaining export licences, according to a statement released on Tuesday. Lead defendant Wang Wubin

China’s mind-control robot tech breakthrough brings...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

In a landmark achievement for brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, scientists with the Chinese Academy of Sciences have enabled a paralysed man to control smart wheelchairs, robotic dogs and even perform paid work – all through the power of thought. Announced by the Centre for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT) this week, the development is the first time an individual with a high-level spinal cord injury has achieved stable, real-world control of multiple...

Beijing, Hong Kong slam G7 over criticism of Jimmy...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

Beijing and Hong Kong have slammed the G7 for “trampling the city’s rule of law” after the group criticised the guilty verdict handed down at former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying’s national security trial and demanded his immediate release. The strongly worded statements on Thursday were in response to a joint call from the foreign ministers of the G7 and the European Union’s high representative, who condemned Lai’s prosecution while expressing ongoing concerns about “deteriorating rights,...

Hong Kong Bar Association backs making bid-rigging a...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

The Hong Kong Bar Association will propose targeted legislation to criminalise bid-rigging and make key construction safety guidelines legally binding following the city’s deadliest fire in seven decades. The association formed a task force to review existing legislation after last month’s Tai Po blaze, with one of the preliminary goals being to criminalise bid-rigging, currently classified as “serious anti-competitive conduct” under the Competition Ordinance and punishable only by fines,...

China’s military accuses Japan of raising ‘space arms...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2025/12/18

China’s military mouthpiece aimed its rhetoric at Japan’s space ambitions and its new intelligence unit on Thursday, accusing Tokyo of embarking on a space arms race and undermining regional security. The criticism in two articles in the PLA Daily is the latest salvo in a diplomatic dust-up over the past month that has involved near-daily rebukes from Beijing. In one of the articles, two researchers from the People’s Liberation Army’s Space Engineering University in Beijing accused Japan of...

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