World News by Wild Rose

Mainland Chinese shipyards delivered more than twice as much naval tonnage as their US counterparts in 2024 and 2025, according to a new survey, exposing a growing production gap that analysts say could weigh heavily in a prolonged conflict over Taiwan. Tonnage alone is an imperfect measure of naval power, specialists cautioned, pointing to ongoing US advantages in submarine technology, aircraft carriers and operational experience. They also highlighted China’s ability to draw on commercial...

Beijing has slammed “irresponsible remarks” by Britain after a UK report said Hong Kong’s national security law had further diminished the openness that underpinned the city’s success. In the United Kingdom’s latest six-month monitoring report on Hong Kong, released on Thursday, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said he was “deeply concerned and disturbed” by the continued imprisonment of former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, who was jailed for 20 years over national security offences. “We continue...

Bloomberg's Minmin Low says Beijing and Moscow are doubling down on strategic and energy ties following Vladimir Putin’s meetings with US envoy Steve Witkoff, signaling close bilateral coordination amid shifting global diplomacy. (Source: Bloomberg)

A fresh dispute has erupted between Beijing and Taipei over commemorations for Sun Yat-sen, a Chinese revolutionary hero who is revered on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Beijing on Wednesday lashed out at Taipei’s move to ban Taiwanese officials from attending events in the mainland Chinese capital marking the 160th anniversary of Sun’s birth on November 12. Sun brought an end to more than 2,000 years of imperial rule when he founded the Republic of China (ROC) in 1912, and he also founded the...

Beijing’s director of the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), Song Tao, has held a rare meeting with a delegation of US scholars that pledged to push for the peaceful development of cross-strait ties. During the meeting in Beijing on Tuesday with a delegation from the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) led by its president and CEO, Susan M. Elliott, Song spoke of a broader diplomatic context following high-level summit meetings between Chinese and US leadership. “President Xi Jinping...

The number of contested subsectors in Hong Kong’s powerful Election Committee has doubled compared with 2021, in a move observers said reflected Beijing’s push to foster healthy competition within the pro-establishment camp and strengthen the legitimacy of the body responsible for selecting the city’s next leader. The two-week nomination period ended on Tuesday, with 1,115 hopefuls signing up to run for 982 elected seats across 36 subsectors on the Election Committee. The poll will be held on...

China on Tuesday accused a US naval vessel of undermining regional stability by entering waters near the South China Sea’s disputed Spratly Islands. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the USS Charleston “illegally intruded” into the waters around the Sabina Shoal “without approval”, said the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theatre Command Navy spokesman Yin Gang. The Chinese navy monitored and followed the Charleston, Yin said. China holds “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratly...

Ng Hon-mun, an influential leftist educator and former Hong Kong deputy to the National People’s Congress, has died at the age of 100. His death was confirmed on Sunday by former chief executive Leung Chun-ying, who is also a vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. “Deeply mourn Principal Ng Hon-mun,” Leung wrote on Facebook. Ng was regarded as one of Hong Kong’s most senior pro-Beijing figures and a prominent voice within the camp. He...

As Hong Kong hosts the Apec Finance Ministers’ Meeting on Tuesday, this two-part series examines the summit’s significance and its implications for Beijing on the global stage. In part one, Simpson Cheung and Alfred Lam explore how the event could elevate the city’s status as an international financial centre at a pivotal moment. Beijing’s decision to have Hong Kong host the Apec Finance Ministers’ Meeting this week is a deliberate move to galvanise the city’s standing as an offshore renminbi...

Which powers press, feed or court Havana? A dated guide to Cuba geopolitics: Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Brussels, the Gulf, India and BRICS in October 2026. The post Cuba Geopolitics Explained 2026 appeared first on The Rio Times.

Panama in the Americas as of October 2026: its weight and income, the Canal, seats at the OAS and UN, Mercosur status and ties with Washington and Beijing. The post Panama in Latin America, Its Role, Weight and Alliances appeared first on The Rio Times.

How Ecuador balances Washington and Beijing in 2026: the US trade deal, security ties, Chinese mining and shrimp, the Colombia tariff war and smaller powers. The post Ecuador Geopolitics Explained 2026 appeared first on The Rio Times.

Paraguay’s technology minister said on Thursday that sanctions imposed on him by Beijing over his country’s ties with Taiwan would only accelerate joint projects with the island. Gustavo Villate, who heads the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, wrote in a lengthy social media post that the relationship with Taipei would “never be on the negotiating table”. He also suggested that Beijing had acted to protect Chinese telecoms suppliers kept out of Paraguay’s networks. “This...

Beijing has enlisted the support of its top internet watchdog to deepen the investigation into a car safety issue that put Chinese-made intelligent vehicles under the spotlight. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Thursday that a joint investigation team including officials from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) would verify facts regarding reports about brake pedal failures in tests of an...

Hong Kong lost the chance to host a key gathering of global finance ministers 12 years ago as pro-democracy protests loomed. Now, Beijing is giving it another chance in a city where its tightening grip has made such dissent all but unthinkable.

Beijing has warned Taiwanese people against acting “two-faced” on the issue of Taiwan independence after television host Kevin Tsai Kang-yong attended a campaign rally for a Taipei mayoral candidate who has been labelled a separatist by Beijing. The episode underscores the political risks facing Taiwanese entertainers working on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, who can face backlash over any actions perceived to touch on the issue. “No individual or force may act as a ‘two-faced person’ –...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week 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. Marcos says Philippines ‘resigned’ to managing South China Sea dispute The Philippines is “resigned” to managing its long-standing dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea and avoiding dangerous escalations, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said. 2. ‘A show of...

A Beijing-educated former official at the US federal drug regulator has been appointed to lead Hong Kong’s new medical products body, tasked with accelerating the clinical use of medicines and medical devices as part of a regulatory overhaul. Li Zili, who previously worked at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), would take up the post of controller for medical products regulation under the Department of Health on a three-year term beginning October 20, the government said on Monday. He...

Beijing is building a gold-backed monetary architecture to accelerate yuan internationalisation. In this three-part series, Part 1 traces China’s path as a gold superpower, while Part 2 explores the crucial role of Hong Kong’s offshore vaulting infrastructure. Hong Kong’s ambition to become an international gold trading centre rests not only on serving the nation’s financial needs, but also on China’s booming consumer market for gold. As the world’s largest gold producer and importer, China...

In September, the Jaecoo 7 – a budget SUV from China’s Chery Automobile – made headlines when it shifted more than 10,000 units to become Britain’s bestselling car. Christened the “Temu Range Rover” online, a nod to the cheap goods available on the Chinese online marketplace and the luxury 4X4 made by Jaguar Land Rover that it resembles, its success showed British drivers’ new-found taste for cut-price Chinese cars. Overall, 23 per cent of new cars bought in Britain last month were Chinese...

Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te has welcomed talks between Washington and Beijing aimed at reducing the risk of conflict. Lai’s annual Double Tenth address, marking the anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name, also called for democracies to work together to safeguard regional peace and for the Taiwanese people’s right to exist to be respected. But Beijing said he had shown his true colours and accused him of “stirring up confrontation across the...

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te called on democracies in the region to unite against threats to stability, as the island faces pressure from Beijing and concerns that Donald Trump’s rapprochement with China could come at Taiwan’s expense.

China’s cooperation with the Pacific islands is not part of a geopolitical competition, top diplomat Wang Yi told a delegation of politicians from the region on Friday. The comments come as Beijing and Washington vie for influence in the South Pacific. “China’s engagement with Pacific island countries is a form of South-South cooperation based on mutual assistance and support,” Wang said, according to a statement from the Communist Party’s International Department. “This cooperation does not...

The Philippines is “resigned” to managing its long-standing dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea and avoiding dangerous escalations, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said on Thursday. At the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore, Marcos said: “I don’t know if we can find a resolution to the problem, but we are resigned to just being able to manage the problem, so that we do not have mistakes, we do not have misinterpretations. “My greatest fear is that some seaman, some soldier, just...

Fast Retailing, the parent company of Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, has defied the ongoing political tensions between Beijing and Tokyo and soft consumer sentiment in China to log a rebound in sales and profits on the Chinese mainland. The Japanese firm said the 2026 financial year, which ended in August, had been a period in which its mainland China business had “made steady progress, with encouraging steps indicating a return to growth”, according to its annual report released on...

Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington in September was steeped in pageantry. The Chinese president received two 21-gun salutes in three days, watched a flyover by the powerful B-2 stealth bomber, and viewed the founding documents of American democracy at the National Archives. US President Donald Trump called his summit with Xi a “great meeting” and rated it a “12 out of 10”. Xi was also positive, saying “everything is done to the highest order of perfection, and there is thought in every...

A reported plan to station US defence personnel inside Taiwan’s military headquarters would take cooperation from external help into the heart of defence planning, potentially angering Beijing while raising questions over Taipei’s policymaking autonomy and military secrecy. According to Taiwanese media reports at the weekend, the Pentagon plans to send one official from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy and one expert from the Institute for Defence Analyses (IDA) to work on...

For decades, China’s property sector was defined by spectacular scale: farmland transformed into suburbs, skylines rising across regional hubs and, more recently, the prominent unravelling of heavily indebted developers. Yet beneath those dramatic changes, a far quieter and more consequential transformation is taking shape. Official figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics in September reveal that secondary market home transactions have surpassed new residential builds in volume....

Taipei’s dilemma over its history during World War II appeared to deepen as Beijing and Washington looked to the Flying Tigers as a source of connection and goodwill during last month’s Xi–Trump summit. US President Donald Trump’s description of China as an American ally during the war has raised concerns in Taiwan that what could have been a valuable historical connection with the United States ended up benefiting Beijing’s ties with Washington. The dilemma resurfaced after Trump and Chinese...

As Beijing and Washington take tentative steps to keep a military crisis from erupting, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is reshaping the top ranks of the American military while facing questions about his own future at the Pentagon. Hegseth told junior officers and sergeants on Wednesday that the military had already cut its generals and admirals by 10 per cent and planned to cut another 10 per cent. He called the 20 per cent reduction the bare minimum, dismissing critics who called the...