Kinaforum

søndag 26. oktober 2025

Trump attends ceasefire ceremony with Thailand and Cambodia during Malaysia visit

Thailand and Cambodia signed an expanded ceasefire agreement on Sunday during a ceremony attended by U.S. President Donald Trump, whose threats of economic pressure prodded the two nations to halt skirmishes along their disputed border earlier this year.

Thailand will release Cambodian prisoners and Cambodia will begin withdrawing heavy artillery as part of the first phase of the deal. Regional observers will monitor the situation to ensure fighting doesn’t restart.

“We did something that a lot of people said couldn’t be done,” Trump said. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet called it a “historic day,” and Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the agreement creates “the building blocks for a lasting peace.”

What’s at stake as US and China trade negotiators meet ahead of Trump-Xi summit

US and Chinese officials are set to convene another round of trade negotiations in Malaysia this weekend, as the two rival powers seek to salvage fragile relations ahead of a highly anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Delegations led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng will set the stage for talks between Trump and Xi when they meet next Thursday in South Korea.

The fifth round of trade talks comes at a precarious time for US-China relations, after both countries slapped sweeping measures on the other following months of relative calm. The two countries had struck a trade truce in May following an all-out tariff war, which was extended until November 10 before the latest shots were fired.

Trump arrives in Asia for a week of high-stakes diplomacy

US President Donald Trump has arrived in Malaysia for a busy week of meetings with Asian leaders, including stops in Japan and South Korea, his first visit to the region since returning to office in January.
On arrival in the capital Kuala Lumpur, Trump’s first order of business was to oversee the signing of a peace accord between the leaders of Cambodia and Thailand, building on a truce signed several months ago following a deadly clash.

The stakes are particularly high for Trump’s sit-down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week. After months of relative calm, the US and China have slapped each other with sweeping trade measures in recent weeks, straining relations between the rival powers. Talks between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterparts have “set the stage for the leaders’ meeting,” Bessent told reporters Sunday.

Before he arrived in Asia, Trump announced a hike in tariffs on Canada, addressed peace efforts in Gaza and Ukraine, and previewed his meetings with key leaders in comments made during the long-haul flight.

The young tycoon accused of masterminding a multibillion-dollar international fraud network

He is a baby-faced tycoon who rose to the highest echelons of power in his adopted home of Cambodia, where he bestows scholarships and runs philanthropy programs while overseeing one of the country’s largest and best-connected conglomerates.

But behind this façade, Chen Zhi, 37, runs one of the largest transnational criminal organizations in Asia, US authorities say, an empire fueled by forced labor and cryptocurrency scams that at one point were allegedly earning Chen and his associates $30 million every day.

The money went on buying Picasso artwork, private jets and properties in upscale neighborhoods of London, as well as supplying bribes to public officials, according to prosecutors in New York, who last week announcedthey had seized $15 billion in cryptocurrency from Chen following a years-long investigation.

That action has thrown a rare light on an alleged kingpin of Southeast Asia’s murky and criminal world of online scams, which US authorities say operate under the protection of powerful politicians, and conned victims in the US alone out of at least $10 billion dollars last year.

US starts investigating China’s compliance with 2020 trade deal as Trump heads to Asia

U.S. officials are launching an investigation into whether China lived up to its commitments under a 2020 trade pact that President Donald Trumpdescribed at the time as “an incredible breakthrough.’’ The announcement Friday by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer came the same day Trump was scheduled to head to Asia, where he said he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in an effort to ease trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

Beijing has announced that Xi will travel to South Korea to attend a regional economic meeting and for a state visit, but it has yet to confirm that he will meet with Trump while both are in South Korea.

China’s newest aircraft carrier not as capable as 50-year-old US ship in one key respect, former US officers say

China’s newest aircraft carrier may only be able to conduct air operations at about 60% the rate of a 50-year-old US Navy carrier, two former US carrier officers say, a substantial combat limitation for a vessel meant to revolutionize Beijing’s fleet.

The officers told CNN the configuration of the flight deck of the Fujian, expected to be commissioned soon, limits the pace at which aircraft can be launched and recovered, especially when compared with the Nimitz-class US carriers. “The Fujian’s operational capability is only about 60% of that of the Nimitz class,” said Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain who served on two US aircraft carriers.

Can Japan’s New Leader Afford to Go Hard on Immigration?

Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has earned a reputation as a hardliner on immigration, an image that helped propel her to power amid rising nationalist sentiment and debate over Japan’s identity amid demographic decline.

Hailing from the conservative wing of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Takaichi won last month’s runoff election to become Japan’s 104th and first female prime minister. Her rise came amid an uptick in anti-foreigner sentiment, with some observers saying she tapped into that mood to secure the LDP leadership and the top political post in the country.

Japan, one of the world’s most homogeneous nations, faces deepening labor shortages as its birth rate plummets and its population ages.

Japan’s new leader faces diplomatic gauntlet with Trump, China and regional summits

Just days after taking office, Japan’s new leader faces a series of back-to-back foreign policy tests, with a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Tokyo sandwiched between Asia-region summits in Malaysia and South Korea.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, with limited experience in international affairs, will have to manage Trump’s demands and unpredictability and China’s wariness of her strong support for a military build-up and her right-wing views on Japan’s invasion of China before and during World War II.

She arrives in Malaysia on Saturday for meetings with Southeast Asian leaders, then returns to Japan to meet Trump before heading to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit at the end of the week. In her first news conference as prime minister, she described her schedule as “packed” with diplomatic events and said it will be a valuable opportunity to meet other regional leaders.

Torbjørn Færøvik: The Migrant Workers - China's Overlooked Heroes

My little Saturday epic is devoted to China’s forgotten heroes – the migrant workers.

They number around three hundred million. For nearly fifty years they have traveled from place to place to build the nation. We are often told that the Communist Party has “lifted” hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. The fact is that the migrant workers have done the heaviest lifting, but they themselves remain poor.

In recent days, the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee has mapped out the course for the next five years. The main message is that China will continue to grow, both economically and militarily. In the wordy final communiqué we also find a sentence stating that the country must become better at distributing its wealth. The catchword here is “common prosperity.”

But how is that supposed to happen?

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Torbjørn Færøvik: Migrantarbeiderne - Kinas glemte helter

Mitt lille lørdagsepos er viet Kinas glemte helter – migrantarbeiderne.

De teller rundt tre hundre millioner. I snart femti år har de reist fra sted til sted for å bygge landet. Vi blir ofte fortalt at kommunistpartiet har «løftet» flere hundre millioner innbyggere ut av fattigdom. Faktum er at migrantarbeiderne har tatt det tyngste løftet, men selv er de fremdeles fattige.

Det kinesiske kommunistpartiets sentralkomité har de siste dagene staket ut kursen for de neste fem årene. Hovedbudskapet er at Kina skal fortsette å vokse, økonomisk som militært. I den ordrike slutterklæringen finner vi også en setning om at landet skal bli flinkere til å fordele godene. Stikkordet her er «felles velstand».

Men hvordan skal det skje?

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China Oil Firms Halt Russian Imports After Trump Sanctions: Report

Four major state-owned Chinese oil companies have suspended their purchases of seaborne Russian oil in response to the new sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Rosneft and Lukoil, according to a Reuters report, citing anonymous trade sources.

The suspension, if confirmed, would put Russia under major economic pressure to end its war on Ukraine. China is a key strategic partner of Russia and Beijing's large-scale oil purchases have aided Moscow through punishing Western sanctions related to its invasion of Ukraine. India, another big buyer of Russian oil, has also indicated it will cut purchases.

The four Chinese oil firms involved are PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC and Zhenhua Oil, per Reuters. Newsweek has contacted the four companies by email for comment, and also the Russian embassy in Beijing.

U.S., China seek to avoid trade war escalation, salvage Trump-Xi meeting in Malaysia talks

Top economic officials from the U.S. and China kickstarted talks in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday to avert an escalation of their trade war and ensure that a meeting happens next week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The talks on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit will chart a path forward after Trump threatened new 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and other trade curbs starting on November 1, in retaliation for China’s vastly expanded export controls on rare earth magnets and minerals.

The recent actions, which also include an expanded U.S. export blacklist that covers thousands more Chinese firms, have disrupted a delicate trade truce crafted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng over four previous meetings since May.

Visa Power: How China is Buying its Way into America’s Heart

New steel and solar plants and a transport terminal have become a godsend for the Mississippi River town of Osceola, now long past its heyday as a timber and grain hub where steamboats once called and blues music echoed.

But crucial to the financing of the burgeoning industrial cluster in this rural northeastern corner of Arkansas, one of America’s poorest states, is a surprising set of investors: Chinese citizens who have secured residency in the United States—and potentially a path to citizenship—through an investment visa scheme that has been bringing in thousands of people a year, by far the biggest group of whom are from China.

A Newsweek investigation has revealed how the entry of potentially hundreds of Chinese citizens to the U.S. via this struggling town of around 6,800 is being facilitated by Chinese companies with links to the ruling Communist Party that market their ability to buy entry to the United States. Also involved is the immigration investment subsidiary of a nonprofit economic development corporation in Little Rock.

Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit has died at age 93

Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit, who supervised royal projects to help the rural poor, preserve traditional craft-making and protect the environment, died on Friday. She was 93. The Royal Household Bureau said she died in a hospital in Bangkok. Since Oct. 17, she had been suffering from a blood infection but despite her medical team’s efforts, her conditions did not improve.

She had been largely absent from public life in recent years due to declining health. Her husband, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, died in October 2016. Photos released by the palace for her 88th birthday showed her son, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, and other royals visiting the queen mother at Chulalongkorn Hospital, where she was receiving long-term care.

Trump to meet China’s Xi for the first time in second term as trade deal remains elusive

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping next week as part of his trip to Asia, as the world’s top two economies seek to dial down tensions in search for a trade deal that has so far been elusive. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that Trump will meet his Chinese counterpart on Oct. 30 on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, Summit.

“I think we are going to come out very well and everyone’s going to be very happy,” Trump said later on Thursday about his panned meeting with Xi.

South Korean presidential security advisor Wi Sung-lac confirmed Thursday the state visits by Trump and Xi during the APEC summit, although China has not officially made a statement about it. It will be the first in-person meeting between the two heads of states since Trump returned to the office in January. The leaders, who have had at least two phone calls this year, last met in 2019 during Trump’s first presidential term.

In its rivalry with the US, China sees an advantage: the long game

Chinese leaders have just concluded a closed-door conclavefocused on drawing up the country’s next five-year economic blueprint – a sweeping plan covering everything from accelerating tech innovation to streamlining how China’s farms grow food.

Stakes are high for formulating that strategy, with Chinese officials under pressure to reduce reliance on imported high-tech and address economic weaknesses as the country faces a deepening rivalry with the US.

But drawing up the plan – especially at a moment when Washington remains immobilized by a government shutdown over spending for the current fiscal year – also gives leader Xi Jinping an opportunity to showcase a source of his confidence in China’s rise: the authoritarian country’s ability to produce – and deliver on – far-reaching visions.

How Trump and Xi are doing a delicate, sometimes pointed dance in bilateral trade talks

The calm following the Sept. 19 phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had barely ended when strong undercurrents surged, threatening to rock the entire ship.

First, the U.S. government widened sanction rules on Chinese companies. Beijing retaliated by expanding permitting requirements on rare earth materials needed in everything from smartphones to fighter jets. Trump hit back with threats to impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods, clouding any prospect for a trade deal ahead of a possible summit in South Korea between Trump and Xi on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit later this month.

“I threaten them with something I think is much more powerful. That’s tariffs,” Trump said Monday. “I could also threaten them with many other things, like airplanes,” Trump said, suggesting the U.S. could stop sending China airplane parts.

China and the United States, Fall 2025: A timeline of remarks, threats, critiques — and dialogue

Tensions between the U.S. and China escalated in the weeks leading up to a possible meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. In response to recent U.S. restrictions, China plans to expand permitting requirements on rare earth products. Trump has threatened a 100% tariff on Chinese goods. Such is the game between the world’s two largest economies, with both sides seeking an upper hand in the highly-watched trade negotiations.

Here’s a look at how it unfolded over the past month.