Kinaforum

mandag 3. august 2026

Extreme heat costs poorest workers their health and wages

Brijpal Singh spends long hours working construction under the blazing sun in Noida, a sprawling industrial satellite city in India's National Capital Region. Even as temperatures soar past 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit), work on the building site rarely stops.

By the end of each shift, the 51-year-old says his heart is pounding, and he's usually dizzy, dehydrated and physically drained from hours in the heat. Yet taking a day off is a luxury he cannot afford. Missing work would mean losing his daily wage of 500 to 600 rupees ($6 to $7, €5.20 to €6.10). The money supports his wife and three children living in a village in Uttar Pradesh, a two-day journey away .

"There are days when I don't feel like working," said Singh. "But if I miss a day, who will take care of my children and pay for their expenses?"

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and the Global Chip Supply Chain

The modern digital economy runs on semiconductors, but few consumers realize how dependent it is on a single company. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, has become the cornerstone of the global semiconductor industry. Its manufacturing facilities produce many of the world’s most advanced logic chips, powering everything from artificial intelligence systems and smartphones to fighter aircraft, cloud computing infrastructure, medical devices, and autonomous vehicles.

Unlike consumer technology companies whose products are visible to the public, TSMC operates largely behind the scenes. It does not sell smartphones, laptops, or graphics cards under its own brand. Instead, it manufactures chips designed by hundreds of customers around the world, making it the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry. This business model has transformed the technology industry and elevated Taiwan into one of the most strategically significant economies in the world.

Exclusive Interview: Zhou Fengsuo on Tiananmen, AI Surveillance, and China’s Democratic Future

The Tiananmen Movement changed the course of my life. Like millions of Chinese students at the time, I believed China could become a freer and more just society through peaceful reform. We were not seeking chaos or revolution. We wanted dialogue, accountability, and dignity. For a brief moment in the spring of 1989, freedom seemed within reach.

The June 4 massacre shattered the hope for immediate change, but it also gave me a lifelong mission. After surviving prison and eventually rebuilding my life in the United States, I came to understand that freedom is never guaranteed. It survives only when ordinary people are willing to defend it, often at tremendous personal cost.

The courage of the Tiananmen protesters, the unknown Tank Man, the Tiananmen Mothers, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, and countless others has taught the world two enduring lessons. First, the Chinese people deeply value freedom, democracy, and human dignity, and many are willing to sacrifice everything to defend those ideals. Second, acts of conscience have a power that transcends both time and borders.

Growing like ‘gangbusters’: Can Taiwan maintain its economic momentum?

Taiwan has witnessed a dramatic boom in recent months driven by the mania for artificial intelligence (AI). Earlier this year, its stock exchange soared to become the fifth largest in the world based on market capitalisation, the value of its publicly traded shares, overtaking the United Kingdom, Canada and India.Much of that upward momentum has been driven by AI and other technology exports highly sought after by the United States.

Last year, the US imported $201bn worth of goods from Taiwan, nearly double its rate from 2024, when it acquired $116bn in imports. In May, Taiwan eclipsed China to become the third-largest source of US imports, after Mexico and Canada.

Experts have described Taiwan’s market acceleration as a return to its status as a “tiger economy” — a term used to capture surging growth in East Asia. Much of the credit, they say, falls to its flourishing technology sector.

Revolt of the Cockroaches: How India’s Gen Z Humbled Modi

In the final segment of Creepshow, the horror anthology series written by Stephen King, Upson Pratt, a ruthless old businessman, lives alone in a penthouse fitted with surveillance screens, control panels, and alarm systems. He has a pathological phobia of germs and contamination, is obsessed with exercising complete control over his environment, and regards every competitor as little more than a bug to be squashed.

One night, a cockroach breaches his citadel, and Pratt swiftly dispatches it. But the cockroaches keep appearing in ever-greater swarms, creeping out from air vents, drains, cupboards, and electrical panels until they are everywhere. Despite his manic efforts to smash and spray them out of existence, the ever-multiplying cockroaches eventually overwhelm him.

Can PM Modi reconnect with India's Gen Z?

China wants Tibetan, Falun Gong media out from New Delhi BRICS summit expected to be attended by President Xi

China is reported to have called for curtains on media access to groups such as the Falun Gong and Tibetans during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s possible visit to India for the BRICS summit in September. It is not clear whether this is just a request or a condition for Xi’s possible attendance.

Senior embassy officials raised concerns about media access for news organisations linked to these groups and the potential for them to question the Chinese delegation attending the leaders’ summit scheduled for Sep 12 and 13 in New Delhi, reported theprint.in Aug 3.

The embassy request followed the launch last week of the media accreditation process for the summit by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. As chair of the BRICS summit, media accreditation and access to media spaces at the summit venue is under control of the Indian government, the report noted.

Top US admiral warns against coercion, says no nation will dominate Indo-Pacific

The head of U.S. Pacific Command said Monday that coercive actions by China and other actors are challenging regional stability, warning the United States will not allow any nation to dominate the Indo-Pacific. Admiral Samuel Paparo said some actors were using “false claims of legitimacy” to justify intimidation and coercion.

“That’s not the rule of law. That’s the rule by law. That distinction between law as a tool of order versus law as a weapon of raw power, is the defining fault line of our time,” he said via video link at a regional security conference in Malaysia organized by the U.S. Pacific Command. Paparo’s remarks come as tensions remain high in the South China Sea, where China’s expansive maritime claims overlap with those of several Southeast Asian nations.

Prime minister visits quake-hit southern Japan as cleanup begins in intense heat

Residents in Japan’s quake-hit southwestern prefecture of Kumamotoput out heaps of debris for collection as the region baked under intense heat. The heat and a lack of water supplies have added to the challenges in the severely damaged areas where Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi briefly visited for the first time since a magnitude 7.1 quake hit Kumamoto Prefecture on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu on Tuesday.

Thirty-eight people died during the quake, including one who died of apparent heat stroke while taking shelter in a car in hot weather and one other whose cause of death is still being investigated, prefectural officials said Monday.

Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi has rare meeting with International Red Cross

Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with the International Committee of the Red Cross’ representative in the capital on Monday, the military-backed government said, a rare moment of contact with the outside world for the Nobel laureate who has been held out of public view since the military seized power in 2021.

Two photographs published with the announcement showed Suu Kyi shaking hands with Arnaud de Baecque, the ICRC’s representative to Myanmar, and meeting with him in a wood-paneled room. The Presidential Press and Information Bureau, which released the photographs, said the meeting was held Monday morning but did not disclose the location of the meeting or provide details about what was discussed.

China loves historic sites. Tourists don’t mind if they’re not the originals

China is proud of its history. The only problem? Much of it has been lost to fires, wars, looting and revolutions. Enter fanggu, “historical imitation” attractions. Across the country, entire faux-ancient villages have been built from scratch. From glistening palaces to majestic boulevards, every detail is curated. Vines are transplanted in bulk, and tiles are crumbled mechanically. The result is a grand, albeit sometimes bizarre, fusion of dynastic history, architecture and geography.

Modern consumers are “increasingly willing to pay for emotional value, seeking deeper engagement and cultural meaning through immersive experiences,” Yang Jinsong, director of the International Institute at the China Tourism Academy, told state media outlet People’s Daily in June.

Japan is launching its first centralized intelligence agency since WWII. Here’s why

Japan is launching a new centralized intelligence body for the first time since World War II – a controversial move that some fear deviates from Tokyo’s pacifist ideals, but one others say is much needed in a country so riddled with security weaknesses it has been called a “paradise for spies.”

The National Intelligence Bureau will formally launch on Friday, replacing previous structures criticized as disjointed and ineffective – and laying the foundation, experts say, for broader changes that could include an anti-spy law and a new external foreign intelligence agency similar to the CIA in the US, or MI6 in the UK.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi nodded to these ambitions on Monday, saying: “These measures are merely the first step in intelligence reform.”

A young Tibetan flees his homeland – and reveals how China is eroding his culture

Cheogyal Dawa couldn’t contain his emotions when he finally came face-to-face with an image he hadn’t seen openly displayed since he was a small child: a portrait of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader.

“I was so excited I burst into tears,” Cheogyal said of seeing the large portrait, which is banned from being displayed within China, at a center for new Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, earlier this year. “Then I felt that I had reached a safe place, that I was free.”

This was the first time the 25-year-old had left China – his first stop in a journey that’s made him one of just a small number of Tibetans who have fled the country for exile in recent years.

From petitions to memes: How students made dissent visible

It was a clip destined to go viral. On July 22, 2026, in rainy Mumbai, India, a casually dressed young woman stepped in front of a slow-moving police van carrying detained students. She placed her palm on the hood, forcing the vehicle to stop. Mobile phones captured the moment from every angle. She too, raised her own phone and recorded the encounter. Within hours, the clip spread across India and beyond.

It became one of the defining visuals of the Cockroach Janta Party protests, a movement in which students demanded transparency and accountability, following leaks in India's medical entrance exams.

India's 'Cockroach' protesters face ongoing legal pressure

A student-led protest movement in India satirically called the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) scored a major political win when Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stepped down after weeks of protests calling for his removal.

The movement began on social media as an activist campaign sparked by leaks of a question sheet for the NEET exam, a highly competitive entrance test for aspiring medical students, in early May. Along with the education minister stepping down, the government promised to withdraw police cases against peaceful protesters, compensate families affected by the NEET examination controversy and continue talks on the movement's five-point charter for reforming India's examination system.

Now, student leaders, lawyers and activists say the battle has shifted from the streets to police stations, courtrooms and social media.

UK court allows plans for Chinese 'super' embassy to advance

A UK High Court on Friday threw out a challenge against UK authorities' decision to permit a new Chinese super embassy in central London.

The challenge was brought by a neighborhood group called the Royal Mint Court Residents' Association (RMCRA), which represents families and businesses in roughly 100 properties around the planned embassy site. The RMCRA argued the presence of the embassy could increase the risk of terrorist attacks, lead to the targeting of dissidents and be used to enforce "draconian" Chinese laws in the UK.

The association also claimed that the embassy could pose a fire risk, arguing that Chinese authorities might ignore safety obligations that would be difficult to enforce because of diplomatic immunity on the embassy site. On that basis, the group argued the development should not have been approved by the UK government as well as the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

How crypto miners are stealing power in Southeast Asia

A raid in Malaysia last week exposed how cryptocurrency mining is becoming entangled with electricity theft and organized crime across Southeast Asia. In Malaysia's southern state of Johor, 71 cryptocurrency-mining machines had been running around the clock across four rented premises for about a month before police moved in. During the raids on July 22 and 23, officers arrested three suspects and seized computers, routers and vehicles alongside equipment used to illegally mine Bitcoin.

Johor police chief Ab Rahaman Arsad said the syndicate bypassed electricity meters, leading to an estimated €14,500 ($16,600) in losses in about a month, according to local media reports. The machines were thought to be generating between €17,200 and €21,500 in monthly revenue.

An record heat, a warming world has come to rely on China to stay cool

With wildfires blazing and temperatures hitting record highs in Europe, one China-made product has never been hotter: air-conditioners. Europeans, who have been slower to adopt AC than those living in other parts of the world, are lining up outside stores and driving long distances in the hopes of securing an AC unit as blistering summer temperatures in some areas surge past 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Major Chinese brands Midea, Gree and Haier are reporting AC higher sales overseas, just as leaders in countries such as France, Germany and Belgium are threatening to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, which they say are damaging their own industries.

US-China AI rivalry heats up as Chinese models gain ground

In what seems like the blink of an eye, China has gone from being up to five years behind the United Statesin top-tier artificial intelligence (AI) to lagging by just a few months. While US players, including Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT, have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to push the frontier of AI, China has pursued a very different path. Faced with US curbs on high-end chips that help AI to do its most advanced thinking, Chinese tech firms have prioritized dozens of open-source AI models built on "good enough" technology.

These platforms, including DeepSeek, Alibaba's Qwen and Xiaomi's MiMo, are now widely deployed across Chinese businesses, government services and consumer devices.