In some ways his death marks the end of a more economically optimistic era for many Chinese who witnessed their country’s sweeping transformation during its reformist years. Those reforms led to huge reduction in poverty, an exploding middle class and a scramble by foreign companies to access the lucrative Chinese market.
fredag 14. august 2026
Opinion: Zhu Rongji’s Promise
Zhu Rongji began his tenure as China?s prime minister with a promise. During his now-famous March 1998 press conference at the National People?s Congress, the bold and freewheeling Zhu pledged that within three years he would turn around China?s ailing state-owned enterprises, long the nemesis of China?s economic opening. Now, as the prime minister prepares to step down, his critics are charging he has failed to deliver.
The behemoths of Chinese industry continue to be an enormous drag on the economy. And now that China has entered the World Trade Organization, many fear that China?s state-owned companies, especially those most sheltered from needed reforms, will collapse under the pressure of foreign competition.
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The behemoths of Chinese industry continue to be an enormous drag on the economy. And now that China has entered the World Trade Organization, many fear that China?s state-owned companies, especially those most sheltered from needed reforms, will collapse under the pressure of foreign competition.
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Zhu Rongji, who helped turn China into a trading giant, dies at 97
Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, who spearheaded China's entry into global trade and laid the foundation for its explosive growth, has died at the age of 97. He served in the country's second-highest office from 1998-2003 and played a leading role in securing its entry into the World Trade Organization, opening Chinese factories to the international market and drawing foreign investment.
He was one of the most important economic reformers who moved local tax powers to the central government, closed or privatised failing state firms and promoted home ownership. Many in China remember him as a tough and pragmatic leader who delivered double-digit growth and was rarely afraid to speak his mind.
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He was one of the most important economic reformers who moved local tax powers to the central government, closed or privatised failing state firms and promoted home ownership. Many in China remember him as a tough and pragmatic leader who delivered double-digit growth and was rarely afraid to speak his mind.
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onsdag 12. august 2026
The lonely Chinese men being conned by fake brides
At 37, Wang Zhuang had almost given up hope of finding a wife, until he saw the glossy matchmaking adverts. They promised he wouldn't have to waste years on building a relationship that had no future. They offered to introduce him to a demure, devoted woman.
"The matchmakers said that girls from Guizhou are frugal," Wang says. "They told me they are good at running a household, able to do housework, and their families are very poor, so after marrying into your family, they would settle down and live a life with you."
So Wang travelled to Guiyang, a city in the southwestern province of Guizhou, in the hope of finding his soulmate. He thought he had, when he was matched with a woman who seemed to tick every box. They had only met a few times before they married. Then, almost as quickly as his new life had begun, it was over.
"The matchmakers said that girls from Guizhou are frugal," Wang says. "They told me they are good at running a household, able to do housework, and their families are very poor, so after marrying into your family, they would settle down and live a life with you."
So Wang travelled to Guiyang, a city in the southwestern province of Guizhou, in the hope of finding his soulmate. He thought he had, when he was matched with a woman who seemed to tick every box. They had only met a few times before they married. Then, almost as quickly as his new life had begun, it was over.
Six Nations, One Crisis: Drug Addiction and the Fentanyl Trade in the USA, China, Russia, Japan, India and France
Drug addiction looks completely different depending on where you stand. In the United States it means fentanyl-laced pills and a decades-long opioid emergency. In China it means a state that has all but eliminated the heroin epidemics of the 1990s through mass surveillance and harsh enforcement, while its chemical industry quietly supplies the raw materials for other countries’ crises.
In Russia it means an aging population of injecting heroin users cut off from harm-reduction support. In Japan it means one of the lowest drug-use rates on earth, offset by a stubborn methamphetamine subculture. In India it means a mostly licit-drug and cannabis problem layered on top of a fast-growing synthetic and injecting-drug crisis in the northern states. In France it means a booming, blue-collar cocaine market alongside Western Europe’s most entrenched cannabis use.
Pentagon official asks Asian allies to invest more in defense to deter aggression
A Pentagon official on Monday asked allies in Asia to invest more in their defense and help deter aggression in the region and said the United States remains committed to do the same with “partners, not protectorates.”
Elbridge Colby, an undersecretary of defense, made the remarks at a forum in the Philippines, his first stop in Southeast Asia, where he will also visit Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. He renewed Washington’s assurances that the U.S. is not backing away from Asia despite its current preoccupation with the Iran war and the Middle East.
“America is definitely not disengaging from Asia — to the contrary. Our vital national interests dictate our enduring presence here,” Colby told an audience that included foreign diplomats, generals, business executives and journalists.
Elbridge Colby, an undersecretary of defense, made the remarks at a forum in the Philippines, his first stop in Southeast Asia, where he will also visit Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. He renewed Washington’s assurances that the U.S. is not backing away from Asia despite its current preoccupation with the Iran war and the Middle East.
“America is definitely not disengaging from Asia — to the contrary. Our vital national interests dictate our enduring presence here,” Colby told an audience that included foreign diplomats, generals, business executives and journalists.
Chinese users of AI companions bereft after government tightens regulations
Li Linlin cried for days after losing her AI boyfriend. She had exchanged about 700,000 words in messages over two years, and never got to say goodbye. Li, 24, wasn’t the only left mourning the loss of a virtual companion when major Chinese tech companies recently pulled the plug on their popular AI companion services to comply with new government restrictions.
“It was like we were forced to be separated by our parents, but I still miss him,” Li said.
AI companions in China range from romantic partners to virtual recreations of deceased loved ones. The new regulation, which took effect July 15, bans AI platforms from generating content that could lead users to make questionable decisions due to manipulation of their feelings or that might trigger extreme emotions or unhealthy habits in children and teens.
“It was like we were forced to be separated by our parents, but I still miss him,” Li said.
AI companions in China range from romantic partners to virtual recreations of deceased loved ones. The new regulation, which took effect July 15, bans AI platforms from generating content that could lead users to make questionable decisions due to manipulation of their feelings or that might trigger extreme emotions or unhealthy habits in children and teens.
Chinese rocket carrying satellite explodes seconds after launch
A Chinese rocket set to launch a satellite into orbit blew-up seconds after liftoff Monday, marking the relatively rare failure for a rocket considered a workhorse of Beijing’s space program. The Long March 7A rocket erupted into a massive fireball just 85 seconds after blasting off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on the island of Hainan on Monday night, video showed. Unlike other successful launches, the incident appears to have been downplayed on China’s state media with scant mention of the explosion.
Knowledge as Hegemony: What the Cancellation of the IATS Conference Reveals
In the backdrop of the recent cancellation of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) conference, which was scheduled to be in Kathmandu over Aug 23-29, Ifrah Khalil Kawa* reflects on how contemporary geopolitical power increasingly extends beyond territorial control to shape academic spaces and the production of knowledge. Drawing on the ideas of Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci, alongside her fieldwork in Ladakh, Ifrah Khalil argues that the politics surrounding Tibet today must also be understood through the politics of knowledge and academic freedom.
"The significance of this moment extends well beyond Nepal. Contemporary discussions of Tibet often focus on territory, sovereignty and diplomacy. We measure geopolitical power through military deployments, infrastructure projects or economic influence. Yet the Kathmandu episode reminds us that power also operates in quieter ways. It determines which conversations take place, which archives remain accessible, which histories receive attention and, perhaps most importantly, which forms of knowledge are allowed to circulate. The struggle over Tibet is therefore not only territorial. It is also epistemic. It concerns the conditions under which Tibet itself can be studied."
China claims its ‘Zangnan’, not ‘Arunachal Pradesh’, slams India’s release of standard names for 27 locations
China has on Aug 10 reacted to India’s issuance on Aug 7 of standardized names of 27 locations in its state of Arunachal Pradesh in a move to counter similar exercises undertaken by itself since 2017, calling it “null and void”.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said China does not recognize the so-called “Arunachal Pradesh”, saying it was illegally set up by India, reported China’s official Xinhua news agency Oct 10. “Zangnan region is China’s territory,” Guo has maintained, using the name coined relatively recently by China to refer to the strategic border state of India as it began adopting a more assertive posture on laying claim to it.
“Zangnan” simply means Southern Tibet, or “southern part of the Xizang autonomous region” – “Xizang” being China’s Pinyin term for “Tibet”.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said China does not recognize the so-called “Arunachal Pradesh”, saying it was illegally set up by India, reported China’s official Xinhua news agency Oct 10. “Zangnan region is China’s territory,” Guo has maintained, using the name coined relatively recently by China to refer to the strategic border state of India as it began adopting a more assertive posture on laying claim to it.
“Zangnan” simply means Southern Tibet, or “southern part of the Xizang autonomous region” – “Xizang” being China’s Pinyin term for “Tibet”.
Governing Strangers: African Communities in Guangzhou
With a population of 1.4 billion, the continent of Africa has a similar number of people to China, although it is approximately three times greater in size. Moreover, the continent has fifty-four countries and boasts the most heterogeneous collection of languages in the world. Such diversity is reflected among the Africans travelling to and residing in Guangzhou, a trading port in southern China. In 2018, we surveyed some 120 Africans in Guangzhou, from thirty countries.
Most were traders buying cheap manufactured goods and shipping them to their home countries. Several trading centres clustered in Yuexiu and Baiyun districts attract a large number of Africans, thanks to the convenient concentration there of factory outlets, affordable hotels and informal housing in their vicinity (see figure 1). The factory outlets selling products from the Pearl River Delta and other provinces, including electronics, clothing and footwear, cosmetics and building materials, are significant hubs for the flow of manufactured goods from China to Africa.
tirsdag 11. august 2026
Torbjørn Færøvik: China is hot on the heels of the US
Hardly a day goes by without Donald Trump receiving bad news from Beijing. Despite all the American sanctions, China continues to close the gap with the United States in most strategic areas. Not least in the most important of all: artificial intelligence and new technology.
The superpower that wins this race will also win the economic and military duel. It must therefore be all the more frustrating for Trump to see China making new and remarkable advances almost every week. Stanford University in the United States concludes in a recent report that America’s lead over China in AI has almost disappeared. But the race will not be decided solely by who develops the most advanced models. Being able to roll out the technology faster and more cheaply is just as important, and here China is in the lead.
Trump is now considering banning several Chinese AI models. At the same time, he is expanding US sanctions against Chinese companies producing semiconductors and other sensitive technologies. Nor does he intend to approve China’s latest humanoid and quadrupedal robots.
Torbjørn Færøvik: Kina puster USA i nakken
Det går knapt en dag uten at Donald Trump får dårlige nyheter fra Beijing. For trass i alle amerikanske sanksjoner fortsetter Kina å nærme seg USA på de fleste strategiske områder. Ikke minst på de viktigste av alle: kunstig intelligens og ny teknologi. De puster oss i nakken, lyder omkvedet blant datahjernene i Silicon Valley.
Den supermakten som vinner dette kappløpet, vinner også den økonomiske og militære duellen. Desto mer frustrerende må det være for Trump å se at Kina nesten ukentlig gjør nye oppsiktsvekkende fremskritt. Det amerikanske Stanford-universitetet fastslår i en fersk rapport at USAs KI-forsprang på Kina nesten er eliminert. Men kappløpet avgjøres ikke bare av hvem som lager de mest avanserte modellene. Like viktig er det å kunne spre teknologien raskest og billigst, og her er Kina i tet.
Nå vurderer Trump å utestenge flere av de kinesiske KI-modellene. Samtidig utvider han USAs sanksjoner mot kinesiske selskaper som produserer halvledere og annen følsom teknologi. Han vil heller ikke godkjenne Kinas nyeste humanoide og firbente roboter.
Den supermakten som vinner dette kappløpet, vinner også den økonomiske og militære duellen. Desto mer frustrerende må det være for Trump å se at Kina nesten ukentlig gjør nye oppsiktsvekkende fremskritt. Det amerikanske Stanford-universitetet fastslår i en fersk rapport at USAs KI-forsprang på Kina nesten er eliminert. Men kappløpet avgjøres ikke bare av hvem som lager de mest avanserte modellene. Like viktig er det å kunne spre teknologien raskest og billigst, og her er Kina i tet.
Nå vurderer Trump å utestenge flere av de kinesiske KI-modellene. Samtidig utvider han USAs sanksjoner mot kinesiske selskaper som produserer halvledere og annen følsom teknologi. Han vil heller ikke godkjenne Kinas nyeste humanoide og firbente roboter.
How China Is Reordering Global Governance From Within
On June 17, the State Council Information Office published “More Just and Equitable Global Governance: China’s Principles, Proposals and Actions.” Its most revealing line was also its most conservative: “All countries should firmly uphold the international system with the U.N. at its core, safeguard the international order based on international law, and uphold the basic norms governing international relations underpinned by the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, instead of reinventing the wheel.”
On July 16, 29 governments signed the founding agreement of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in Shanghai. The new body, headquartered in China, invokes the United Nations Charter and a “people-centered” approach.
Together, these two events capture Beijing’s method for remaking global governance. Rather than propose a rival constitution, China preserves the institutions and texts of the postwar order while reweighting their principles and creating new, China-led venues to operationalize them.
On July 16, 29 governments signed the founding agreement of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) in Shanghai. The new body, headquartered in China, invokes the United Nations Charter and a “people-centered” approach.
Together, these two events capture Beijing’s method for remaking global governance. Rather than propose a rival constitution, China preserves the institutions and texts of the postwar order while reweighting their principles and creating new, China-led venues to operationalize them.
The Chinese Parts in US Data Centers and Why Trump Wants to Ban Them
The Trump administration is reportedly laying the groundwork to ban a Chinese-made component from data centers amid growing concerns that dependence on China could pose risks to the security of America's AI (artificial intelligence) infrastructure.
Administration officials are drawing up plans to bar Chinese imports of optical transceivers—devices that transmit data over fiber-optic cables inside sprawling data centers—by the end of 2026, Reuters cited four people familiar with the matter as saying. The Federal Communications Commission could still modify or abandon the reported restrictions, the sources said.The report comes as the U.S.-China AI competition expands beyond chips and algorithms to the infrastructure needed to run them.
The U.S. has already tightened export controls on advanced AI chips to China in an effort to slow the development of technologies that could give the People’s Liberation Army a battlefield edge and erode America’s technological lead.
Administration officials are drawing up plans to bar Chinese imports of optical transceivers—devices that transmit data over fiber-optic cables inside sprawling data centers—by the end of 2026, Reuters cited four people familiar with the matter as saying. The Federal Communications Commission could still modify or abandon the reported restrictions, the sources said.The report comes as the U.S.-China AI competition expands beyond chips and algorithms to the infrastructure needed to run them.
The U.S. has already tightened export controls on advanced AI chips to China in an effort to slow the development of technologies that could give the People’s Liberation Army a battlefield edge and erode America’s technological lead.
Whoops, Apocalypse! Why Five Conflicts Could Become One World War
The war between the United States and Iran began as a regional confrontation with global economic consequences. It could remain that way, but the situation also contains a far darker possibility: as in 1914, a series of individually rational decisions by world powers could lead to international catastrophe.
Unresolved flash points current and potential—Ukraine, the Gulf, Yemen, Lebanon and Taiwan—could begin reinforcing one another until every major power finds itself committed to multiple fronts simultaneously. The global tension could reshape the calculations of Russia, China, Europe and the United States in ways that trigger interlocking escalation.
Unresolved flash points current and potential—Ukraine, the Gulf, Yemen, Lebanon and Taiwan—could begin reinforcing one another until every major power finds itself committed to multiple fronts simultaneously. The global tension could reshape the calculations of Russia, China, Europe and the United States in ways that trigger interlocking escalation.
China state-employed experts attacks India's standardizing of Arunachal placenames
China’s state-employed experts have criticized India’s counter-move to standardize on its map the names of 27 locations in its strategic border state of Arunachal Pradesh. Speaking to the Party-mouthpiece globaltimes.cn Aug 9, they have called the move “self-deception”, saying it “runs counter to the improving momentum in bilateral relations and could complicate efforts to properly handle border issues.”
Justifying China’s own similar move that began in 2017, the report said the country has been carrying out standardization of geographical names in the region for a long time, calling the territory “Zangnan” (Southern Tibet) on the basis of its occupation rule over Tibet.
“Zangnan” region covers parts of Nyingchi (Nyingtri) and Shannan (Lhokha) prefecture-level cities and is located in Southwest China’s “Xizang” (referring to Tibet Autonomous Region), which has been China’s territory since ancient times, the report claimed, using Sinicized names for Tibetan areas.
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Justifying China’s own similar move that began in 2017, the report said the country has been carrying out standardization of geographical names in the region for a long time, calling the territory “Zangnan” (Southern Tibet) on the basis of its occupation rule over Tibet.
“Zangnan” region covers parts of Nyingchi (Nyingtri) and Shannan (Lhokha) prefecture-level cities and is located in Southwest China’s “Xizang” (referring to Tibet Autonomous Region), which has been China’s territory since ancient times, the report claimed, using Sinicized names for Tibetan areas.
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Taiwan's top representative in Japan boycotts Nagasaki bombing anniversary ceremony over seating
Taiwan’s top economic representative in Japan said he boycotted this year’s memorial marking the 81st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki, accusing city officials of being pro-China and insulting Taipei.
Lee Yi-yang, head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Tokyo, said in a social media post that seat assignments showed Nagasaki “deliberately denied Taiwan’s status as a nation, completely disregarding Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity.” Lee said he and two deputies boycotted because their designated seats as representatives of Taiwan were not among those reserved for diplomatic missions. Lee instead sent a lower-ranked official from Fukuoka.
Lee Yi-yang, head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Tokyo, said in a social media post that seat assignments showed Nagasaki “deliberately denied Taiwan’s status as a nation, completely disregarding Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity.” Lee said he and two deputies boycotted because their designated seats as representatives of Taiwan were not among those reserved for diplomatic missions. Lee instead sent a lower-ranked official from Fukuoka.
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