Kinaforum

mandag 27. april 2026

Iran’s Supreme Leader No Longer Reigns Supreme

On Apr. 17, when Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened to commercial shipping, the backlash within Iran was immediate. Hardline commentators in Iran, semi-official news outlets, and voices on state television questioned the timing and the language of his statement.

On Saturday, Iranian armed forces declared that the Strait was closed again because the United States continued its naval blockade of Iran.On Apr. 17, when Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened to commercial shipping, the backlash within Iran was immediate. Hardline commentators in Iran, semi-official news outlets, and voices on state television questioned the timing and the language of his statement. On Saturday, Iranian armed forces declared that the Strait was closed again because the United States continued its naval blockade of Iran.

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China industrial profits jump 15.8% in March, fueled by AI and chip boom despite oil shock risks

Profits at China’s industrial firms grew at their fastest pace in six months in March, even as the Middle East war upended global oil markets and sent raw material costs soaring. Industrial profits jumped 15.8% from a year earlier in March, the sharpest growth since September last year, National Bureau of Statistics data showed Monday, quickening from the 15.2% surge in the first two months of this year.

In the first three months this year, enterprise profits rose 15.5%, the fastest start to a year since 2017, barring the pandemic-driven spike in 2021.

How will the United States and China power the AI race?

As artificial intelligence (AI) drives a surge in energy demand in both the United States and China, each country faces choices about how to expand power generation in order to remain at the technological frontier. Washington and Beijing will need to find ways to increase access to energy within an atmosphere of geopolitical competition. The decisions and trade-offs both countries make in sourcing energy to support AI advances will have spillover effects far beyond their borders, shaping global markets, infrastructure, and supply chains.

To assess these dynamics, the Global China project convened four authors representing a diversity of viewpoints. In the written exchange below, they wrestle with how energy demand may constrain each country’s AI advances. They also offer diverging views on whether the United States should welcome Chinese investment in American clean energy technology and manufacturing or whether America should wall itself off from Chinese participation in its market.

How climate change threatens the economic backbone of the Pacific

The vast Pacific Ocean and the islands dotted within it produce more than half of the world's tuna Among the islands are 33 scattered across the centre that encompass the country of Kiribati. Here more than 70% of government revenues come from selling tuna fishing licenses to foreign fleets - the highest proportion of any nation.

Kiribati has a tiny land mass. When all the islands are combined it is about the size of New York City. However, it has a huge swathe of territorial waters, otherwise known as its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Totalling more than 3.4 million sq km (1.3m sq miles), the EEZ is spread across three separate parts, surrounding the country's three groups of islands - Gilbert, Phoenix and Line.

Indian Dalit man's alleged custodial death and a family's wait for justice

On 8 March, a 26-year-old man died in a hospital in southern India's Tamil Nadu state, allegedly due to injuries he sustained in police custody. Almost two months later, his body is still in a hospital morgue. His parents say that they will collect it and conduct his last rites only after the policemen responsible for their son's death are arrested. They allege that Akash Delison was brutally tortured by the police after he and his friend, Gopi, were arrested in a criminal case.

Akash died two days after his arrest while Gopi remains in judicial custody. Akash and his family are members of the Dalit community, which lies at the bottom of a harsh caste hierarchy.

The Chinese sports brand taking on Nike and Adidas

China's economy was just starting to open up in the late 1980s when a determined high school dropout made his way to Beijing with 600 pairs of shoes. Ding Shizhong had them made in a relative's factory and now he was going to sell them. The money he earned paid for his first workshop where he began making footwear for other companies. The 17-year-old was one of China's many newly minted entrepreneurs as capitalism took off under the watchful eye of its Communist Party rulers. But, as it turns out, Ding had much bigger plans.

Kim Jong Un opens memorial for N Korean soldiers killed in Ukraine war

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov have unveiled a memorial in Pyongyang for North Koreans who have died fighting in the Ukraine war. Military jets flew overhead and white balloons were released into the air as Kim and Belousov unveiled a statue and opened a memorial museum.

It is not known how many North Korean soldiers are fighting against Ukraine, but South Korean intelligence estimates that at least 15,000 have been sent to help Russia recapture parts of western Kursk. Seoul also estimates that about 2,000 North Koreans have died in the conflict - neither Pyongyang nor Russia have provided any official numbers.

How China is gaining from Iran war by showing it is different from US

As Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz this week, the pragmatic approach Beijing has taken to the US-Israel war on Iran was on full display.

Speaking to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) on the phone on Monday, Xi reiterated China’s support for “all efforts conducive to restoring peace and stands for resolving disputes through political and diplomatic means”.“The Strait of Hormuz should maintain normal passage, as this serves the common interests of regional countries and the international community,” Xi said, according to a Chinese readout of the call.

The readout did not specifically mention any of the key players in the war, although the United States and Iran have, between them, brought the strategic waterway to a standstill for the past seven weeks. Iran moved to close the strait to most marine traffic following the launch of the war on February 28, while the US launched a blockade of all Iranian ports on April 13.

1951: The Agreement That Changed Tibet Forever

Spring in Tibet is a season of life and renewal. The long-stretched Lhasa Valley suddenly takes on a fresh green hue, and in April daytime temperatures can rise above 20 degrees Celsius. Yet with the spring winds come bitter memories from a not-so-distant past. This year marks 75 years since Tibet was officially incorporated into the People’s Republic of China.

The agreement was signed by Chinese and Tibetan representatives during a ceremony in Beijing in May 1951 (see image). The Dalai Lama later claimed that the Tibetans had been subjected to intense pressure and were in reality forced to sign.

“As soon as the first meeting began, the senior Chinese representative presented a draft of a fully prepared agreement consisting of ten articles,” the Dalai Lama writes in his book My Land and My People (1962). According to him, the draft was discussed for several days, while the Tibetan envoys insisted that Tibet was an independent state.

Geocultural forces reshaping China’s economic map

On April 1, the National Bureau of Statistics of China released the latest GDP rankings for the country’s various provinces and municipalities. The data showed consistent growth across major metropolises, but also revealed a significant geographic shift in the Chinese economy.

The data ranked Jiangsu and Zhejiang first and third, respectively, among Chinese provinces by GDP per capita, while Guangdong ranked fourth. Yet 20 years ago, Guangdong held an undisputed first place, with Zhejiang and Jiangsu a distant third and fourth. The shift is even more apparent at the city level. In 2005, nine cities from Guangdong appeared in the top 25 by GDP per capita, compared with five from Jiangsu and two from Zhejiang.

Twenty years later, only three Guangdong cities remain in that group, while Jiangsu and Zhejiang have grown to seven and four, respectively.

Japan builds up its ‘southern shield’ as faith in US security cover falters

Japan’s southern island of Kyushu is known for its volcanic landscape and tonkatsu ramen, but the popular tourist destination is ground zero for one of the greatest shifts in Japan’s defence strategy since 1947, when it formally renounced the use of war to settle international disputes.

In late March, Japan deployed long-range missiles to Kumamoto Prefecture on the island’s southwest coast. Unlike previous defence installations, these missiles could hit China, reflecting the fact that Beijing has ranked as Japan’s top national security threat above North Korea and Russia since 2019.

Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters at the time that “Japan faces the most severe and complex security environment in the post-war era” and the country must strengthen its “deterrence and responsiveness”.

US sanctions China’s ‘teapot’ refinery for buying Iranian oil

The United States has sanctioned a Chinese oil refinery for buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Iranian oil. Ahead of potential new talks on ending the US-Israeli war on Iran, the US Treasury Department on Friday said that it was targeting Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery, China’s second-largest “teapot” or independent refinery.

Hengli is “one of Tehran’s most valued customers” and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Iranian military through crude oil purchases, the Treasury added. It also imposed new sanctions on about 40 shipping firms and vessels alleged to be operating as part of Iran’s shadow fleet. The Chinese embassy in Washington, DC pushed back against the move.

Trump’s war: the kind of military misadventure that ends empires

Writing more than 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian Plutarch gave us an eloquent description of what modern historians now call “micro-militarism.”

When an imperial power like Athens then, or America now, is in decline, its leaders often react emotionally by mounting seemingly bold military strikes in hopes of regaining the imperial grandeur that’s slipping through their fingers.Instead of another of the great victories the empire won at its peak of power, however, such military misadventures only serve to accelerate the ongoing decline, erasing whatever aura of imperial majesty remains and revealing instead the moral rot deep inside the ruling elite.

There is mounting historical evidence that America is indeed an empire in steep decline, while President Donald Trump’s war of choice against Iran is becoming the sort of micro-military disaster that helped destroy successive empires over the past 2,500 years — from ancient Athens to medieval Portugal to modern Spain, Great Britain, and now the United States.

Why is India’s Manipur burning for three years?

Violence has erupted yet again in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, shattering months of relative calm after a bomb blast earlier this month killed two children.

The state, sharing a 400km- (250-mile-) long border with Myanmar, is bitterly divided between the mainly Hindu Meitei majority, who live in the valley, and the predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo community that mostly lives in the hills.The renewed violence is the latest chapter of a three-year-long civil conflict that has torn the state apart, leaving communities living in deep segregation, and raising questions about the apparent inability of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to put an end to the fighting.

Over this period, the state has seen a year of federal rule, and Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party – which rules the state – changed the chief minister. Yet none of those moves has been able to resolve the conflict or rebuild bridges between communities that have lived by each other for centuries.

Torbjørn Færøvik: Should Trump Call Off His China Visit? Opinions Are Divided.

Could President Donald Trump be forced to cancel his planned visit to China for the second time?
Speculation is running high in both Beijing and Washington. In the Strait of Hormuz, confrontations have now entered their eighth week, and Trump is struggling to find a way out of the الأزمة.

Earlier this year, the White House announced that he would visit China at the turn of March–April. When it became clear that the war with Iran would prevent him from traveling, the visit was postponed to May 14–15. But even that schedule may collapse. In both countries, thousands of people are involved in the preparations, not least the Chinese leadership, which is eager to see a swift end to the war.

“There must be an end to the law of the jungle in international politics,” President and Party leader Xi Jinping said recently. He did not mention the United States by name, but there was no doubt whom he was referring to. Since the beginning, official Chinese media have described the U.S. war against Iran as irresponsible and dangerous.

Is Trump heading to a Pyrrhic victory in Iran?

President Donald Trump has claimed victory in the war in Iran even before the conflict is over. But despite the killing of the country’s leader and seriously degration of its military, there is an argument being made that the Islamic Republic has emerged all the stronger for having simply survived.

Indeed, a phrase that has repeatedly cropped up as the US has sunk more and more military hardware and credibility into Operation Epic Fury is “Pyrrhic victory.”That term also shows up in Iraq War retrospectives, in postmortems of US operations in Libya and in just about every serious attempt to make sense of the past two decades of Western intervention in the Middle East.

But what exactly is a Pyrrhic victory? And is the US really heading toward one in Iran?

US sounds alarm on China’s AI distillation as DeepSeek V4 debuts

Washington has vowed to curb what it sees as the unauthorized extraction of intellectual property from United States-developed artificial intelligence models, sharpening its stance just as China’s DeepSeek unveiled its latest system.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) said on Thursday, April 23),that information indicated that foreign entities, principally based in China, are engaged in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to distill US frontier AI models.

“Leveraging tens of thousands of proxy accounts to evade detection and using jailbreaking techniques to expose proprietary information, these coordinated campaigns systematically extract capabilities from American AI models, exploiting American expertise and innovation,” Michael Kratsios, an assistant to the president for science and technology director, OSTP, said in a memorandum for the heads of US government departments and agencies.

US chasing AGI myth while China builds the AI future

The United States is increasingly organizing its artificial intelligence strategy around a concept it cannot clearly define, cannot reliably measure and may never achieve in the singular, decisive form imagined.

That concept is Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI. In Washington and Silicon Valley, AGI has become the policy anchor and rhetorical North Star. Lawmakers invoke it to justify massive investments. Tech executives tie timelines to presidential terms or national dominance. Analysts warn that the first country to reach it will shape the global order. The language is urgent: a race, a finish line, a winner-take-all victory.

There is only one problem: no one agrees on what AGI actually is.