Kinaforum

mandag 28. september 2026

Struggle over Hormuz and Bab el‑Mandeb straits is centuries old

Over recent months, the straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb have become synonymous with geopolitical jostling. Whoever controls these narrow waterways governs the flow of maritime traffic from the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean – and with it, a vitally significant chunk of global trade.

However, conflict over these straits is almost as old as modern maritime trade itself. The war between the US and Iran over these chokepoints is just the latest chapter in a centuries-long history of extra-regional powers attempting to influence or dominate the Middle East by sea.

Ming China offers one of the earliest examples of an extra-regional power projecting its power through naval might and diplomacy. In 1405, the Chinese Muslim admiral, explorer and diplomat Zheng He embarked on the first of seven expeditions across the Indian Ocean. Commanding fleets of more than 300 vessels, he reached the town of Hormuz around 1414, then Aden in Yemen, passing through Bab el-Mandeb into the Red Sea.

Taiwan not openly discussed at Xi and Trump meeting

US President Donald Trump picked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping up directly from the airport and in his welcoming remarks he praised the strong friendship between their two nations, as well as recalling how China and the US fought together as allies during World War II.

"Look at the greatness that we had together fighting in World War II," he said. "Brave American pilots volunteered to come to China and fight for the very survival of the legendary country," he said at the White House, referring to the Flying Tigers air corps that fought alongside China against the Japanese between 1941 and 1942.

However, these pilots did not actually volunteer to fight with the People's Republic of China, whose leader was visiting Washington and which was not founded until 1949. The Americans were risking their lives for the former Republic of China, whose government relocated to Taiwan after communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

Trump asked China’s president if he wants to buy US arms, ambassador says

President Donald Trump has justified the pending U.S. arms sale to Taiwan to Chinese President Xi Jinpingby downplaying it as just one of many sales Washington makes around the world — even asking Xi if he’d be in the market for U.S. arms, Trump’s ambassador to China said on Sunday.

David Perdue said Trump raised the prospect of the arms sales from the U.S. to its ascendant geopolitical rival, an unlikely offer that if consummated would upend generations of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan and potentially expose U.S. technology to a potential foe. Perdue, speaking to Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” days after Trump hosted Xi for a state visit in Washington, didn’t specify when the offer was made.

Why the Official Policy of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile Can Only Be the ‘Middle Way’

Recently, during the second session of the 18th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, a private member’s motion was tabled seeking to establish “Tibetan independence” as the official policy of the Central Tibetan Administration. The motion failed to secure a majority at the threshold vote on whether it should proceed to debate, receiving 15 votes in favour and 23 against, and was ultimately rejected. This episode once again underscores that, within the current legal framework, democratic procedures, international realities, and strategic considerations, the “Middle Way” remains the only sustainable official policy of the Central Tibetan Administration.

The Middle Way is not a temporary decision. It is an official position that emerged from prolonged internal discussion, was advocated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, has been repeatedly affirmed by the Parliament, and enjoys majority support within the exile community.

US challenges China on secret nuclear tests as arms race looms

A mounting standoff over allegations of covert Chinese nuclear testing and rapid arsenal expansion has collided with an intensifying domestic debate within the US over whether it must abandon its decades-long test moratorium.

US officials are pressing China in confidential diplomatic talks over suspected low-yield nuclear testing and a rapid strategic expansion across at least seven secret domestic sites, intensifying strategic friction against the backdrop of high-stakes summit diplomacy between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, multiple media outlets reported.

How China is trying to stop an expert exodus

China has recently imposed sweeping travel restrictions on its citizens. According to the State Council in Beijing, the new rules were formulated to "safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests." China has imposed new travel restrictions it says are aimed at people who could endanger national security.

But DW East Asia Correspondent Rik Glauert and China law expert Thomas Kellogg tell Pablo Foley Elias that the new rules are actually targeting technology talent. They say Beijing wants to prevent a brain drain, as it competes with the West for dominance in AI and other tech sectors.

China's new travel rules unsettle tech giants and talent

From Paris to Hangzhou: The $9m Quest to Return China’s Lost Encyclopedia

Over six centuries, the Yongle Encyclopedia has all but disappeared. Commissioned by the Ming emperor Zhu Di and compiled by more than 3,000 scholars, it once contained over 11,000 volumes on science, poetry, philosophy, medicine, and law. Today, less than 4% survives — fires and foreign invasions consumed the rest.

So when Weng Lianxi at Beijing’s Palace Museum received word in 2020 that two volumes would be auctioned in France, he was skeptical. Fakes were common, and with the pandemic grounding most international flights, he was unable to fly out to inspect them firsthand.

The researcher had only 39 JPEG images, a lifetime of handling ancient books, and a set of exacting criteria for the type of binding and paper used in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The photos checked every box, and the sellers were descendants of a French naval officer stationed in China in the late 1800s.

China has kept its promise to stop funding overseas coal, but loopholes are helping coal expand

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to stop funding overseas coal power plants in an effort to help curb climate change. Five years later, as the assembly meets this week, the world’s climate commitments are dangerously offtrack, and the phase down of coal is inching along.

So far, China has canceled the majority of the coal plans it had planned in 2021, according to a new report released this week to align with the General Assembly and New York Climate Week. This is a small bright spot in global efforts to counter climate change, which has driven deadly disasters in Asia in recent months.

But experts have warned that Chinese companies are taking advantage of regulatory loopholes to skirt Xi’s promise and continue investing in overseas coal.

China, as usual, uses UN speech to promote global development as solution to world’s challenges

A day after his boss met with President Donald Trump in Washington, China’s vice president unfurled the nation’s familiar list of global talking points, emphasizing development, issuing mild statements about the U.S. war with Iran, artificial intelligence and protectionism, and making no direct mention of Taiwan.

Han Zheng’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday landed somewhat anticlimactically after Chinese President Xi Jinping met Trump for a state dinner and a visit to the National Archives. Most noteworthy about the address was the presence of Han himself: China has often used high-profile public events to position its rising leaders on the global stage.

“China has created two miracles at home, namely fast economic roles and long-term social stability,” Han said.

China, US agree to set up channel for AI safety incidents

Beijing and Washington promised to expand dialogue on AI safety and between the countries' militaries while also cutting tariffs on about $30 billion (€26.3 billion) of "non-sensitive goods." The pledges follow the three-day summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in the US.

US President Trump described the summit in an online post as "one of Friendship, Strength, and Success" for both nations.China's President Xi was more constrained, saying the two sides agree on "strategic stability on the basis of respect, fairness, and reciprocity." On Saturday, with Xi back in Beijing, China said the two sides agreed to a mutual tariff reduction on roughly $30 billion of "non-essential" goods. This applies to exports such as agricultural products or holiday decorations.

The US wants the world to pick a side on AI. But for many countries, China’s pitch may be more compelling

The rapid advances of Chinese artificial intelligence over the past year seem to have alerted Washington to the real possibility that the world’s second-largest economy could pull ahead of the United States in an increasingly tight technology race.

“We’re leading China in AI…and frankly, I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI wins,” US President Donald Trump said earlier this month.

Trump’s comments underscore the stakes of a US-China tech competition that is increasingly being framed in existential terms. The US has an obvious edge, with pioneering AI labs, the most advanced chips and deep-pocketed investors. Leveraging that dominance, Washington is also forcing countries around the world to pick a side.

Chinese AI models surge in global popularity — and Washington is worried

AI was a major focus as U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met this week. The most advanced U.S. models lead most benchmarks, but Chinese companies like DeepSeek, Z.ai and Alibaba have released new models with major performance gains in tasks such as coding.

According to usage data shared with CNBC, the global adoption of Chinese models by companies has increased substantially in 2026.

Chinese AI models have gone from a relatively small share of usage to a majority on two major developer platforms that provide gateways for companies to access models from different providers. On OpenRouter, they accounted for 57%-67% of tokens used in the week of Sept. 14, up from 6%-13% in February. On Vercel, their share rose to 55% in August from 11% in January.

Why Xi believes the U.S. and China can overcome the ‘Thucydides Trap’

China is embracing the idea of competition without confrontation, by invoking an academic concept. “The Thucydides Trap can be overcome,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said on arriving at the White House to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, according to the Chinese side’s official readout.

That framing contrasts with the rhetorical question he posed at the May summit of whether the two countries could avoid the Thucydides Trap. The Thucydides Trap, popularized by Harvard professor Graham Allison in the early 2010s, refers to how tensions between a rising and ruling power have historically often resulted in a war.

Thucydides was an Athenian general in ancient Greece. His historical record of the Peloponnesian War described how Athens’ rapid rise in power alarmed Sparta and made war between the two city-states inevitable.

Mapping Power: What Xi Jinping’s Travels Reveal About China’s Global Strategy

Diplomatic travel is never just travel. Where a head of state goes, how often, and in whose company reveals more about a country’s priorities than almost any speech. Xi Jinping’s itinerary since taking power in 2012 – more than 55 trips to over 70 countries – is a map of Beijing’s ambitions: a durable partnership with Russia, a firm grip on Central Asia, a long courtship of the “Global South,” and an increasingly assertive footprint in regions the United States once treated as its own backyard.

The frequency of Xi’s visits is itself a signal. He has now visited Russia eleven times – more than any other country by a wide margin – including a high-profile appearance at Moscow’s 2025 Victory Day parade even as the war in Ukraine ground on. This is not sentimentality; it reflects a “no-limits” partnership built on cheap Russian energy, a shared interest in weakening US-led alliances, and coordinated pushback against Western sanctions regimes. Every Xi-Putin meeting reinforces a message to Washington and Brussels: isolating Russia has not isolated it from China.

China’s New Defence Mobilisation Law: How Beijing Is Preparing Civilian Technology for Future War

China’s first major revision of its national defence mobilisation law in 16 years signals a significant shift in how Beijing intends to prepare for modern conflict. The revised framework expands the concept of military preparedness beyond conventional weapons and government stockpiles, bringing artificial intelligence, drones, data, software, civilian technology companies, specialised talent and private logistics networks into the country’s potential wartime mobilisation system.

China has spent years building a closer relationship between its civilian technology sector and the military. The latest revision to its defence mobilisation law provides a legal framework that could make that relationship considerably more systematic.

The amendment, passed by China’s top legislature and scheduled to take effect on October 1, places new emphasis on advanced technologies and emerging fields.

Here’s why South Korea wants more control over future regional wars

At the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung used a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to revisit one question in their countries’ military alliance: who would lead their combined forces if war resumed on the Korean Peninsula?

The two sides’ 30-minute summit covered strategic investment, shipbuilding and nuclear cooperation, as well as the transition of wartime operational control, or OPCON, to South Korea. The renewed attention on OPCON comes after Trump abruptly curtailed the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise between the two countries last month, prompting concerns about combined readiness.

The topic appeared again most recently as new defense minister Kang Shin-chul took office on Tuesday, after he argued that a structure in which Korean commanders take the lead, backed by the U.S. military, would make the combined defense system “much stronger”.

India’s viral Cockroach Party calls election panel head ‘biggest threat’ to democracy. Here’s why it matters

Cockroach Janta Party, the viral pseudo-political movement behind the Gen Z protests that rattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in July, has demanded the resignation of India’s chief election officer after claiming he had undermined the country’s democracy.

On Friday, Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the CJP, said the party will begin a nationwide protest from Oct. 2 if the chief election officer does not resign by Saturday. In a press conference on Thursday, Dipke said the country’s Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, “is the biggest threat to India’s democracy,” raising questions over his role in a recent electoral roll revision exercise that has led to the deletion of millions of voters.

US-China rivalry remains frozen after Trump-Xi summit

The US president showcased White House construction projects and hosted a lavish dinner with tech CEOs, but the summit made little progress on key issues such as trade tensions and AI regulation.

When US President Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for Chinese leader Xi Jinping at Andrews Air Force Base on Wednesday evening, it was a rare diplomatic gesture that has only happened a handful of times in US history. Generally, world leaders are received by the president at the White House. Xi's VIP reception underlines the importance Trump places on his personal rapport with China's most powerful leader in a generation.

After 90 minutes of bilateral talks in the Oval Office, Trump spent Thursday afternoon showing his "good friend" Xi his various White House construction projects, including the helipad completed just days earlier over the South Lawn. He then welcomed Xi aboard the presidential helicopter Marine One for a brief tour.

Trump then told reporters "we had a great meeting," adding that Xi "loves good granite."