Kinaforum

tirsdag 29. september 2026

Torbjørn Færøvik: Confucius - From Mao's Enemy to China's Sage

High-speed trains shoot out of Beijing’s railway station for Qufu several times a day. In late September, every seat is taken as “everyone” wants to celebrate Confucius’s birthday.

China’s great moral philosopher is said to have been born in Qufu in 555 BC. The date is uncertain too, but September 28 is the traditional day of commemoration. Confucius’s hometown lies in Shandong province, about 530 kilometres south of Beijing. The fastest train takes just two hours and four minutes. Once you arrive, you need only follow the crowds to the first of several temples dedicated to Confucius. The ceremonies begin at sunrise, with solemn processions, readings and “sacred” Confucian music.

US, China should treat AI risk like a pathogen, not a missile

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping wrapped up their Washington summit on September 25 with a two-month extension of the trade truce and warm words about friendship.

On artificial intelligence, the leaders mostly ratified what their deputies had sketched in New York days earlier: a formal US-China dialogue on AI, plus an American proposal for a channel to notify each other when an AI incident rises to the level of national security. That channel is thinner than the label suggests. For now, by several accounts, it amounts to an open line between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Vice-Premier He Lifeng rather than any standing body of technical people. Trump had posted that morning that he wanted to leave “super intelligence” exactly where it is. He got his wish.

US and China release $60 billion nonsensitive product lists for tariff cuts after Trump-Xi meeting

The United States and China on Monday released reciprocal lists of nonsensitive products worth about $30 billion each that will see tariff cuts, from American hair products to Chinese toys, in a deal expected to help bolster bilateral trade.

The details came days after Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington in his first state visit to the U.S. since 2015. The U.S. had already reduced tariffs against China after Trump’s tariffs reached as high as 145% at one point last year, as tensions between the two countries eased.

China’s commerce ministry said in a statement the agreement will help strengthen trade cooperation.

Taiwan says US arms sales to island are unchanged, but a $14B package remains on hold

Taiwan’s defense minister said Tuesday that existing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan remain unchanged, and that Taipei remains in talks with the U.S. over individual deals. A record $14 billion arms package to the island, however, remains stalled.

The minister’s remarks come as concerns mount that President Donald Trump could halt arms sales to Taiwan. China has pressed Washington to halt the arms sales, most prominently during a May summit in Beijing between Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping. The United States paused the $14 billion arms deal after that meeting.

“As for arms sales, we are in continuous discussions with the Americans on this,” Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo told reporters in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. “We haven’t received any notice of any changes to sales or our cooperation.”

China rolls out new measures to bolster its property sector and economy

China on Tuesday rolled out new measures to help boost its economy and sluggish property sector as pressures ramp up ahead of a year-end target for hitting the government’s economic growth goal. The measures, some of the bigger moves made this year by Chinese officials, include encouraging targeted bank lending and new subsidies for homebuyers’ mortgage interest payments.

China’s central bank — the People’s Bank of China — said it will be lowering the interest rate for its “pledged supplementary lending” facility, or PSL, by a quarter of a percentage point, bringing the one-year rate down to 1.5%.

PSL is low-cost financing that China’s central bank provides to its major state policy banks to support state and public projects. The central bank said that by cutting the rates it hopes to better incentivize banks and better “serve national strategies.”

Malaysia begins sending back Rohingya refugees despite safety warnings

Malaysia has begun sending nearly 1,500 Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, describing their return as voluntary despite warnings from the United Nations and rights groups that Myanmar remains unsafe for them.

Dozens of buses arrived under police escort at a stadium near the Lumut naval base in northwestern Malaysia on Tuesday, the AFP news agency reported. Journalists were barred from the grounds. The passengers were expected to be processed before being taken to the base and transported to Myanmar by ship.

The Myanmar army has repeatedly cracked down on the country’s Rohingya minority, including a wave of violence in 2017 that many rights groups have described as genocide, and which set off a major refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and other neighbouring nations. Myanmar does not officially recognise the Rohingya as an ethnic community with local roots, instead describing them as “Bengalis” — in effect, calling them Bangladeshi migrants.

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.