Kinaforum

onsdag 2. september 2026

Trump’s trade wars are making China’s Global South pitch easier

The latest US trade fight with Canada should matter far beyond North America.

After negotiations collapsed in August, President Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on about $20 billion of Canadian goods. Ottawa answered with tariffs on roughly the same value of US imports. Trump then threatened 50% duties on Canadian cars, trucks and parts from January. Canada is one of America’s closest allies and remains deeply tied to the US economy, which still takes nearly 70%of its exports. Yet the relationship has reached the point where Prime Minister Mark Carney describes the dispute as a trade war.

Canada is not part of the Global South, but its treatment carries a clear lesson for governments that have far less political protection in Washington. If a treaty ally and major trading partner can face sudden tariff escalation, demands touching its future trade agreements and pressure over domestic policy, other states have good reason to reduce their exposure.

China’s Xi keeps Iranian president at arm’s length weeks ahead of Trump summit

China’s President Xi Jinping gave his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian a brief, low-profile audience at a regional security summit, signaling Beijing’s calibrated approach toward Tehran just weeks ahead of Xi’s planned trip to Washington.

The two leaders met for several minutes on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday, according to Iranian state media. The gathering brought together leaders of the 10-member bloc, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The semi-official Mehr News Agency said that the Xi-Pezeshkian meeting focused on “bilateral ties in line with strengthening relations between Tehran and Beijing,” without offering further detail.

That contrasted with Beijing’s approach of keeping the meeting out of public view.

They were building infrastructure in Nepal. Their families in China want to know what happened to them

She kept calling and calling – countless times – but her husband never picked up. The woman, who CNN has given the pseudonym Lili, said her husband had spoken with a friend at 8:27am on Wednesday. That was roughly 10 minutes before an enormous landslide careened down a mountain in Nepal, generating an explosive flood wave that ripped through a border area with China and continued into Nepal.

Lili hasn’t heard from her husband, who was working on a Chinese construction project in the South Asian country, since.

Hers is one of many families across China desperate for information about loved ones who were in the area when disaster struck, including dozens of Chinese nationals who are believed to have been working across the border in Nepal.

Aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln arrives in Thailand after months of combat in Middle East

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in Thailand on Wednesday, its first port call in more than eight months, ending a marathon stint at sea in the Middle East that raised concerns about the welfare of its crew.

The Lincoln, the length of its hull stained by rust from the extended time at sea, pulled into the port of Laem Chabang, not far from the city of Pattaya, a prime destination for US military rest-and-relaxation visits since the Vietnam War. The 100,000-ton ship departed San Diego last November, and when it returns to Southern California later this year it will have completed one of the longest deployments in US Navy history.

China warns of ‘consequences’ for Taiwan after Taipei envoys attend Pacific leaders summit

China warned of “consequences” for Taiwan after officials from Beijing and Taipei attended a ceremonial event at a Pacific leaders summit, where major powers already had been urged to restrain from turning a meeting of mostly small island countries into a geopolitical sideshow.

The 18 member states and territories of the Pacific Islands Forum, which opened its annual summit in Palau’s largest city Koror on Monday, do not include China, the United States or Taiwan. However, battles for influence over the lucrative oceans and strategically important locations of the forum’s members this week threatened, as they have before, to overshadow its summit.

Some theater was expected at this year’s event because the host country, a western Pacific island nation next to the Philippines that has close ties to the U.S., is among the 11 countries and the Vatican that recognize Taiwan, which Beijing says is a part of China.

Bessent says 19 finance ministers agreed ‘cheap exports’ are unsustainable, but China dissented

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that 19 of the members of the G20 had agreed to address streams of “cheap exports” that cause global economic imbalances, but said China had dissented. Bessent made his comments at the end of a two-day meeting with finance ministers and central bankers where he tried to focus on growth, telling reporters he had urged some of his G20 counterparts to take a page from the Trump administration’s playbook of using tariffs and other measures to crack down on trade imbalances.

“We believe that non-market-based economies pushing out a never-ending stream of cheap exports is not sustainable,” Bessent told reporters. describing the sentiment that all but one G20 member had agreed to.“It is clear that the country with the world’s largest and unsustainable current account surplus, the People’s Republic of China, was the dissenter,” Bessent said.

Xi visits Egypt as China seeks deeper influence across the Mideast

On the surface, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Egypt this week is a run-of-the-mill opportunity for two countries to strengthen economic and diplomatic ties. But there is deep subtext to the meeting between Xi and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi: China, the United States’ top global rival, is cultivating an extensive relationship with one of America’s key allies in the Middle East as it moves to expand its influence in the rapidly changing region.

Xi aims to present China as a stabilizer in the region and contrast it with the United States, which for decades has been militarily entangled there — its six-month war with Iran being just the latest example.

Prominent Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong pleads guilty in second national security case

Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security under a Beijing-imposed law that has effectively stifled the city’s once-thriving pro-democracy movement.

It was the second prosecution of Wong, a former student leader in the pro-democracy movement and one of its most recognizable faces, under the national security law introduced in Hong Kong in 2020 to quell massive anti-government protests that rocked the city the year before. Wong, 29, who wore a blue shirt, appeared thinner as he entered his plea. After hearing his lawyer’s arguments for a lesser prison term, Judge William Tam said a sentence would be delivered as soon as possible, without specifying a date.

Trump following a long US tradition of losing a pointless war

I was born on July 20, 1944, in the midst of World War II. My father had just returned from Burma where he had been operations officer for the 1st Air Commandos in the China-India-Burma Theater.

I, of course, remember nothing about that war — except that my father (on extremely rare occasions) would barely mention what he had gone through but would sometimes take me to World War II movies like “The Caine Mutiny” and “Merrill’s Marauders” at local movie theaters.In a country that has never stopped fighting wars, however, that’s certainly the last one that any American could truly be proud of, the global defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

In fact, we’re talking about a country that, between 2001 and 2024, spent an estimated US$21 trillion on its military, which, it turns out, was equal to the military spending of the next 18 — yes, 18! — countries combined (if you can even believe it). And in those years, of course, like the 55 preceding ones, the United States managed to never—no, never —actually win a significant war (or, in truth, even come close).

China’s visa-free boom is rewriting inbound tourism

On August 20, China’s National Immigration Administration expanded the 240-hour visa-free transit policy to two more countries — Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam — bringing the number of eligible nationalities to 57. A parallel 30-day visa-free scheme for Hainan now covers 61 countries.

The announcements drew a few paragraphs of wire copy and little else. But they mark the latest step in what has quietly become one of the decade’s biggest travel stories: China is reopening at a pace and scale most Western travelers still haven’t registered. In the first half of 2026, China recorded 22.91 million entries by foreign nationals, up 20.4% year on year, according to the National Immigration Administration. More striking is the composition: 17.8 million of those arrivals — 77.7% of the total — entered visa-free, a 30.6% increase.

The top ten source markets — South Korea, Russia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, the United States, Japan, Mongolia and Australia — accounted for 62% of arrivals, a genuinely global spread that refutes the idea that only regional neighbors are coming.

Helicopter chases, lasers and a rented RV: Inside the hunt for suspected Chinese drone spies over US military bases

It was spring 2025 and the hunt was on.

American authorities near a sensitive Army missile testing facility in New Mexico had spotted a quadcopter-style drone flying in such a way that suggested it was conducting reconnaissance in restricted airspace around the range.

It wasn’t the first time. Just months earlier, in fall 2024, a similar drone was seen flying a similar pattern over the same base, leading agents with US Customs and Border Protection on a roughly 35-mile chase, multiple current and former US officials said. Using helicopters and drones and taking “absolutely beautiful video,” a former US official said, the border agents tailed the drone until it crossed into Mexican airspace, where they had to turn back. They never learned who was operating the drone, or why.

But this time, officials set a trap.

The Himalayas are unpredictable. But countries are building there like never before

Deadly flooding along the China-Nepal border has put a sharp spotlight on how risks from natural disasters in the Himalayas are growing, at the same time that countries in the region are rapidly building out their high-altitude infrastructure footprints. There’s no indication that the latest disaster, which has killed more than 600 people and left around 3,000 more missing on both sides of the border, was linked to manmade development.

But the devastation could be a reality check for governments driving a boom in dams, tunnels, highways, railways and bridges across the Himalayas as they aim to harness the region’s vast hydropower potential and resources –– and fortify their borders there.

No country has marshaled those efforts like China, where the government sees Tibet, and its Himalayan borderlands, as critical to its national and energy security. Beijing aims to transform the region into a high-altitude green energy powerhouse, with projects that include a $168 billion megadam, currently under construction, that could stretch the limits of what human engineering has achieved.

China Is Flatlining: The country’s “stability” hides a host of problems.

Compared with Donald Trump’s chaotic, divided, and violent America, China is a bastion of steady progress and serene order. This, at least, is the story that Beijing’s propagandists have been eager to spread. The Global Times, a Communist Party–run news outlet, proclaimed earlier this year that “the world’s peace and development increasingly rely on China’s stability.” The state news agency Xinhua chimed in that “in today’s uncertain world, China’s stability and predictability provide a rare and valuable anchor, which is set to benefit other countries.”

This message appears to be resonating around the world. A Pew Research Center survey of three dozen countries recently found that China is now seen more positively than the United States. Respondents expressed more confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping to “do the right thing” in world affairs than Trump.

Could new US sanctions tear China and Iran apart?

China has pushed back on what it called "illegal unilateral sanctions" after the US announced new measures earlier this week to cut off all potential sources of revenue to Iran. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday described the sanctions package as an "economic D-Day" against Iran and warned any economic engagement with the regime would "expose those responsible to the full reach" of US power.

China is Iran's top trade partner and provides a lifeline to Tehran mainly through oil purchases, but also with banking, technology and dual-use goods, which can be used both for civilian and military purposes. When asked whether Chinese banks would be included in the new measures, Bessent warned that "no one was above the reach of US sanctions."

Japan says combat drones key to adapting to new warfare as regional tensions rise

Japan needs to adapt to new methods of warfare like using artificial intelligence and drones that have been deployed in Ukraine and the Middle East and to strengthen its defense industry, the government said Tuesday. Japan has bolstered its military capability and spending in recent years and has started deploying long-range cruise missiles as a deterrent to China’s military activity.

The 598-page defense paper adopted by the Cabinet on Tuesday reiterated that China is Japan’s biggest strategic challenge. Japan is alarmed by the growing presence and frequency of Chinese warships in the Pacific Ocean.

Japan to beef up its defense with drones, AI and missiles, defense budget plans show

Japan plans to use drones, artificial intelligence and new methods of warfare as it adapts its defense strategies to suit changing times, according to details of an 8.9 trillion yen ($55.6 billion) budget request for the coming fiscal year disclosed by the Defense Ministry on Monday.

The preliminary total is only a small increase from the 8.8 trillion yen ($55 billion) defense budget requested for this fiscal year. It will be much higher eventually, but further details will come later this year after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government approves the new security and defense strategy aimed at strengthening Japan’s counterstrike capability.

Under its five-year defense strategy set in 2022, Japan has doubled its defense spending to about 2% of its gross domestic product to build up its Self-Defense Forces’ offensive role to counter China’s growing assertiveness. Beijing has criticized Japan’s defense buildup as “new militarism.”

Leaders of China, Russia and India are among heads of state meeting to counter US influence

The leaders of China, Russia and India are among the heads of state gathering in Kyrgyzstan this week for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group billed as a counterweight to U.S. global influence. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are attending the events in Bishkek, the capital of the Central Asian nation.

Multiple one-on-one meetings are scheduled on the sidelines of the summit, including one between Putin and Xi on Monday, as well as talks between the Russian leader and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday, the day of the official SCO sessions.

AI and robotics drive an IPO boom in China as Shein lists in Hong Kong

Chinese markets are booming with new public stock offerings, energized by the craze for artificial intelligence and other advanced technology and a growing preference to list shares in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

In the latest big stock listing, shares in China-founded e-commerce and fast fashion giant Shein are due to debut Tuesday in Hong Kong in a blockbuster initial public offering raising $1.7 billion, in one of the city’s biggest new share sales this year. In July, CXMT, China’s largest memory chipmaker, raised more than $8.6 billion in Shanghai in the second-largest IPO for its Nasdaq-style STAR market, mainland China’s second-largest IPO. Its shares jumped 466% on the first day of trading.

Unitree, one of China’s leading humanoid robot makers, also made its listing debut in Shanghai in August. Shares rose 460% on the first day of trading.