Kinaforum

fredag 30. oktober 2026

Is the Korean Peninsula moving closer to war?

Recently, Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warned that Pyongyang could take strong retaliatory measures if Seoul continues activities it considers provocative.

To casual observers, this may appear to be just another routine exchange of verbal threats between the two Koreas. However, a closer examination of the current situation suggests that something unusually significant may be unfolding on the Korean Peninsula. Military tensions are intensifying, with renewed warnings, military deployments and threats of retaliation along the border. North Korea appears to be adopting an increasingly confrontational posture, raising concerns about the growing risk of war.

What is driving this escalation at this particular juncture?

China’s Belt and Road hasn’t lived up to Xi’s promise

Designed to dwarf even the Marshall Plan, the American program to rebuild Europe after World War II, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first unveiled by President Xi Jinping in a 2013 speech at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan.

Beijing later pledged to invest US$1 trillion, and by some estimates as much as $8 trillion, in roads, railways, bridges, ports and other infrastructure projects around the world, with an emphasis on sparking economic development in the underfinanced Global South. Originally called One Belt, One Road, the BRI was meant to usher in what Xi described in his speech as a more just world order. But on many counts, the program has not measured up to its original, world-changing ambition.

Thirteen years after its launch, many observers and analysts now see the BRI as more of a liability than an asset to China’s plan to forge a post-America-led world order.

Beijing gave Kim Jong Un the cold shoulder and here’s why

Recent reports indicate that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attempted to visit China to orchestrate a dramatic diplomatic scene akin to his June 2019 summit with US President Donald Trump at Panmunjom – but Beijing politely turned him down.

Kim’s primary motive for seeking a visit to China stemmed from mounting frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had promised to mediate future US-North Korea summits yet yielded few breakthroughs. Seeking to capitalize on his working relationship with President Trump, Kim reportedly hoped to leverage a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen – slated for November 18-19 – to nudge Beijing into facilitating another US-North Korea encounter.

Mao not a dictator? Massive backlash compels Mbappé to apologise

China said Oct 28 that it took seriously an apology from the French Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappé in the aftermath of his off-the-cuff “Chinese Dictator” remark. Seen as obviously referring to Chairman Mao, the light-hearted remark provoked severe backlash from China, including its official media which ran lengthy criticisms and condemnations of him, while major Chinese brands dropped him. China’s state television suspended broadcasts of matches from Spain’s La Liga, the top-tier professional men’s association football division of the Spanish football league system.

The point was not whether or not Mao was a dictator, for no one, not even the Chinese themselves, dared to deny it. They just did not like the ugly truth being uttered or reported in public. And the backlash against Mbappé was truly massive.

Mocking the founding father of Communist China, blamed by historians for tens of millions of deaths, is taboo in China. Mao ranks among the giants of mass killers in world history and only a dictator could have accomplish that.

One passport isn’t enough for some wealthy Chinese. Here’s where they’re looking next

For some wealthy Chinese, securing a foreign passport is becoming the ultimate trade-off: giving up their Chinese citizenship. Wealth advisors say a growing number of affluent Chinese are considering renouncing their nationality as Beijing intensifies scrutiny of offshore wealth, with concerns over taxes, geopolitical uncertainty and greater international mobility driving their interest in alternative passports.

China does not recognize dual nationality, meaning Chinese nationals seeking to acquire foreign citizenship must renounce their passports.

“We have had some clients who are willing to give up their Chinese citizenship to hold multiple passports,” said Armand Arton, CEO of immigration migration consultancy Arton Capital, who added that the choice of passports depends on their lifestyle and business needs.

Wealthy Chinese move offshore money to U.S. banks as Beijing’s tax net widens

Mongolian mining company says copper exports have dropped due to China border restrictions

The operator of one of Mongolia’s largest copper mines said Thursday its exports of copper concentrate to China have dropped by about 70% in the past two weeks due to restrictions at a border crossing.

The restrictions have raised concerns over potential revenue losses and disruptions to Mongolia’s massive mineral sector.

Oyu Tolgoi LLC, which operates Oyu Tolgoi, one of the world’s largest copper mines, said the number of truck convoys transporting copper concentrate across the Chinese border has fallen from the usual 12 to 13 per day to just around four. The restrictions affect vehicles crossing at China’s Ganqimaodu Border Port, which is adjacent to Mongolia’s Gashuunsukhait Border Port.

China elevates a military general to the Politburo and seeks to strengthen party discipline

China’s top leaders on Thursday elevated the only remaining general on the commission that oversees the country’s military to the Politburo, the top governing body of the Communist Party. The leaders also adopted a resolution on strengthening self-governance, discipline and anti-corruption in the party, as they seek to extend their grip on power.

During a four-day closed-door meeting, top Communist Party leaders deliberated on and adopted resolutions that will guide the party in the coming years. The meeting comes about a year before President Xi Jinping is widely expected to secure his fourth five-year term as the party’s leader.

The party elected Gen. Zhang Shengmin, who currently serves as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, to the Politburo. Xi had earlier purged two of China’s top generals, leaving Zhang as the commission’s only member besides Xi himself. It also left the Politburo without any representatives from the People’s Liberation Army until Zhang’s elevation.

Why isn’t China’s AI and tech boom saving its stock markets?

The global artificial intelligence boom that has helped sustain Chinese economic momentum this year still can’t offset its domestic woes, particularly in its stock market.

Since peaking in June, key Chinese indexes have fallen more than 20%, crossing the threshold for a bear market. Beijing responded last week by pumping $19 billion into exchange-traded funds, according to Bloomberg data, its biggest intervention since early 2025, when US President Donald Trump’s tariff offensive roiled global markets.

But analysts say interventions like this may do little to arrest the persistent slide, amid weak consumer spending and concerns over a possible bursting of the AI bubble. On Thursday, China’s benchmark CSI 300 index of stocks listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen closed down 1%.

America wants to wean itself off Chinese technology. Will the pain pay off?

onsdag 28. oktober 2026

Torbjørn Færøvik: Please, don't mess with Chairman Mao!

French football star Kylian Mbappé has committed the unforgivable sin of suggesting that Mao was a dictator. Now the Middle Kingdom is in uproar.

The story began with something as innocent as a doctored image on the internet. Someone had put Mbappé’s face on the body of none other than Mao himself. Images like these have become a genre of their own online. People cut and paste, poke fun at celebrities and create bizarre juxtapositions. Most are forgotten within hours. But this image took on a life of its own.

In an interview, Mbappé was asked which picture of himself he found funniest. He singled out the doctored Mao image and described the man as “some guy—I think he was a Chinese dictator”.

That was all. Mbappé made no speech about China. He demanded no political reforms, did not criticise Xi Jinping and urged no one to rebel. He simply talked about a picture that made him laugh and that he wanted to share with his friends. But in China, you cannot laugh at just anyone. Some people are above being laughed at, even if they have been asleep for half a century.

It can be lonely at the top. And that’s just how China’s leader likes it

Last week Beijing’s deputy mayor was meeting with Walmart CEO John Furner and encouraging American companies to invest in the Chinese capital. Now he has vanished from public life, the latest to be swept up in an anti-corruption campaign that has ensnared a galaxy of China’s talent: a former top judge, a spy chief, dozens of military generals – and even officials tasked with rooting out graft in the People’s Republic.

In hushed tones across China party officials are wondering who is next, as the purge continues to reach into the highest echelons of the ruling Communist Party and has even toppled those seen as being close to leader Xi Jinping. The only person who doesn’t need to worry about their future is Xi himself.

South Korea’s GDP growth beats forecasts amid AI boom

South Korea’s economy grew much faster than expected in the July-September quarter amid booming demand for chips used in artificial intelligence (AI). Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 1 percent on a quarterly basis, or 3.4 percent year-on-year, advance estimates released by the Bank of Korea showed on Tuesday.The Bank of Korea forecast in August that GDP would grow 0.3 percent in the third quarter.

Exports, which account for about 45 percent of South Korea’s GDP, rose 2.3 percent quarter-on-quarter, driven by semiconductors, machinery and electrical equipment, according to the central bank.

Under Houthi fire, Saudi Arabia looks to China for missile support

Saudi Arabia’s rapid expansion of a ballistic missile factory signals a transformative shift in its pursuit of strategic deterrence.

Saudi Arabia is expanding its solid-propellant missile production complex near al-Duwadimi, approximately 200 kilometers west of Riyadh, to develop longer-range ballistic weapons capable of carrying heavier payloads, multiple media outlets reported this month based on satellite imagery analysis. Work began in April 2025 on two primary structures: an expanded motor-casting facility equipped with 5-to-6-meter casting pits flanked by blast-deflection walls, and an adjacent site likely intended for raw propellant precursors or component storage.

The upgrades, which experts assess could be operational by late 2026, rely heavily on Chinese technical designs following decades of missile acquisitions, including DF-3 and DF-15 systems.

Chinese study warns of rising risks this century from Yarlung Tsangpo flows, floods

Chinese researchers have determined, based on past nearly 700-year-long data, that the Yarlung Tsangpo river – which is soon to host the largest mega dam in the world – may face increased run-off and flood risks over this century. The brunt of the devastating effect of such an eventuality will obviously fall on downstream India. This is in addition to the serious danger already being posed by the fact that the mega dam is being built on a known seismically active zone.

Using tree-ring width chronologies in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, the team reconstructed the river’s run-off history from 1325 to 2020 and created a forecast model, reported scmp.com Oct 26.

The report said that along with climate data, this data was used to create a model that projected that river run-off would increase under future climate scenarios, along with a possible increase in high-run-off events such as floods.

India-China border face-offs test Modi six years after deadly clash

India’s armed forces are locked in multiple ongoing face-offs with the Chinese army along the border in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, the chief of India’s paramilitary border force guarding the Himalayan frontier with China has said.

The remarks late last week by Shatrujeet Kapur, the director-general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) paramilitary force, come nearly four months after local civil society groups in the remote northeastern region told Al Jazeera that Chinese forces were increasingly encroaching on Indian territory and denying Indian troops access to patrolling points, angering locals.

China says Mbappé scored an own goal with his off-the-cuff ‘Chinese dictator’ remark

French football star Kylian Mbappé has faced severe backlash from China after he jokingly remarked that the funniest internet meme he had seen was that of his face photo-shopped onto that of a “Chinese dictator”, taken as an unmistakable reference to Mao Zedong, Communist China’s founding father.

In China, jokes about Mao, the country’s founding leader who died in 1976, are considered disrespectful and remain a social taboo. There is also a law in China which punished people who show disrespect toward the country’s heroes.

Mbappé reportedly told French talk show The Bridge that a meme “that makes me laugh the most…the one where there’s a video of a guy, I think it’s a Chinese dictator”. As he speaks, a meme appears with his face superimposed on an image resembling Mao, noted bbc.com Oct 27.

“I use it with my friends all the time,” the Real Madrid forward and the French national team captain is stated to add in clips that have been circulating online.

Mbappé Apologizes After ‘Dictator’ Mao Comment: What to Know About the Chinese Backlash

Beijing softens on EU curbs to avoid blame for Europe’s unrest

The European Union is preparing to extend its curbs on Chinese imports of chemicals, furniture and machinery to fight a “China Shock 2.0,” after Beijing agreed in closed-door talks earlier this month to cap its hybrid car exports to the bloc.

The European Commission plans to use safeguard measures to cut imports of chemicals, furniture and machinery from China, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The measures, which could take the form of import caps or tariffs, may be presented as soon as the first quarter of 2027. They would comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and apply to all countries outside the European Economic Area, the people said.

Hegseth heads to Manila to shore up US ties with Asia-Pacific partners

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will attend a Southeast Asian defence meeting this week alongside his counterparts from India, South Korea and Japan as Washington looks to solidify ties with the region after a year overshadowed by the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran.

The meeting will bring together defence officials from the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus eight of the bloc’s dialogue partners. Australia, New Zealand, Russia and China are also expected to send representatives to the talks, which run from Wednesday to Thursday in the Philippines.

Known as the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), the meeting will be held alongside a parallel ASEAN members-only event for Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.

What to know about China’s plenum as Xi seeks stronger Communist Party discipline

China’s political leaders and elites began a four-day meeting Monday to discuss strengthening the ruling Communist Party’s discipline, as Chinese President Xi Jinping pushes for greater loyalty and reliability from officials while deepening his yearslong campaign against corruption.

This week’s closed-door gathering, known as the fifth plenum of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, comes roughly a year before Xi is widely expected to secure his fourth five-year term as the party’s leader and personnel changes to key leadership bodies.

Xi began the meeting by delivering a work report and speaking about a draft policy decision on advancing “full and rigorous party self-governance,” according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. The policy aims to make cadres more disciplined, effective and less corrupt.