Kinaforum

onsdag 28. januar 2026

Is Xi Jinping losing trust in his top generals?

A corruption scandal in the People's Liberation Army has rocked China's military. Probes into two of President Xi Jinping's deputies highlight a struggle over loyalty, power and control within the armed forces.

Over the weekend, it emerged that authorities in China have opened investigations into two senior figures at the top of the People's Liberation Army for "serious disciplinary violations" — a phrase commonly used in Chinese official communications to refer to corruption.

Those affected include top general Zhang Youxia, who is one of President Xi Jinping's closest allies in the military and one of the two deputy chairmen of the powerful Central Military Commission. Another senior general, Liu Zhenli, is also being investigated. Both have been removed from their posts.

The Central Military Commission is the collective command body overseeing all of China's armed forces — the army, navy, air force and the nuclear-armed rocket forces — as well as the armed police and the militia. Its chairman is Xi, who, in addition to being the country's president, also serves as the ruling Communist Party's general secretary.

President Xi says India, China ‘friends, partners’ in Republic Day message

Chinese President Xi Jinping has said Beijing and New Delhi are “good neighbours, friends and partners” as the two Asian giants continue to improve ties in the wake of United States President Donald Trump’s tariff war, which has shaken global trade.

Xi wished Indian President Droupadi Murmu congratulations on the South Asian nation’s Republic Day on Monday, according to Chinese state media. He said over the past year, China-India relations have continued to improve and develop and are of “great significance for maintaining and promoting world peace and prosperity”, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The Chinese president’s warm words come as Beijing and New Delhi have reset their ties following nearly four years of border tensions and economic curbs that followed the 2020 border clashes that killed at least 20 Indian soldiers. Four Chinese soldiers were also reportedly killed in the border conflict.

China’s global leadership would be different

China is described as seeking to project global leadership and to fill a leadership vacuum left by the US under Donald Trump. This view, however, originates largely from Western sources.

Chinese official discourse has remained markedly cautious on global leadership. Rather than embracing the concept directly, Beijing has tended to approach it obliquely, signaling a strategic calculation about the costs, risks and responsibilities that leadership entails.In international politics, global leadership is not merely about power or status. It is a relational process, resting on an exchange in which leaders must offer material incentives, sustained commitments or compelling visions in return for recognition and consent from followers. Leadership, in this sense, is never cost-free.

For a rising China, leadership thus becomes a dilemma. China’s growing power brings demands for greater influence in regional and global affairs, but also exposes Beijing to mounting economic burdens and strategic risks.

Starmer’s China trip shows UK won’t bow in a multipolar world

Keir Starmer has arrived in Beijing this week with a message designed to unsettle Washington and intrigue global capital: Britain will not choose between the US and China.

Investors should read that line as a declaration of strategy. Britain is attempting to monetize the coming era of geopolitical fragmentation. US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats following Canada’s recent outreach to China underscore how quickly economic diplomacy can turn into economic warfare. Starmer is moving in the opposite direction, signaling commercial pragmatism in a world where ideology is hardening into policy. Between those forces lies a lucrative space for capital, and London wants to own it.

Globalization has not ended; it’s splintered. Trade, tech and capital now move through competing political channels. Governments are shaping supply chains, currencies are responding to diplomatic signals, and investors are forced to “price politics” with the same intensity as earnings and inflation.

Trump Tariffs Push India-EU Into Historic Trade Alliance

The U.S President Donald J. Trump’s ‘America First’ trade policies inadvertently appear to have provided a catalyst for the India and the European Union’s historic free trade agreement; immediately dubbed the “mother of all deals”, in a move that reshapes the global economic order. Concluded after nearly two decades of on-again, off-again negotiations, the pact unites two of the world’s largest markets in a free trade zone of about two billion people, roughly a quarter of global GDP.

“The timing is no coincidence: both India and the EU accelerated talks amid shared frustration with Trump’s tariff wars and a desire to counterbalance China’s dominance in global supply chains,” Dilawar Singh, an Independent Director on the board of a listed Indian company told Newsweek.

Xi has absolute control over China’s military. Now he wants more

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s decision to place the country’s top-ranking general under investigation is a stunning move that leaves Xi virtually alone at the top of the military hierarchy – raising deep questions about the implications for the world’s largest armed forces, as well as Beijing’s ambitions to take control of Taiwan.

But the purge also makes one thing clear: Xi sees no target as too big to be taken down as he remakes the military according to his vision – and prioritizes loyalty over all else.

The investigations into Zhang Youxia, a battle-tested, seasoned military commander and longtime Xi ally, and Liu Zhenli, who heads People’s Liberation Army (PLA) joint operations, were announced Saturday in a terse 30-second video released by the defense ministry.

Questions Swirl Over Xi’s ‘Coup’ Against Top General

For Chinese Writers, a Room of Their Own on Fifth Avenue

Accent Sisters is a New York publisher, bookstore, event space, and online network dedicated to fostering Chinese and Asian diaspora creative writing and culture. It is a strong facilitator and participant in the Chinese cultural scene organically growing throughout cities around the world that is changing the meaning of being “Chinese.”

Founder Li Jiaoyang, a poet and visual artist, told me that she and her co-founders “wanted to build a community space to help writers like us, because we found what we like to write is not always what Westerners want to see.” She was a creative writing student at NYU, and “feeling very lonely” as the only Chinese student in her program when she met a friend in a similar position at the New School. Together they launched an interview series featuring Chinese writers who work in their second language. They called it Accent Sisters.

UK’s Starmer heads to China seeking a thaw in relations but risking a rift with Trump

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is heading to China, seeking a thaw in relations with Beijing at a time of strained ties with the United States. He’s hoping for an economic boost to Britain, but risks the wrath of China hawks at home — and of U.S. President Donald Trump, who’s already heaping tariffs and criticism on America’s closest allies.

Starmer is due to meet China’s President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang during the visit to Beijing and Shanghai that starts Wednesday, the first by a U.K. leader since 2018. He is expected to be accompanied by Business Secretary Peter Kyle and dozens of corporate chiefs as Britain seeks Chinese technology and investment, alongside greater access to the world’s second-largest economy for U.K. financial services, cars and Scotch whisky.

“China is no longer just the world’s factory; it is also becoming a global market,” said Zhao Minghao, a professor in the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University.

North Korea launches ballistic missiles into sea between Korean Peninsula and Japan

North Korea launched short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters on Tuesday, according to its neighbors, as the North heightens animosities with rival South Korea ahead of a major political meeting.

South Korea’s military said it detected liftoffs of several ballistic missiles from an area north of the North Korean capital Pyongyang before the missiles each flew about 350 kilometers (217 miles). Japan’s Defense Ministry said two ballistic missiles launched from North Korea and landed off the eastern coast of the Korean Peninsula. The ministry condemned the launches as a threat to the peace of Japan, the region and the international community.

South Korea’s military said it maintains a firm readiness to repel any provocations by North Korea.

India and EU clinch the ‘mother of all deals’ in a historic free trade agreement

After nearly two decades of negotiations, India and the European Union announced Tuesday they have reached a free trade agreement to deepen economic and strategic ties. The accord, which the EU chief described as the “mother of all deals,” could affect as many as 2 billion people.

The deal between two of the world’s biggest markets comes as Washington targets both India and the EU with steep import tariffs, disrupting established trade flows and pushing major economies to seek alternate partnerships. “This agreement will bring major opportunities for the people of India and Europe,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a virtual address to an energy conference. “It represents 25% of the global GDP and one-third of global trade.”

A New Global Scene for Independent Chinese Film

This November, two unrelated festivals of independent Chinese-language films are taking place outside of China. The CiLENS Berlin Indie Chinese Cinema Week, which runs from November 1 to 9, is now in its fourth year. In New York, the inaugural IndieChina Film Festival is on from November 8 to 15.

It’s a surprisingly positive development. “Many of us attending a conference on Chinese independent cinema in Newcastle in 2023 wondered if we were in some sense officiating over a funeral for that movement,” cinema curator Shelly Kraicer told me when I reached out to see if he felt the same, but these two festivals “suggest we may have been a bit premature.”

There had been a brief flourishing of independent Chinese film festivals and screenings inside China during the early 2000s, which accelerated as cheap, high-quality digital cameras and pirate DVDs of global documentaries and art films became widely available in China. That era ended with the harsher cultural restrictions of the Xi Jinping era: The 11th and final Beijing Independent Film Festival was shut down on its opening day in 2014. There have not been any independent film festivals of any size or international repute in China since then.

A Surrogacy Silk Road: Chinese Parents Head West for Babies

On the popular Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, an account called “Georgia Notes” offers tips and advice to Chinese nationals planning a trip to the Republic of Georgia. In one post, it warns “ordinary tourists traveling back to China” that their five-hour-long return flight from Tbilisi to Ürümchi, in Xinjiang, is likely to be crowded with crying newborn babies. An unpleasant surprise, assures the author of the post, who counted 20 infants aboard his own flight: “I felt something was wrong from the moment I checked in. A group of middle-aged men were checking in with newborn babies.”

Georgia has become an increasingly popular destination for Chinese visitors. The number of visits nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, with more than 88,500 visits last year. Yet leisure tourism does not account for the infant-filled flights back to China. Rather, it seems more likely the tiny passengers were the reason many Chinese visitors had traveled to Georgia in the first place.

Mark Tully, BBC correspondent known as the ‘voice of India,’ dies at 90

Mark Tully, a longtime BBC correspondent who was widely known as the “voice of India” for his reporting on the South Asian nation, has died, the broadcaster said. He was 90. Tully died Sunday at a New Delhi hospital after a brief illness.

Born in India’s Kolkata city in 1935, Tully joined the BBC in 1965 and was appointed its New Delhi correspondent in 1971. He later served for more than two decades as the BBC’s bureau chief for South Asia. Tully reported on some of India’s most consequential events, including the 1971 India-Pakistan war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, the siege of the Golden Temple in 1984, the 1991 assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the 1992 demolition of the Babri mosque, which triggered nationwide riots. Tully also reported from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Tully as “a towering voice of journalism.”

Trump administration invests in another US rare earth miner to loosen China’s grip on supply

The U.S. is taking a minority stake in an Oklahoma rare earth miner, the latest government investment in the sector as it seeks to minimize its reliance on imports of a material used prevalently in smartphones, robotics, electric vehicles and many other high tech products.

China processes more than 90% of the world’s critical minerals and has used its dominance in the market to gain leverage in the trade war with Washington. USA Rare Earth said Monday that the U.S. Commerce Department is investing $1.6 billion in the company to advance work on a mine in Texas and to build a magnet manufacturing facility in Oklahoma.

Shares of USA Rare Earth jumped more than 13% before U.S. markets opened.

Germany weighs boon and bane of China's industrial expansion

Inside a hall stretching more than 100 meters (about 330 feet), countless robots hum as lights blink and warning signals chirp. Currently, only about a dozen people are working on the floor, with the remaining work being handled by high-performance machines.

Journalists are rarely allowed inside this high-tech factory from China, and when they are, the rules are strict: no photos, smartphone cameras are taped over, and even short audio recordings require approval from a press spokesperson.

The plant shrouded in secrecy is not located somewhere in China, but in Arnstadt, a small town in the eastern German state of Thuringia. It belongs to Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the Chinese global market leader in electric vehicle batteries. The factory produces 14 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery capacity a year — enough for at least 200,000 electric cars — supplying, among others, European automakers.

Japan returns last 2 pandas to China amid strained ties

The twin pandas Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei received visits from hordes of fans at their zoo home in Tokyo on Sunday ahead of their return to China at the end of the month, which comes as strained Japanese-Chinese ties make it unlikely that they will be replaced any time soon.

Their departure will leave Japan without the cuddly black-and-white animals for the first time since 1972, when China presented the country with two pandas, Kang Kang and Lan Lan, as a gift intended to mark the normalization of bilateral diplomatic ties.

China is known for sending pandas to other countries as a sign of good will. However, Chinese-Japanese ties have deteriorated greatly over the past few months, particularly since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November that a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island Beijing claims as its own, could bring about a Japanese military response.

China didn’t grab many headlines at Davos, but it’s the elephant in the room

While high-profile world leaders in Davos last week opined on U.S. claims to Greenland, China’s envoy reiterated calls for cooperation. Businesses and analysts in China said the developments highlighted an opportunity for Beijing to expand its influence globally as tensions between the U.S. and its allies grow.

This year’s Davos is a “watershed” moment, said Hai Zhao, a director of international political studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state-affiliated think tank. He said countries are likely to shift toward regional trade, rather than a global economy centered on the U.S.

The world’s second-largest economy sent He Lifeng, one of its four vice premiers, to Davos, where he promoted business opportunities in China and called for the fair treatment of Chinese companies. In his speech Tuesday, He cited U.S.-China trade talks as an example of cooperation, with no specific discussion of other countries.

Carney says Canada not pursuing free trade deal with China as Trump threatens 100% tariffs

Canada has “no intention” of pursuing a free trade deal with China, Prime Minister Mark Carney said, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to slap punitive tariffs on Ottawa. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Carney said that the country respects its obligations under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, known as CUSMA in Canada and the USMCA in the U.S., and will not pursue a free trade agreement without notifying the other two parties.

Carney’s remarks come after Trump threatened to put a 100% tariff on Canadian exports if Ottawa “makes a deal” with Beijing. “If Governor Carney thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken,” Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday.