Kinaforum

torsdag 29. januar 2026

Taiwan in hot and heavy fight over $40 billion US arms deal

While the United States and China spar over the future of Taiwan, political antagonists on the self-ruling island are deploying strategies in parliament to persuade one of the two superpowers to take their side.

President Lai Ching-te and his Democratic Progressive Party want to ensure a permanent separation from mainland China. To accomplish that, Lai believes Taiwan needs to persuade the US to back the policy with both diplomatic and, especially, military help to deter a possible Chinese invasion.

Because current US President Donald Trump demands economic benefits for the US in return, along with signs that Taiwan wants to defend itself, Lai is offering the US trade and the largest-ever purchases of US weapons in Taiwan’s history.

Noah Smith: Time for the US to let Chinese EVs roll in

It might come as a surprise that I’m writing a post advocating that the United States allow Chinese cars to be sold here. First of all, it’s well known that I view China as both an economic and a geopolitical threat to the US; I’ve repeatedly praised the US export controls that stop China from buying American chips and chipmaking equipment.

I’ve urged Europe to use trade barriers to make sure that sudden waves of subsidized Chinese goods don’t forcibly deindustrialize its economy. And when it comes to tariffs, I’ve argued that targeted tariffs on final consumption goods (e.g. cars) are less economically harmful and more effective than other kinds of tariffs.

Given all of that, you wouldn’t think I’d write a post saying “America should buy Chinese cars after all.” Yet here we are.

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Xi Jinping's trust in China's top generals appears to wane

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 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.

Among the three top posts Xi holds, the chairmanship of the military commission is widely considered the most powerful. According to Article 93 of China's constitution, it is the chairman of the commission — not the president, as is often assumed — who commands the armed forces.

Vietnam and the EU upgrade ties as US tariffs reshape global trade

Vietnam and the European Union on Thursday upgraded ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, Vietnam’s highest diplomatic level, as both recalibrate trade amid disruptions to global finance driven by U.S. tariff pressure. The upgrade places the EU on the same diplomatic footing as the United States, China and Russia and was announced during a visit to Hanoi by European Council President António Costa.

“At a moment when the international rules-based order is under threat from multiple sides, we need to stand side by side as reliable and predictable partners,” Costa said, adding that the partnership is about “developing spheres of shared prosperity.”

Costa arrived in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi after India and the European Union reached a free trade agreement on Tuesday after nearly two decades of negotiation.

China executes 11 members of gang who ran billion-dollar criminal empire in Myanmar

China has executed 11 members of the notorious Ming family criminal gang, who ran mafia-like scam centers in Myanmar and killed workers who tried to escape, Chinese state media reported on Thursday.

The Ming family was one of the so-called four families of northern Myanmar — crime syndicates accused of running hundreds of compounds dealing in internet fraud, prostitution and drug production, and whose members held prominent positions in the local government and militia aligned with Myanmar’s ruling junta. The 11 people executed were sentenced to death in September after being found guilty of crimes including homicide, illegal detention, and fraud, Xinhua news agency reported.

As Trump upends alliances, Britain says it needs a ‘more sophisticated’ relationship with China

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it was “vital” to build a “more sophisticated relationship” with China as he made the first visit of a British leader to the country in eight years. Starmer’s four-day trip comes as he looks to mend strained ties with the world’s second biggest economy in the face of global frictions unleashed by Britain’s closest ally the United States.

“China is a vital player on the global stage, and it’s vital that we build a more sophisticated relationship,” Starmer told Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a meeting at Beijing’s ornate Great Hall of the People on Thursday.

“Our international partnerships help us deliver the security and prosperity the British people deserve, and that is why I’ve long been clear that the UK and China need a long term, consistent, and comprehensive strategic partnership,” he said.

For Britain, China remains a ‘threat’ – but one worth doing business with

UK's Keir Starmer visits China as Beijing courts US allies

China-made humanoid robots set sights on Middle East and U.S. markets

Chinese humanoid robots are on the verge of coming to the U.S. — before Elon Musk is ready to sell his Optimus machines. During my visits to China’s “Silicon Valley,” Shenzhen, over the last two years, I saw humanoid startup LimX Dynamics move from a bare-bones facility to a modern office tower with sweeping views — and bolder ambitions.

Now, the company is exploring business collaborations in the U.S., founder Will Zhang told me in an exclusive interview last week. Just days earlier, the startup showed off its humanoid robot at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It’s all part of LimX’s push to go global through local partners, including investors.

How a love of luxury brought down South Korea’s former first lady

It all started with a designer handbag. Then two, then a luxury necklace, and more.

Now, it’s ending in jail time for South Korea’s former first lady.

Kim Keon Hee, the wife of disgraced (and also jailed) former President Yoon Suk Yeol, was sentenced to one year and eight months in prison on Wednesday for bribery –– in just one of three criminal trials she is facing. Both prosecutors and Kim’s team can appeal the ruling.

The court found Kim guilty of accepting bribes from the controversial religious sect Unification Church, including a Chanel bag and a Graff diamond necklace. But it found her not guilty of stock manipulation and conspiring with her husband to receive free public opinion polls, citing lack of sufficient evidence and expired statute of limitations – and also cleared her for receiving a second Chanel bag.

Chinese national who exposed human rights abuses in his homeland is granted asylum to remain in US

An immigration judge on Wednesday granted asylum to a Chinese national who he said had a “well founded fear” of persecution if sent back to China after exposing human rights abuses there. Guan Heng, 38, applied for asylum after arriving in the U.S. illegally in 2021. He has been in custody since being swept up in an immigration enforcement operation in August as part of a mass deportation campaign by the Trump administration.

The Department of Homeland Security initially sought to deport Guan to Uganda, but dropped the plan in December after his plight raised public concerns and attracted attention on Capitol Hill.

Guan in 2020 secretly filmed detention facilities in Xinjiang, adding to a body of evidence of what activists say are widespread rights abuses in the Chinese region, where as many as 1 million members of ethnic minorities, especially the Uyghurs, have been locked up.

ASEAN top diplomats under pressure to end Myanmar war and finalize South China Sea pact

Southeast Asia’s top diplomats met Wednesday under growing pressure to push a peace plan that has so far failed to end Myanmar’s civil war, and to beat a deadline to conclude talks on a nonaggression pact with China this year.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a diverse 11-national bloc, has struggled to project unity and relevance for years. But it faced its latest setback last year when deadly fighting erupted between two members, Thailand and Cambodia, over a longtime border conflict.

Fighting ended with a ceasefire that was brokered by Malaysia and pushed through by pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who threatened to withhold trade privileges unless they agreed. Helping sustain that fragile ceasefire was high on the agenda of the ASEAN foreign ministers’ annual meeting in the central Philippine city of Cebu.

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.