Kinaforum

onsdag 21. oktober 2026

China defends DeepSeek after US ban of its AI from government systems

China hit back Tuesday at a U.S. ban on the use of Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek’s products by federal civilian agencies and warned of retaliatory measures as the two AI powers race to develop the technology.

The Department of Homeland Security said the agencies should remove DeepSeek products as well as third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek from their IT systems, according to a notice made public on Monday.

The latest warnings reflect “the depth of strategic distrust between Beijing and Washington” even as U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping work hard to keep their personal relationship “warm and constructive,” said George Chen, partner and chair of digital practice at Washington-based The Asia Group consultancy.

Trump Open to ‘Denuclearization’ Summit with Putin and Xi

President Donald Trump said on Monday he wants to hold a trilateral summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in China to discuss “denuclearization.” Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said such a meeting, which would be the first time the three leaders met outside of a larger multi-leader gathering, would be a “very positive thing for the world.” The U.S. President added: “If they’d like to have it, I think it would be held in China.”

The three leaders are expected to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next month in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese tech hub.

Trump was responding to Putin’s reported proposal for a three-way meeting with Trump and Xi. The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with discussions, that Putin suggested the idea to Trump in an Oct. 9 call, seeking the summit to potentially broker an end to the war Russia started in Ukraine more than four years ago, without having a Ukrainian representative at the table.

China Wants to Sell The World on Xinjiang-Farmed Fish

When Chinese state television hailed inland salmon as a miracle in 2018, many viewers saw something more familiar: not a wonder, but a sales pitch.

The segment, aired by China Central Television that May, celebrated salmon farmingin western China. Over images of sleek fish cutting through clear water, the narrator marveled that “a precious fish like salmon, which typically lives in the open ocean,” could now be raised inland, in the country’s barren western hinterland. The message was unmistakable. Technology had made the improbable possible. “The land is the same land, and the people are the same people,” the program declared, “but when technology is brought in, miracles are born.”

Brutal, revolutionary empire builder: Genghis Khan's legacy

Genghis Khan is one of history's most radical figures. A blood-thirsty invader whose conquests caused the deaths of an estimated 40 million people, he was also a visionary political thinker who established the largest contiguous land empire in history.

The founder of the Mongolian Empire died in 1227. Ahead of the 800th anniversary of his death, Berlin's James-Simon-Galerie explores his legacy and the "Mongol Century" (1250–1350) in the exhibition "Genghis Khan and the World of the Mongol".

The ruler remains "incredibly relevant" to this day, says Matthias Wemhoff, the director of the exhibition project. "What the era of Genghis Khan — the 'Mongol century,' if you will — vividly demonstrates is how quickly established structures can collapse, how rapidly vast empires can vanish from the map and how swiftly the entire landscape can be utterly transformed," the archaeologist tells DW.

The Genghis Khan Exhibition

Who are the women powering India's youth-led 'Cockroach' protests?

On July 20, Navkiran Natt and her partner set out for the magistrate's office in New Delhi to get married. They arrived to find a tense situation, with police gathering to break up a youth-led march on Parliament. Office staff — and the couple's wedding witnesses — were running late due to barricades.

The protest movement known as the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) had announced the march to demand the resignation of India's then-Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The protesters were met with heavy resistance from security forces, who had deployed batons, tear gas and pellet-firing shotguns, leading to injuries and mass detentions.

Less than three months later, on October 10, Natt left home early in the morning and spent the day crisscrossing the locked-down Indian capital looking for a protest she could join.

North Korean workers treated as 'slaves' at Russian drone factory

As many as 12,000 North Koreans working at a Russian drone factory are victims of "gross human rights abuses and human trafficking," according to a new report.

The figures were part of a joint report published on October 14 by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Dallas-based George W. Bush Institute. It analyzes how Russia, North Korea, China and Iran are involved in expanding unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) production at the Yelabuga plant in Tatarstan, and what each country stands to gain.

While Moscow gets access to more than 5,500 drones a month for its war against Ukraine, China benefits from being the main supplier of dual-use components, including batteries, internal electronics, engines and navigation systems.

‘Hybrid warfare’: Taiwan drives away 16 Chinese ships

Taiwan has confronted and driven away 16 Chinese coastguard, research and fishing vessels that it said were involved in simultaneous “maritime harassment” operations.

An “unusually large” number of Chinese vessels took part in coordinated operations around Taiwan’s main island and Pratas (also known as Dongsha), a disputed island to the southwest, the Taiwanese coastguard said in a statement on Sunday. The Chinese vessels included four fishing boats, which engaged in “simultaneous operations’ that the coastguard described as “hybrid warfare”.

Taiwan’s coastguard said its vessels took “forceful action immediately to effectively neutralise the threats” and accused Beijing of “attempting to unilaterally alter the status quo” in the Taiwan Strait and give the “false impression of jurisdiction”. Some of the vessels reportedly entered Taiwan’s restricted waters.

South Korea to pull more embassy staff from Ukraine after POW row

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it will withdraw additional embassy personnel from Ukraine following Kyiv’s lack of “constructive response” in a dispute about North Korean prisoners of war (POWs).

Seoul had told Kyiv of its position via multiple channels but had not received a sufficient response from Ukraine, ministry spokesperson Park Doo-soon said on Tuesday. Earlier this month, South Korea recalled its ambassador from Kyiv after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that Ukraine had transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to the South.

The disclosure angered Seoul, which said the operation should have remained confidential to protect the soldiers’ families in North Korea.

Myanmar’s detained ex-leader Suu Kyi receives package from King Charles III

Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi has received a package from King Charles III, its military-backed government said, releasing the first pictures of the detained Nobel laureate in two months.

Home ministry officials met the country’s former leader on Monday to deliver the parcel containing two books about soil and sealed diplomatic correspondence from the British monarch, Myanmar’s presidential spokeswoman said on her Facebook page. Britain is Myanmar’s former colonial power and King Charles is known to have a keen interest in gardening and the environment.

Accompanying the statement were two images of Suu Kyi meeting two men with their backs to the camera. The pictures appeared to be in a similar room to the last released images of her, when she met a Red Cross representative in August, her first publicised meeting with a foreign official since she was ousted more than five years ago.

Why Young Indians Are Fearful About the Future of the World’s Largest Democracy

Demonstrations have swept across India in recent weeks, fueled by anger over what protesters say is a politically motivated purge of electoral rolls. The protests were sparked by the removal of some 130 million names from the rolls by election authorities, who have defended the process, saying the exercise was intended to weed out ineligible voters.

But critics of the process, known as the Special Intensive Revision, said it was designed to bolster Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They have demanded the resignation of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar.

The demonstrations have been met with a heavy-handed response from Indian authorities, who locked down the capital, New Delhi, and detained leaders of the burgeoning Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led movement that emerged earlier this year. An Indian court on Monday extended the detention of two Cockroach movement leaders, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das.

What are these protests actually about? Are they a natural progression from the Cockroach movement’s earlier protests, or something different?

Behind the Veil of Religious Harmony in Cambodia

On paper, Cambodia often appears as a site of religious tolerance, boasting favorable scores in global indices that measure selected elements of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). Over the years, these “rankings” have manufactured a facade of harmony that masks realities on the ground. State influence over Buddhist institutions, structural inequalities, and the quiet marginalization of minority groups and the destruction of Indigenous sacred places are routinely obscured by aggregate rankings that mistake the absence of overt conflict and the fear of speaking up for genuine harmony.

This gap in analysis is the central focus of Asia Centre’s report,“Religious Freedom in Cambodia: Unpacking the Rankings,” published on September 28. At its core, the report interrogates what standard metrics capture and, more importantly, what they deliberately or inadvertently leave out.

China moves to curb tech exports, including AI, citing national security risks

China on Friday said it plans to restrict or ban exports of 40 technologies that span artificial intelligence, chips and solar power as its technology race with countries including the United States intensifies. The Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology jointly published a draft document with the proposed updates for China’s catalog of technologies subjected to export bans or restrictions.

A spokesperson from the commerce ministry said in a statement that the move was “necessary” and cited national security as one of the reasons. The proposal came as China and the U.S. made progress in dialogues over AI safety and governance and on the setting up of a notification mechanism between the two superpowers for AI incidents that could threaten national security.

Torbjørn Færøvik: When the Taliban Went to War Against Buddha

The bearded warriors struggled to manoeuvre their cannons into position, but once the barrels were pointing in the right direction, their commander shouted: “Fire!” The bombardment continued for several weeks. When the guns finally fell silent, two of the world's largest standing Buddha statues had been reduced to ruins.

“Allahu akbar!” the warriors cheered, raising their arms towards the heavens.

This happened in Afghanistan 25 years ago. For some 1,400 years, the two statues had stood in separate niches carved into the cliffs of Bamiyan. One was 55 metres tall, the other 38 metres. They had withstood the elements and survived countless wars. But then the Taliban arrived with their artillery. The order to destroy them came from the movement's leader at the time, Mullah Omar.

“We are carrying out this action in accordance with Islamic law,” declared Afghanistan's foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil.

Torbjørn Færøvik: Da Taliban gikk til krig mot Buddha

De skjeggete krigerne slet med å få kanonene på plass, men da kanonløpene pekte i riktig retning, ropte kommandanten: «Fyr!» Skytingen pågikk i flere uker. Da larmen endelig stilnet, var to av verdens største stående buddhastatuer forvandlet til ruiner.

«Allahu akbar», jublet krigerne og løftet armene mot himmelen.

Det skjedde i Afghanistan for 25 år siden. De to statuene hadde stått i hver sin nisje i fjellveggen i Bamiyan i rundt 1400 år. Den ene var 55 meter høy, den andre 38 meter. De hadde overlevd vær og vind og talløse kriger. Men så kom Taliban med sitt artilleri. Ordren om å ødelegge dem kom fra organisasjonens daværende leder, Mullah Omar.

«Vi utfører denne handlingen i samsvar med islamsk lov», forkynte den afghanske utenriksministeren Wakil Ahmad Mutawakei.

China invites Katie Zacharia to visit again after she claims nation lacks ‘proper toilets’

Beijing has invited now-ousted White House press secretary Katie Zachariato visit China more often after she claimed the country lacks “proper toilets” in a recent interview. Zacharia, who was sacked by President Donald Trump less than a week into her job following an onslaught of scrutiny, came under fire for her lavatory remarks while speaking with far-right podcaster Jack Posobiec on Thursday.

“I remember this very distinctly, having just come from China, thinking, how is China the next country on the horizon? They don’t even have proper toilets,” she said, while discussing a perception around the lead-up to the US election in 2016 that the golden days of America were over, and that China was on the rise.

When asked about those remarks on Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning quipped: “She’s welcome to come and see China more often when she has the opportunity.”

Philippines protests Chinese envoy’s remarks, calling them a ‘thinly veiled threat’

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his government on Friday protested remarks by China’s ambassador to Manila, calling them “a thinly veiled threat of the use of force” in the latest flare up in the two Asian countries’ longstanding territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

On the sidelines of a Manila forum on Thursday, Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan was asked by reporters to comment on Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr.’s remarks pointing to China as a “troublemaker” in the region. Jing said that characterization was “nonsense” and added the Philippines should feel fortunate to have China as a neighbor.

“If we want to use force, we may easily win. But no, we will not choose force and we love peace,” Jing said. “In this region, we enjoy peace. Look at other regions: Ukraine, Gaza and even Venezuela.”

China, Russia quietly moving toward a new Arctic axis

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advisor Nikolai Patrushev’s recent visit to China points to something more consequential than another round of Russia-China strategic rhetoric: Moscow is trying to turn maritime cooperation with Beijing into infrastructure, technology and logistics that can survive geopolitical pressure.

The proposals discussed during the October 8-13 visit — linking China’s Maritime Silk Road with Russia’s Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor, developing Russian ports, exchanging container-terminal automation technology and conducting joint maritime research — are still largely unimplemented plans.Yet they deserve attention because they sit at the intersection of three trends reshaping the global economy: the securitization of supply chains, the opening of the Arctic and the fragmentation of maritime globalization.

Tibet beyond the Dalai Lama and the question of who speaks for its people

A people’s future cannot rest forever on the shoulders of one person, however extraordinary that person may be. Institutions matter. So does memory, language, faith and the right of a people to speak for themselves. For Tibetans, this question has acquired a particular urgency. The 14th Dalai Lama has been the spiritual leader and the most recognised voice of the Tibetan cause for decades. But a political community cannot be expected to leave its future undefined until a moment of succession arrives. That is the larger question behind a new American bill, the Assuring the Future of Tibet Act (AFTA) of 2026.

The bill is not law yet. It was introduced in the US House as H.R. 8982 on May 21, 2026, by Congressman James McGovern, with Republican Michael McCaul as cosponsor. A Senate companion, S. 5362, was introduced on August 7 by Senator Jeff Merkley, with a bipartisan group of cosponsors, and referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Reckoning Deferred: Tibet’s Succession Question