Kinaforum

lørdag 12. september 2026

China says it hopes to agree with the US on tariff reductions at ‘an early date’

China and the United States hope to reach an agreement on lowering import taxes soon, a Chinese government spokesperson said Thursday, fueling expectations that an announcement could come when the leaders of the two countries meet in two weeks.

Negotiators are striving to implement reciprocal tariff reductions on $30 billion worth of goods “at an early date,” Commerce Ministry spokesperson Huang Ling said at a weekly briefing. The $30 billion will be from each side, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to meet in Washington on Sept. 24 for what will be their third face-to-face talks in the past year. Both governments characterize the meetings as a way to stabilize relations in an era of competing interests between the world’s two largest economies.

Hong Kong Tiananmen activists jailed for up to 7 years

A Hong Kong court on Friday sentenced three pro-democracy activists who organized annual vigils marking China's deadly 1989 Tiananmen crackdown to between five and seven years in prison under the city's national security law. The sentences handed down were:Lee Cheuk-yan, 69 — seven years
Chow Hang-tung, 41 — seven years and three months. Albert Ho, 74, — five years and two months, after pleading guilty

The three were convicted in August of "incitement to subversion" over their activities with the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, which received a fine of HK$1.5 million ($191,304, €164,768). The alliance had organized annual Tiananmen vigils in Victoria Park.

China angered by Taiwan VP's visit to EU democracy forum

China was angered by Italy and the EU on Friday, lodging "solemn ‌representations" with both after news broke that high-ranking Taiwanese officials had traveled to the bloc to attend an annual democracy summit. Beijing's Foreign Ministry said it firmly opposes official interactions of any form with Taiwan by nations who have ties with China.

Solemn ‌representations is a literal translation of a Chinese term expressing diplomatic discontent. At issue is a visit by Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim and Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung, both of whom were welcomed to the Ventotene Conference for Freedom and Democracy in Italy. China sees democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, which it has vowed to "reunite" with the mainland.

Opinion: There are two struggles for Tibetans living in exile

There are two struggles for Tibetans living in exile. They run side by side, but they are not the same thing. One is the long hope of freedom and of returning one day to the land. That hope is real. It has kept many people going through decades of uncertainty. The other struggle is quieter and, in many ways, heavier. It is the everyday work of remaining a people at all. Staying together when everything pulls apart. Keeping the Tibetan language spoken in ordinary homes and not only on formal occasions. Protecting the religion so that it continues to be practised and lived, not turned into something distant that younger people only hear about. Holding the settlements from slowly emptying. Stopping families scattered across India, Nepal, Europe, America and elsewhere from drifting into separate lives until they no longer feel part of the same story.

This second struggle is talked about far less. Yet without it the first hope begins to lose its substance.

The Trump administration slams Ford for its ties to China

The Trump administration on Tuesday expressed “profound concern” to carmaker Ford about its alleged ties to Chinese technology and manufacturing. In a letter to Ford CEO Jim Farley, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy cited Ford’s links to Chinese companies such as battery manufacturer CATL and concerns over the Detroit Auto Show and what it described as Ford’s effort “to facilitate Chinese joint ventures on United States soil.”

Ford, which called itself “the most American automaker” quickly responded, accusing Duffy’s letter of containing “factual errors.”

“Secretary Duffy’s letter is a wrongheaded attempt to capture headlines at the expense of a company that has done more for American manufacturing than virtually any other in the nation’s history,” Ford said in the statement Tuesday.

India's BRICS strategy tested with Xi, Putin set to visit

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host the 18th BRICS summit this weekend in New Delhi, welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping to India for the first time since 2019. The summit comes at an important moment for India. As New Delhi's year-long BRICS presidency draws to a close, India is stepping up engagement with China and Russia, and its relationship with Washington remains difficult.

Modi met both Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on August 31 and September 1. Just two weeks later, Modi is set to see them again in New Delhi for the BRICS summit.

Are we seeing the end of South Korea relying on the US?

The South Korea-United States alliance has been one of the principal foundations of the East Asian security architecture for more than seven decades. Established in the aftermath of the Korean War, the alliance provided South Korea with an extended security framework that enabled the country to focus on economic reconstruction, industrialization and technological development.

Yet the strategic circumstances that sustained this security architecture are changing. Shifts in the distribution of global power, evolving American strategic priorities, China’s growing regional influence, North Korea’s expanding military capabilities and South Korea’s own economic and technological development are creating pressure for a reassessment of Seoul’s reliance on Washington.

Torbjørn Færøvik: From Jesus til Elvis - Trump's Summer on Truth Social

Autumn has arrived, and it is time to take stock of Donald Trump’s activity on Truth Social over the past three months. That is where he addresses humanity with his proclamations and fits of rage. So here are the figures—but first, brace yourself against a doorframe or something similar, or sit down safely in a chair with sturdy armrests.

According to Roll Call’s database, Trump published 2,455 posts on Truth Social in June, July and August—681 in June, 750 in July and 1,024 in August. His activity was therefore highest in August, when he posted roughly once every 44 minutes, around the clock.

Trump does not write all the posts himself. The figures show only the activity on his account, not how many times he personally tapped away at his phone. His most important aide is Natalie Harp, Trump’s personal assistant. According to several American media outlets, she drafts some of the texts with him as he dictates. She also finds images, videos and other people’s posts that can be shared. Harp is also the one who logs into the account and presses the send button once Trump has approved the content.

Japan's empty temples seek new ways to survive

The 370-year-old structure has all the attributes of a classically designed Japanese temple, from the curved roof to the timber-frame walls, spacious tatami-mat prayer hall and elaborately decorated altar.

Set in manicured gardens on the Chita Peninsula in central Japan, the 350-square-meter (3,767-square-foot) property is on the market for 482 million yen (€2.66 million, US3.01 million). The estate agent's pitch says the price includes dismantling by "expert heritage craftsmen" and delivery to anywhere in Japan, where it would be fully restored into a "stunning" two- or three-bedroom home.

The sale and removal of the temple marks the end of its role in the local community in the hills above the Nagasawacho district, but it is a better fate than many places of worship across Japan. There are around 77,000 temples across the country, but as many as 17,000 no longer have a full-time resident priest as congregations have shrunk — particularly in rural districts experiencing rapid depopulation — and financial pressures have taken their toll.

China Teaches the West About ‘Checkbook Diplomacy’ Again

A “landmark new treaty” expected between Australia and the Solomon Islands could become a roadblock for China's lightning diplomatic offense in the South Pacific—but it will come at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Canberra’s pledge to invest at least $980 million Australian dollars, or just over U.S. $700 million, in Honiara’s economy and politics was confirmed in a leaked text message first reported by Australia’s ABC News.The deal will be welcome news for Washington, D.C. It would make the Solomon Islands the latest Pacific island nation to pivot away from China, after Australia concluded separate new security agreements this summer with Vanuatu and Fiji. Chinese officials reacted poorly to the setbacks, having sent over $1 billion in aid to both countries in the last two decades.

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How not to be a human rights lawyer in China

China’s new rules for becoming a lawyer is a cautionary tale on how not to become one especially if one’s main interest is to become a human rights lawyer. The Party-state has made support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership an explicit legal qualification for lawyers, said an organiser.org commentary Sep 3, citing an amendment to the country’s Lawyers Law, adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Aug 28 and enacted on Sep 1.

The amendment turned a political requirement previously imposed through Ministry of Justice regulations into a formal requirement of national law. The move effectively introduced a political loyalty test for lawyers before they can practise in China. The change gives the requirement of political loyalty to the CCP a stronger statutory foundation.

Witnesses estimate deaths, missing in Tibet due to Aug 26 Nepal-border flash floods to be much higher

While China has said nothing about any devastation caused on towns, villages and other human settlements in Kyirong County in Tibet as a result of the catastrophic flash floods of ice, rock, mud, and, of course, water in the morning of Aug 26, the Tibetan Service of Radio Free Asia (rfa.org) reported Sep 6, citing a local Tibetan source, that 26 people had lost their lives in one village alone. However, the report did not say whether other villages and so forth were also hit by the flash flood.

China has officially confirmed that as of Sep 5, a total of 43 people had died on the Tibet side, with 519 people missing, including 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries.

The report cited the Tibetan resident as saying 26 people had died in Risur village, where the Gyirong Port is located.

Professor Thomas Kell: The Dilemma of the Democratic System of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile

As a researcher in Tibetan studies, I have interviewed many Tibetans in exile, including former Sikyong Lobsang Sangay, and heard numerous views on the “democratic system” of the Tibetan government-in-exile (referred to as Central Tibetan Administration, or CTA). In my opinion, the democratic system of the Tibetan government-in-exile suffers from multiple structural defects and practical dilemmas. The following represents only my personal views and is offered for discussion.

The democratic system of the Tibetan government-in-exile began in the 1960s. The Charter of the Tibetans-in-Exile of 1991 established a three-branch framework, and after the Dalai Lama formally transferred political power in 2011, it was further “democratized,” with the election of a Sikyong (political leader) and a parliament. However, it is not the democracy of a mature sovereign state, but a limited experiment of a refugee community in exile.

Remembering Gyirong: The Bustling Port That Vanished in a Flash

Photographer He Xu first passed through the China-Nepal border at Gyirong Port in 2010. He remembers that it was just a row of rustic, clay-colored bungalows. Over the past 16 years, he has revisited at least 100 times, witnessing the area’s steady growth, with those bungalows eventually replaced by a grand, imposing building.

Yet that progress came to a violent halt on the morning of Aug. 26, when a flash flood caused by a mountain glacier ripped through the port in Shigatse, in China’s southwestern Xizang Autonomous Region. As of Sept. 2, the disaster had killed at least 1,204 in Nepal and 21 in China, according to Xinhua News Agency. Almost 5,000 people remain missing, including 546 in Gyirong.

On the ground in China’s wiped-out border zone, the fate of hundreds is still unknown

A rock-strewn crevasse is all that remains of what used to be Gyirong Port. The high-altitude hub has been completely washed from existence, leaving a moonscape of stones, gravel and sludge still being searched by emergency workers, as witnessed by a CNN team that gained access to the site on Sunday as part of a government-organized visit.

Reporters were given hard hats and boots, to contend with the still-unstable mud-caked ground, and the ever-present risk of further landslides. This border crossing was once a bustling nexus for tourists and traders moving between China and Nepal. Hundreds of people would typically pass through each day going to or from Nepal’s Rasuwa port, just across the river.

The embedded AI inside ‘Made in China’

Western coverage of Chinese artificial intelligence still tends to treat the competition as a model contest: can a Chinese company match the best American system? China is certainly in that race.

But it is also pursuing a quieter route. Chinese companies are putting AI into cars, robots, cameras, smartphones, appliances, and industrial equipment already manufactured at an enormous scale.“Made in China” once meant where the hardware was assembled.

Increasingly, origin also involves who wrote the software, where the data travels, and who can update the product after it has been sold. The product’s identity is no longer settled when it leaves the factory. Software provenance is becoming a second country of origin. The border has moved inside the machine.

50 years on, Mao still matters in China

On September 9, 1976, Mao Zedong died. The revolutionary leader who led the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power and founded the People's Republic of China left behind a profoundly contradictory historical legacy.

He shaped the narratives of revolution, nation-building and national independence, but also left behind immense social trauma as a result of successive political campaigns and persecutions.Over the past five decades, China has undergone radical changes.

When Mao died, China was still a poor and relatively isolated communist state. Today, it is the world's second-largest economy, deeply embedded in the supply and value chains of global capitalism, with a vast private sector, a large urban middle class and a highly digitalized society.

Zhang Lun, a professor at Cergy-Paris University, said Mao left behind four major political legacies: the authoritarian and highly centralized political system; a model of governance that relies on revolution and political campaigns to solve social problems; populist tendencies marked by anti-elitism and anti-rationalism; and utopian visions of egalitarianism and moralism.

Chinese theater, promoter fined for altered patriotic song in a comedy show

Authorities fined two companies and said that one of China’s best-known comedians had caused a “negative impact” on society, after an audience reported him for changing the lyrics of a patriotic song during a performance.

The Culture and Tourism Bureau in Wuhan city said Monday they found the comedian Guo Degang “distorted” a patriotic song. It fined the company hosting Guo and the theater for violating rules on commercial performances. It also said it will “deal seriously” with relevant personnel, without specifying what those punishments will entail.

Guo is considered the country’s most prominent performer of traditional xiangsheng, a form of Chinese comedic dialogue using word play and rhymes. He was placed under investigation by the Wuhan authorities in August, local media reported.