Beijing’s top envoy has called for China and Europe to join forces against “unilateralism and bullying” in a thinly veiled swipe at the United States, after meeting European Union leaders in Brussels. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday, before sitting down for marathon political talks with the bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas that were expected to run over dinner. “The world today...

Catch up on some of SCMP’s biggest China stories of the day. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. The EU-China reset that never was: summits begin but divisions remain After much talk of patching things up, a grand rapprochement has failed to materialise, with Beijing seen to be playing a “waiting game”. 2. US Senate, passing Trump bill, bars energy tax credits for China-linked firms The US Congress is poised to bar companies with ties to China from...

A day before the controversial military parade in Washington celebrating the US Army’s 250th anniversary (which, coincidentally, fell on President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday), a more discreet yet significant event took place. On June 13, the US Army swore four C-suite technologists into its reserve ranks with the launch of Detachment 201, its executive innovation corps. The newly commissioned lieutenant colonels are Shyam Sankar, Palantir Technologies’ chief technology officer; Andrew...

When South Korea reportedly halted its digital currency pilot programme this week in favour of stablecoins – cryptocurrencies pegged to a reference asset, typically a fiat currency – it sent shock waves through central banks across the world. It also left China – a pioneer in central bank-backed digital currencies with its digital yuan, or e-CNY – with an important question to answer, namely whether it should continue to explore such digital assets or revisit the possibility of adopting the...

While China’s economy has shown considerable resilience through a turbulent first half of 2025 – navigating the dramatic twists and turns of US trade policy while maintaining steady growth - experts warn Beijing’s challenges are far from over. Although many believe the country can still hit its annual goal of “around 5 per cent” for gross domestic product growth, more pressure points are expected to emerge in the latter half of the year. After the bilateral trade war saw a temporary...

China is ramping up its science and technology outreach to the Global South while its collaboration with the US on the same front is receding, analysts said on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Institute for China-America Studies, a Washington think tank. “China is very heavily engaging with those countries,” said Caroline Wagner of the Ohio State University, noting Beijing has signed science and technology agreements with “dozens and dozens of countries”. That development marks a “critical...

The US Congress is poised to bar companies with ties to China from gaining clean energy tax credits – a move that critics warn could jeopardise dozens of planned projects and freeze investment in a sector already struggling to decouple from the country. After an overnight series of amendment votes, the Senate on Tuesday passed its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – which would also remove the decades-old “de minimis” trade rule that allows low-value packages to avoid duties and rigorous...