Hong Kong police will conduct round-the-clock patrols in Wan Chai from Friday as part of enhanced security arrangements for the coming Apec Finance Ministers’ Meeting, as delegates begin arriving in the city, the South China Morning Post has learned. Delegates from the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation member economies will travel to Hong Kong as early as Friday for preparatory work, although most ministers are not expected to arrive until Sunday at the earliest. They will stay at several top...

The most consequential outcome of President Xi Jinping’s Washington visit might be his US counterpart Donald Trump’s unusually lavish welcome. It told Beijing, US allies and global markets that, however fierce the strategic rivalry, China’s importance makes sustained diplomatic engagement essential. The airport greeting, lavish banquet at the White House and flyover by military aircraft restored the appearance of a workable relationship between two powers. Even so, Beijing has learned not to...

This is the fourth in a series of factsheets about Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and 2026 policy address. Part I – Hong Kong’s new chapter Part II – The story begins... Part III – Sharpening the city’s edge Part IV – Tapping into tech and talent The series has been produced with support from the Hong Kong SAR government. To see the South China Morning Post’s coverage of the five-year plan, click here. This Factsheet will appear in the SCMP print edition on October 20. You can find it...

A 500-year-old Buddha statue that was found buried by a roadside in Australia has been returned to China, leaving an ongoing mystery about how it arrived in the country. The 15cm (six-inch) bronze figurine was formally handed over to Chinese consular representatives during a ceremony in the coastal town of Denham in Shark Bay on Tuesday, the public broadcaster ABC reported. It will be taken to China for further evaluation to establish its history before being displayed at a museum in...

This is the third in a series of Factsheets on Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and 2026 policy address. Part I – Hong Kong’s new chapter Part II – The story begins... Part III – Sharpening the city’s edge Part IV – Tapping into tech and talent The series has been produced with support from the Hong Kong SAR government. To see the South China Morning Post’s coverage of the five-year plan, click here. This Factsheet will appear in the SCMP print edition on October 20. You can find it at...

A fleet of artificial intelligence agents operating on a Tencent Holdings cloud platform made thousands of attempts to circumvent security protections on Alibaba Group Holding’s mapping service, according to findings by third-party researchers. It is one of the first reported “rogue” AI events involving Chinese companies, following a string of recent high-profile incidents in the US, including from OpenAI and Anthropic, highlighting the risks of increasingly autonomous AI systems. Agents running...

North Korea’s apparent use of different launch methods to fire two types of cruise missiles from a tactical nuclear-capable submarine could complicate regional defence, while raising fresh questions about the operational readiness of its growing undersea arsenal, observers have said. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Thursday it had “test-fired two types of submarine-launched strategic cruise missiles” off its eastern coast. The tests “contributed to inspecting the...