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Industry

Iran wins SCO backing against US strikes. Will it be enough?

Despite strong rhetoric out of Bishkek, support from groupings like the SCO and Brics may be more symbolic than substantial, analysts say At the SCO summit in Bishkek on Tuesday, world leaders made veiled references to the instability in the Middle East without naming the United States directly, in apparent tacit backing for Iran. The Bishkek Declaration closing the summit, meanwhile, explicitly condemned the military strikes on Iranian territory as violations of international law. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s trip to the SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan this week was only his second visit abroad since the joint US and Israeli strikes began in late February. He held bilateral talks on the summit sidelines with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

September 2, 2026

Industry

EU trade enforcers descend on Beijing demanding China fix ‘untenable’ imbalances

Brussels officials hold talks in the Chinese capital as they seek a commitment to reduce surging exports to the bloc Later this month, the European Union’s top trade official, Ditte Juul Jorgensen, will follow Redonnet to the Chinese capital, she confirmed on Wednesday, as Brussels assesses whether Beijing is willing to make the sort of concessions that could see them avoid sliding into a damaging tit-for-tat exchange in the autumn. “We see an engaged China in these talks, but of course the challenges are very, very significant,” Jorgensen told a hearing at the European Parliament on Wednesday. “What we see in relation to China is … increasing concentration dependencies, including in strategic sectors – that is a risk to the EU,” Jorgensen said.

September 2, 2026

Industry

Xi makes world tour ahead of White House summit

Chinese President Xi Jinping touched down in Egypt on Tuesday, the second stop in a potentially busy month of travel that will probably conclude with a White House meeting. “Once you drink from the Nile, you are destined to return,” the Chinese leader said on arrival at Cairo International Airport. Xi is likely to sign economic agreements with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Wednesday as part of his first trip in a decade to the most-populous Arab nation and his first Middle East stop...

September 2, 2026

Industry

US universities curb international student internships following federal warning

The restrictions could have a major impact on Chinese students, who often pursue off-campus work experience while studying in the US The changes follow two directives in August from the Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP), a division of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which take a stricter view of when CPT can be authorised. Universities including the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, the University of Southern California, the University of Washington, the University of Rochester and the University of California, Berkeley have paused pending applications or limited CPT to internships that are mandatory parts of a degree programme. On August 12, the SEVP issued a message reminding school officials of their responsibility when approving CPT.

September 2, 2026

Industry

How the SCO chips away at US power without an alliance system

The SCO’s significance is practical: it gives those who do not want their future defined in Washington a forum to coordinate and hedge The timing is important. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains unresolved, while the war between Iran and the US has turned the Persian Gulf into another theatre of strategic competition, with energy markets again exposed to disruption around the Strait of Hormuz. The SCO now brings together China, Russia, India, Iran, Pakistan, most of the Central Asian republics and Belarus, alongside partners including Turkey and multiple Gulf states. Its 10 full members represent more than 3.4 billion people and roughly a quarter of global GDP. However, its growing importance is not simply a matter of size. Calling the SCO an anti-American alliance is a mistake. Its members have different interests. India and China remain strategic competitors; India and Pakistan have long-standing tensions; and Central Asian governments want room to manoeuvre between Moscow, Beijing, Ankara, Brussels and Washington. Turkey remains a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) member while pursuing a larger Eurasian role.

September 2, 2026

Industry

Air China Boeing 747 grounded in New York following gate refuelling incident

Beijing-bound Boeing 747-8 inspected after fuel truck reportedly tears lines from wing ports at JFK No injuries were reported in or around the aircraft, which was expected to operate flight CA982 from New York to Beijing that day. The leak is said to have occurred between 1am and 2am while the plane was parked at the gate, according to posts on Chinese social media. It was being refuelled when the fuel truck moved away with two hoses still connected to the plane, damaging the fuel ports and spilling fuel onto the tarmac, according to a post on Shanghai Observer, a social media outlet of the Jiefang Daily, and a video circulating on other social media platforms. The South China Morning Post has not independently verified the video. Photos shared online appeared to show airport personnel inspecting the aircraft’s fuel ports and refuelling equipment, as well as cleaning up what appeared to be fuel on the ground. Several passengers who said they were booked on the flight posted a cancellation notice they said had come from Air China. It attributed the cancellation to “fuel guarantee”, apparently referring to arrangements to refuel the aircraft.

September 2, 2026

Industry

Chinese research team may have cracked secret to crossbreeding Asian and African rice

Scientists identified three genes that make it hard to combine the two varieties – and also highlighted a possible solution While both Asian and African cultivated rice varieties have distinct strengths, crossing them often produces offspring with sterile pollen and low yields. A research team has now identified three genes that act as a barrier to reproduction – and also a possible way round the problem. “This discovery provides an important theoretical foundation and valuable genetic resources for breaking the reproductive barrier between rice species and breeding new, ultra-high-yielding hybrid rice varieties,” the official China Science Daily reported last Friday. Such Asian-African crosses “could potentially increase yields by more than 10 per cent compared with existing Asian hybrid rice varieties”, one of the authors of the study told the newspaper. The research, conducted by a team led by Wan Jianmin at Nanjing Agricultural University’s State Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement and Utilisation, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science on 28 August. African and Asian rice are the only two species out of the 24 in the Oryza genus that have been domesticated to produce food for humans.

September 2, 2026

Industry

US journalist jailed for 2 years for working as a Chinese agent

Thomas Weir Pauken II worked for state media in Beijing and admitted to working at the direction of people tied to China’s intelligence services Thomas Weir Pauken II, 51, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and barred from overseas travel during that period, according to the US Justice Department. He also used the alias Tom McGregor. His father, Thomas Pauken, chaired the Texas Republican Party in the 1990s and later ran for governor. Pauken has been in custody since his arrest in February, and he admitted in June to acting as an agent of China in the US without notifying the attorney general, as required under federal law. The bureau added that he recruited potential intelligence assets, issued taskings, sent reports to MSS contacts, received at least US$100,000, and made several trips from China to the US to meet people who could provide information to him, and ultimately to Chinese intelligence. Assistant attorney general for national security John A. Eisenberg in a statement said Pauken had “betrayed his country for money” and “exploited his US citizenship and corresponding ability to travel to the US without restriction”.

September 2, 2026

Industry

China’s corruption investigation procedures

For more, check out the South China Morning Post’s full anti-corruption data bank project:

September 2, 2026

Industry

China’s 2026 moon laser communication speed is slower than Nasa’s in 2013

Data rates during two-way laser link between Earth and the moon were well behind US experiment over a decade ago Using telescopes in Yunnan province and an experimental satellite that is now orbiting the moon after a launch mishap in 2024, the team recorded a downlink speed of 100 megabits per second and an uplink speed of 1.25Mbps, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which led the project. By contrast, Nasa’s 2013 lunar laser communications demonstration achieved download speeds of 622Mbps and upload speeds of 20Mbps – roughly six times faster for downloads and 16 times faster for uploads. Jonathan McDowell, a London-based space historian and former Harvard astronomer, said the Chinese and US experiments were comparable. “It sounds like China has not yet reached the data rates the US can achieve,” he said, adding that he did not know what accounted for the gap. Yang Lei, a deep-space laser communications expert and head of the research team, noted the speed advantage of laser compared to other methods in an interview with state news agency Xinhua last week.

September 2, 2026

Industry

Mainland China stepping up preparations for Taiwan blockade, report says

Defence ministry says PLA exercises are increasingly focused on plans to cut off the island and control air and sea routes The assessment was made in the ministry’s “2026 China Military Power Report”, which was submitted to the legislature this week along with its five-year force development plan and next year’s proposed defence budget. The report said recent PLA exercises were increasingly focused on the “joint blockade and control” of the island’s external air and sea routes. “Combined with annual PLA training, the exercises have increasingly focused on maritime and air blockades or quarantines, joint firepower strikes, seizure of comprehensive battlefield superiority and joint amphibious landing operations,” it said. The aim was to strengthen the PLA’s ability to target Taiwan, as well as carry out anti-access and area-denial operations to counter potential foreign intervention, the report continued. Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China and has never ruled out the use of force to reunite it with the mainland.

September 1, 2026

Industry

Congress advances new bill to give US edge in open-source AI race with China

Legislation to promote adoption of US open-source models while publicising the risks associated with using their Chinese counterparts Congressional committees “mark up” a proposed bill by reviewing it line by line, debating its merits and voting on changes or amendments before deciding whether to send it for a full House or Senate vote. Open-weight, or open-source, models are AI models that are released freely over the internet, allowing users with the necessary hardware to download and customise them for their own use.

September 1, 2026