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Industry

Is Europe’s anti-missile project with Ukraine ‘insurance’ against unpredictable US?

Europe is ‘quietly planning for the day it might have to stand on its own’ while aligning with US calls to do more on defence, analysts say On Monday, 10 European nations – including France, Germany and Britain – signed a joint declaration in Paris to establish the Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition. “This isn’t Europe breaking with the United States,” said James Downes, director of the Europe-Asia programme at the US-based Centre for Explanatory Research and Scientific Prediction. “Europe is quietly planning for the day it might have to stand on its own.” Downes said the coalition was a calculated response to a changing political climate in Washington.

July 17, 2026

Industry

Trump’s China election-interference claims spark scapegoat fears among Asian-Americans

US president’s prime-time address draws sharp backlash from immigrants who fear a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes Annie Guo, who was born in China’s Fujian province and migrated to the United States more than two decades ago, said she was worried that the Chinese immigrant community – particularly first-generation migrants – would again be targeted following Trump’s speech. “First-generation Chinese immigrants like me are the easy targets because we still have many family ties in China. Whenever Trump doesn’t do well in the election, he needs a scapegoat. We are likely going to be the primary target again this time. It is like our original sin,” said Guo, a mother of two living in New York. “But I am still hopeful, because many American people have common sense and know what’s the truth. Just look at [broadcasters] ABC, NBC, CNN: all decided not to air the speech live on primary channels.” The decision by these major US television networks not to broadcast the speech live drew a rebuke from the president, who has placed unprecedented pressure on American media.

July 17, 2026

Industry

Chinese scientist’s sodium battery leap; petition to boot Argentina: SCMP’s 7 highlights

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. The young Chinese scientist behind ‘impossible’ breakthrough on sodium batteries Scientist Lu Yaxiang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physics, has spent a decade working to make sodium-ion batteries...

July 17, 2026

Industry

US to toughen up visa regulations for Chinese journalists, foreign students

Trump administration claims changes will combat visa fraud and strengthen national security, but legal experts condemn new proposals The White House moved on Thursday to tighten visa rules for foreign students, media and those on exchange programmes, including stricter limits on Chinese journalists, in the latest push by a government increasingly focused on cracking down on both legal and illegal immigration. In the Thursday statement, DHS said it was eliminating what it called a “duration of status loophole” that allowed these visa classes to “remain in the United States indefinitely without routine government oversight”. The prior approach, introduced decades ago, meant holders of F, J and I visas were admitted for the duration of the approved programme or assignment, rather than a shorter fixed period, leaving their entry records without an explicit expiration date.

July 16, 2026

Industry

Beijing denounces US chip curbs as threat to global supply chains

Move to incorporate three China-focused export control measures into the NDAA marks a new escalation in the US technology rivalry Liu Chang, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said in a statement that, while the NDAA is a US domestic bill, Beijing nonetheless “firmly reject[s] inserting negative content about China into the draft legislation”. “The global industrial and supply chains come into shape as a result of both the law of the market and the choices of businesses,” he said. “Arbitrary disruption and damage to the global industrial and supply chains serves no one’s interest and to do so will receive no support.” “The US should stop politicising, weaponising and ideologising economic, trade and sci-tech issues, stop blocking and hobbling Chinese companies, respect the law of the market economy and free trade rules, and defend the security and stability of global industrial and supply chains.”

July 16, 2026

Industry

Anthropic, China and why Pax Silica architect thinks the US can keep the AI lead

Brief curbs on foreign access to Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models designed to keep infrastructure safe, Jacob Helberg says The struggle between the US and China over who will lead in artificial intelligence is one of the defining competitions of our time. In this first part of our exclusive interview with a key player defining Washington’s policy on AI, US undersecretary of state for economic affairs Jacob Helberg discusses the ban on foreign access to Anthropic models and how the US can maintain its edge. “We do not want cyberattacks on our critical infrastructure or the critical infrastructure of our allies,” Jacob Helberg, US undersecretary of state for economic affairs, told the South China Morning Post in an exclusive interview. Helberg, who leads Washington’s Pax Silica initiative – which also counts 22 other nations, plus the European Union, as signatories – said the administration had assessed how advanced AI models could be released safely. “We undertook a process to make sure that we can have a sensible approach to releasing that technology in a way that is safe and secure for our critical infrastructure and our financial sector,” he said.

July 16, 2026

Industry

China is building early warning system to spot Earth-smashing asteroids

Beijing will use ground telescopes and orbital satellites to track dangerous space rocks that currently go undetected China is developing an early warning system to spot asteroids that might smash into the Earth, according to the scientist leading the national mission. China planned to deploy multiple telescopes on the ground, alongside a constellation of satellites in orbit, state-run Science and Technology Daily quoted Li Mingtao, chief scientist at the asteroid monitoring and early-warning research centre under the China National Space Administration, as saying. None of the asteroids that had been discovered so far were thought to be on a clear collision course with Earth, Li said in the report on June 30, which the United Nations designated as International Asteroid Day. More than 95 per cent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 1km (0.62 miles) in diameter – large enough to trigger global catastrophes – had already been identified, he said. But only about 45 per cent of asteroids measuring around 140 metres (460 feet) across, which could devastate a small country, were believed to have been discovered, he added. “These undiscovered near-Earth asteroids pose the greatest risk.

July 16, 2026

Industry

China’s lab monkey prices hit Covid-era highs on new drug R&D demand

Long macaque breeding cycles and fully pre-booked colonies have forced some researchers to put critical studies on hold Suppliers are now generally quoting about 180,000 yuan (US$27,000) per animal. “It is not just a question of price,” said Guo, who works at the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Non-Human Primate Research. “In many cases, the monkeys simply cannot be bought. Suppliers say they have all been pre-booked.” Guo said his laboratory required between 30 and 50 monkeys each year for scientific work, including pathological and molecular biological analyses.

July 16, 2026

Industry

Jia Qianqian was a literary high-flier. Then came the online claims of plagiarism

Scandals are coming thick and fast in Chinese academia, with a former child prodigy also stripped of her master’s In a statement on Wednesday, Northwest University said its months-long investigation found that nine of Jia’s published papers contained plagiarised material. The university had terminated her teaching appointment and revoked her associate professor title. In addition, her 2009 master’s degree had been revoked after Shaanxi Normal University carried out its own review of her thesis and found plagiarism, the statement said. On July 8, President Xi Jinping called for greater efforts to crack down on academic misconduct at a meeting in Beijing. Improving China’s ability to innovate is a cornerstone of the government’s economic strategy.

July 16, 2026

Industry

US hardens AI stance on China as Anthropic calls for extending lead

AI company urges tighter export controls, saying Chinese rivals are rapidly closing the gap through unauthorised model distillation Washington is moving to strengthen its artificial intelligence posture towards China, with lawmakers advancing new export control bills and the Trump administration deepening cooperation with leading US AI firms as concerns grow that Beijing is rapidly closing the technological gap. A senior Anthropic executive said on Wednesday that the United States holds a six-to-nine-month lead in frontier AI models over Chinese competitors, while accusing Chinese companies of using unauthorised “distillation” techniques to replicate American advances. “We actually do have a pretty good handle on the lead. I think the six-to-nine-month figure is kind of an average if you look at models,” Tarun Chhabra, Anthropic’s head of national security policy, said during a discussion at the Aspen Security Forum. Chhabra characterised what he described as China’s use of model distillation as “adversarial”, describing it as “extracting the most valuable IP from the models”. He added that the United States could have been “a year to 18 months ahead” if Chinese firms had not engaged in the practice.

July 15, 2026

Industry

14-nation South China Sea statement is an expansionist overreach

On July 12, a coalition of 14 nations – the United States, Philippines, Australia, Canada, Britain, Japan, New Zealand, and seven European states including Germany, Italy and the Baltic nations – issued a statement marking the 10th anniversary of the South China Sea ruling at The Hague in 2016. The document recycled familiar arguments, urging compliance with the ruling and framing it as a cornerstone of the rules-based international order. But beneath it lies a fundamental disconnect from...

July 15, 2026

Industry

Trump intelligence pick to play ‘helpful’ role in agreeing economic strategy with China

Jay Clayton says US can still work together ‘on the world stage economically’ with Beijing despite the geopolitical challenges they face Jay Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, appeared before the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on his nomination, where he was questioned on several key intelligence issues. Later in the hearing, lawmakers pushed back on the perceived ranking of Clayton’s threat assessment, stressing the importance of China as a geopolitical threat. “One, I strongly disagree with you about the issue of drug trafficking being more important at this point than the threat of China or Russia,” said Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia, with Clayton quickly clarifying he did not rank the threats in order.

July 15, 2026