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Industry

Spurned by the US, African students turn to China for a university degree

International students once saw US colleges as a gateway to a world-class education and career head start but shifting United States immigration policies, tightening visa conditions and high-profile ICE raids are causing them to reconsider. Dulue Mbachu looks at how African students are altering their education plans during the second Trump administration. The first instalment in our series is here. For 23-year-old Kunle Adeyemi, it took some time to overcome the disappointment of being denied a...

July 29, 2026

Industry

Pentagon official hails ‘stronger’ military ties in rare speech at PLA anniversary event

Speaking at the Chinese embassy, US deputy assistant defence secretary Alvaro Smith says ‘clear, steady progress’ is being made “Under the leadership of Secretary [Pete] Hegseth, we are actively repairing a once broken military-to-military channel and making clear, steady progress,” said Alvaro Smith, deputy assistant defence secretary for China, Taiwan and Mongolia. While it is not unusual for US officials – civilian or uniformed – to attend the Chinese embassy’s Army Day reception, it is not typical for a Defence Department policymaker to deliver a speech at the event. It comes as preparations are under way for a US visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September. Last week, China’s foreign vice-minister, Ma Zhaoxu, travelled to Washington to lay the groundwork for that trip, while Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel went to Beijing. During Tuesday’s reception, Smith also said Washington was not seeking “conflict with China” and hoped to maintain a “peaceful” and “respectful” bilateral relationship.

July 29, 2026

Industry

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang meets US officials as scrutiny grows over China chip access

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is meeting US officials and lawmakers in Washington this week amid reports that its export-controlled processors have been used to train advanced Chinese artificial intelligence models. Huang met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday, US outlet Axios reported, citing an anonymous source. Neither the US Commerce Department nor Nvidia confirmed that the meeting occurred, and its purpose was not disclosed. “Jensen is in DC to meet with leaders on...

July 28, 2026

Industry

Exclusive: The Jacob Helberg interview

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July 28, 2026

Industry

China woos Slovakia with AI, robotics pitch as EU trade friction mounts

Bratislava has maintained relatively warm ties with Beijing even as the bloc has toughened its stance on trade China and Slovakia should explore cooperation in clean energy, robotics and artificial intelligence, as the European nation navigates growing trade tensions between Beijing and the EU. That was the message Chinese President Xi Jinping gave to Peter Pellegrini in talks on Tuesday morning as part of the Slovak president’s three-day visit to China, the first by the country’s head of state in 16 years. Slovakia has relatively warm relations with China, as one of the few EU and Nato members to have established a strategic partnership with Beijing in recent years. Ties were raised to that level during Prime Minister Robert Fico’s visit to Beijing in November 2024. Meanwhile, cracks in the transatlantic relationship under the second Trump administration – particularly the president’s “America first” trade policies – have pushed some European nations to recalibrate their relations with China.

July 28, 2026

Industry

What’s behind China’s recent spike in Covid-19 cases? And is it anything to worry about?

Disease now spreading more quickly than flu, as experts say conditions for spreading the virus in summer and winter are ‘converging’ The spread of the Omicron NB.1.8.1 variant has reached a “moderate transmission level”, according to the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC does not give a weekly total of new infections, but its most recent data – covering the week of July 13-19 – showed the positive rate for Covid-19 tests had reached 16.3 per cent, an increase of 4.3 percentage points compared with the previous week. Meanwhile, the positive rate for influenza was 12.6 per cent, a fall of 0.9 points. The positive rate is the percentage of all diagnostic tests conducted in hospital clinics that come back positive for a specific pathogen. Last month, mainland China recorded 79,000 new confirmed Covid-19 cases, including 130 severe cases and one death, according to the CDC. The CDC advised elderly people and those with underlying health conditions to take preventive measures, such as wearing masks in public places and hospitals.

July 28, 2026

Industry

Top Los Angeles diabetes doctor Shen Yang joins China’s Westlake University

Recognised as a ‘top endocrinologist’ in southern California, Shen will be first US-licensed clinical doctor at the Chinese medical school On July 21, Westlake University in Hangzhou announced that Shen Yang, a top endocrinologist in Los Angeles, had joined its medical school. Shen’s move is striking because of her credentials, which include over 16 years of clinical experience in the United States, board certifications in internal medicine and endocrinology, and a thriving practice in southern California. Before returning to China, Shen was named a “top endocrinologist in LA” by Los Angeles Magazine for several consecutive years. For this honour, she was nominated by her peers and selected from among thousands of doctors in southern California. Shen took an unconventional path to studying medicine in the United States. As an undergraduate at Fudan University in Shanghai, she studied sociology rather than medicine or related disciplines. In the late 1990s, China was in a period of social transformation, and she was attracted to the theory of community work at the time.

July 28, 2026

Industry

How a Chinese model stopped a cyberattack when US guard rails failed

An American company found itself under attack by American artificial intelligence systems. Its unlikely rescuer was a Chinese AI model. It sounds like a Hollywood science fiction film. It’s not. During an internal test, advanced OpenAI models bypassed network restrictions, gained access to the internet and launched autonomous cyberattacks on open-source platform Hugging Face. As engineers rushed to respond, several leading closed-source AI systems reportedly failed to provide meaningful help...

July 28, 2026

Industry

China’s rare earth reserves could be much larger than reported: leading geologist

But potential resources at massive Bayan Obo mine in Inner Mongolia do not automatically translate into economically recoverable reserves The world’s largest known rare earth deposit in northern China could contain far more resources underground than currently reported, according to a leading Chinese geologist. According to Yang Li, a Peking University geologist, “Bayan Obo’s rare earth resources have been the dominant source of global rare earth production since the 1990s.” Even so, scientists now believe the currently reported figure of reserves may not represent the full geological potential of the region. A 2025 study led by Yang found that Bayan Obo was not formed through a single geological event but through multiple stages of carbonatite activity – when volcanoes erupt runny, cool-burning lava made mostly of carbonate minerals – including a younger mineralisation event that played a vital role in forming the deposit. “Our most important finding is that Bayan Obo not only contains 1,300 million-year-old igneous carbonatite but also 430 million-year-old carbonatite, and the second phase was key to mineralisation,” Yang said of the study published in the journal Science Advances.

July 28, 2026

Industry

China tests first civilian drone that can fly 24 hours non-stop, fully loaded

The multipurpose UAV is designed to be suitable for missions ranging from sea patrols to delivering emergency supplies in remote areas According to a Science and Technology Daily report on Monday, the TP200 – designed to handle maritime patrols, island supply and land surveying – can stay in the air for 24 hours at its maximum payload, giving it a range of 3,000km (1,860 miles). The TP200, developed independently by Yitong, could be used for sea patrols or search and rescue operations near shore. It would also be suitable for keeping watch over coastlines and delivering emergency supplies to remote mountains and islands, it said. Its flexible, modular design meant the system could be configured to monitor droughts, fight forest and grassland fires, map land or survey forests and ecology – all in any weather, the report added. According to the company’s website, the TP200 has a service ceiling of about 7,600 metres (25,000 feet) and a maximum cruise speed of 200km/h (124mph). It can take off and land within 300 metres and operate from unpaved runways. The fuel‑powered aircraft features two air intakes – one above and one below the rear fuselage – along with a tail propeller and twin connected vertical stabilisers.

July 28, 2026

Industry

In 1976, earthquake in China’s Tangshan kills over 240,000 people – SCMP archive

On this day 50 years ago, the deadliest earthquake in recorded history razed the mining town of Tangshan in China’s Hebei province Heavy casualties and severe damage to industrial plants and property were feared when the strongest earthquake for 12 years struck the industrial belt of northern Hopei Province early yesterday (July 28, 1976) morning. The tremor was followed by a series of aftershocks and 16 hours after the first quake, an aftershock of almost the same intensity struck the same area, causing further damage and casualties. Confirmed dead was a Japanese businessman in Tangshan, which was close to the epicentre of the tremor, about 90 miles east-southeast of Peking. Six other Japanese were injured and were receiving treatment in a Peking hospital last night. A Frenchwoman aged about 30 was reported by French sources in Peking to have been killed in the same city. And the visiting former Australian Prime Minister, Mr Gough Whitlam, who spent a night in Tientsin, told reporters in Peking before flying to Japan last night that he had been told by his Chinese hosts that there were some dead in Tientsin. There also appeared to be “an awful lot of damage” in that municipality, he added.

July 28, 2026

Industry

China turns to public for help in deadly dam collapse probe after Typhoon Maysak

At least 26 people are known to have died in the disaster which occurred earlier this month in Guangxi amid torrential rainfall State media reported on Monday that the public could call a hotline to submit information related to the collapse of the Liulan Reservoir in Hengzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on July 6. The investigation aimed to “fully reconstruct the sequence of events, determine the causes of the disaster, examine shortcomings and responsibilities in disaster prevention, emergency response and rescue efforts, and draw lessons to help prevent similar incidents”, the team said. Similar public appeals have been made during previous State Council investigations into disasters and industrial accidents that have caused heavy casualties and sparked widespread public concern.

July 28, 2026