THIS is the woman who is hired by others to get their husbands to dump their lovers in secret.
Wang Zhengxi, who operates out of Henan province in northern China, helps women deal with a growing problem.
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Wang Zhengxi, who operates out of Henan province in northern ChinaCredit: Susan Norget Film
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She has been featured in a documentary by the Hong Kong filmmaker Elizabeth LoCredit: Getty
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Wang comes to the rescue after Ms Li found texts on her husband’s phone suggesting he was having an affairCredit: Susan Norget Film
As growing numbers of women suspect their husbands of cheating, Wang is on call to help save their marriages.
Speaking to one client Ms Li, she said: “The most urgent matter at hand is how to inject me organically into your family.”
Wang comes to the rescue after Ms Li found texts on her husband’s phone suggesting he was having an affair.
Instead of confronting her husband, Ms Li is employing Wang to help save her marriage.
She will befriend a cheating husband and his mistress and convince them to both break it off.
Wang is one of a growing number of “mistress dispellers” – and has been featured in a documentary by the Hong Kong filmmaker Elizabeth Lo.
In the film, Wang says: “When people come to me for help because a mistress has appeared, I can provide them with solutions to fix the problem.”
It comes amid a crisis of confidence in the institution of marriage across China.
There were fewer than 300,000 divorces back in 1978, but this jumped by 2019 to 4.7 million.
Lo said: “In Asian cultures, the mode of conflict resolution is different.
Meet China’s shady ‘Sea Dragons’ – the elite unit training for Taiwan invasion with underwater pistols & pirate battles
“Solving a problem and maintaining face on the surface while not poking a hole directly in the bubble or reality they live in is a form of preserving harmony.”
When she approaches the husband and mistress, Wang works subtly.
She asks Mr Li to teach her badminton and befriends the mistress at the same time.
Wang said: “When someone becomes a mistress, it’s because they feel they don’t deserve complete love.
“She’s the one who needs our help the most.”
Eventually, at his home, Wang reveals Ms Li’s suspicions to her husband when the wife is out of the room.
“He confessed everything, but you should pretend to know nothing,” Wang whispered to Mrs Li.
“I think there’s hope, but I don’t know the girl yet. I can only advise you after I see her.”
Mr Li even broke down in front of Wang at one point.
This debate takes on the growing rift in President Trump’s party. Is it driven by conservative principles or allegiance to one man?
America First was the slogan Donald Trump championed during his re-election campaign as he promised to put the interests of Americans above those of foreign governments, immigrants and large corporations. However, the United States president has made several policy decisions that have divided his electoral base. The two guests in this episode of The Stream voted for Trump in the 2024 election but now find themselves on the opposite side of several issues: economic policy, foreign military spending and the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests: Ethan Levins – Social media journalist Erol Morkoc – Spokesman, Republicans Overseas UK
From Kevin Baxter: When the Dodgers arrived in Colorado on Sunday night they had a golden opportunity to pad their narrow division lead against with the worst team in the majors. Unfortunately, even with Thursday’s 9-5 win over the Rockies, the Dodgers only managed a split of the four-game series.
They now head to San Diego for a crucial three-game-series against the Padres with the division lead once again up for grabs.
“I wish we had won all four, but it just didn’t happen,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s just the way baseball is. So we’ve got to go out there and regardless of the standings, we’ve got to beat those guys.”
The standings, however, loom large. The margin over the Padres is just a game.
The Dodgers will have a bit of momentum on their side after scoring 20 runs on 30 hits in the two wins at Coors Field. Thursday’s matinee saw four players finish with multiple hits, including third baseman Alex Freeland, who was a career-best three for five with a run scored and another driven in. Freeland had six hits in the final three games in Denver.
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From Ben Bolch: Demetrice Martin built an early, practically insurmountable lead.
Landing six defensive backs by Christmas, the UCLA secondary coach added two more before the spring transfer portal window closed, making this race appear to be a runaway.
Before long, a formidable challenger emerged. Closing fast in the battle to become the Bruins’ top recruiter on an almost entirely new coaching staff was Andy Kwon.
Having helped snag four transfers — a few of whom committed before his hiring — the offensive line coach went on to secure verbal commitments from two four-star high school prospects from Florida, the kind of highly coveted out-of-region talent that UCLA had seen go elsewhere in recent years.
The heated duel to see who could secure the best players, which included every new assistant and holdovers Ikaika Malloe and Jerry Neuheisel, was a welcome surprise to coach DeShaun Foster.
From Ryan Kartje: Rising star USC wideout Ja’Kobi Lane suffered a broken foot in May, but was fully cleared this week and will be ready for the Trojans’ season opener against Missouri State, coach Lincoln Riley said Thursday.
The foot injury kept Lane limited through most of the summer. By the start of preseason camp, he was still being brought along slowly. During the portion of USC’s practices open to reporters, Lane wasn’t even running routes on air.
Lane wasn’t deemed fully healthy until the final week of USC’s preseason camp. Riley said that the junior wideout had actually “progressed a little bit ahead of schedule.”
From Gary Klein: As Matthew Stafford got to the podium on Thursday, he joked that he was sure reporters wanted to ask him questions about the paper cut he suffered.
The Rams star quarterback then fielded inquiries about the subject that clouds all conversation about the Rams: The back injury that sidelined Stafford until this week.
Stafford practiced for the fourth day in a row, another small milestone for the 17th-year pro and a team aiming to make a Super Bowl run.
“The good thing is I feel pretty good,” said Stafford, who practiced for the fourth day in a row. “The last couple days out there practicing, I was able to do even more than I thought I was going to be able to do the first day, and then I’ve just been trying to stack days.
1851 — The United States wins the first international yacht race. The schooner named “America” beats 14 British yachts.
1885 — Richard Sears beats Godfrey M. Brinley, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 to win the U.S. men’s national tennis championship held at the Newport (R.I.) Casino.
1898 — Malcolm Whitman beats Dwight F. Davis, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 to win the U.S. men’s national tennis championship held at the Newport (R.I.) Casino.
1948 — The Chicago Cardinals beat the College All-Stars 28-0 in front 101,220 fans at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
1949 — The Philadelphia Eagles beat the College All-Stars 38-0 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. It’s the largest shutout in the series, later matched by Green Bay in 1966.
1950 — Althea Gibson becomes the first Black tennis player to be accepted in competition for the national championship.
1957 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Pete Rademacher in the sixth round to retain his world heavyweight title at Sicks Stadium in Seattle.
1984 — Evelyn Ashford sets the world record in the 100-meter dash with a clocking of 10.76 seconds in a meet at Zurich, Switzerland.
1987 — Brazil snaps the 34-game winning streak of the U.S. men’s basketball team with a 120-115 victory in the Pan Am Games. Oscar Schmidt scores 46 points to lead Brazil. Cuba wins a record 10 of 12 gold medals in boxing and beats the U.S. 13-9 in the baseball final.
1999 — Jenny Thompson breaks Mary T. Meagher’s 18-year-old 100-meter butterfly record at the Pan Pacific swim championships. Thompson with a time of 57.88 seconds lowers the mark of 57.93 set by Meagher.
2004 — American sprinter Justin Gatlin wins the coveted Olympic 100m gold medal in Athens in 9.85 ahead of Francis Obikwelu of Portugal & American Maurice Greene.
2008 — Usain Bolt helps Jamaica win the 400-meter relay final in 37.10 seconds for his third gold medal and third world record of the Beijing Games. Bolt becomes only the fourth man, and the first since Carl Lewis in 1984, to win all three Olympic sprint events. Bryan Clay wins the decathlon, the first American to win the 10-discipline event at the Olympics since Dan O’Brien at Atlanta in 1996.
2018 — Ohio State suspends football coach Urban Meyer three games for mishandling repeated professional and behavioral problems of an assistant coach, with investigators finding Meyer protected his protege for years through domestic violence allegations, a drug problem and poor job performance.
2018 — The NCAA ditches the RPI for its own evaluation tool to select teams for the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Evaluation Tool will rely on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency and quality of wins and losses. NET will be used for the 2018-19 season by the committee that selects schools and seeds the tournament.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1917 — Pittsburgh’s Carson Bigbee set a major league record — since tied — with 11 at-bats in a 22-inning game against Brooklyn. Pirate Elmer Jacobs pitched 16 2-3 innings in relief. The game was also the fourth consecutive extra-inning game by the Pirates for a total of 59 innings, a National League record.
1934 — Pitcher Wes Ferrell hit two home runs to give the Boston Red Sox a 3-2 triumph over the Chicago White Sox in 12 innings. Trailing 2-1, Ferrell hit a home run in the eighth inning to tie the score and with two out in the 12th, Ferrell connected again for the game-winner.
1961 — Roger Maris, en route to his 61-home run season, became the first player to hit his 50th homer in August. He connected off California pitcher Ken McBride in a 4-3 loss to the Angels.
1965 — In the third inning of a game against the Dodgers, pitcher Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants hit catcher John Roseboro of the Dodgers in the head with his bat. A 14-minute brawl ensued and Roseboro suffered cuts on the head. Marichal thought Roseboro threw too close to his head when returning the ball to Sandy Koufax.
1971 — The Oakland Athletics opened and closed the game with solo homers to beat the Boston Red Sox 2-1. Boston pitcher Sonny Siebert gave up both, Bert Campaneris lead off the game and Reggie Jackson ended it with two out in the ninth inning.
1984 — New York Mets right-hander Dwight Gooden, at 19, fanned nine San Diego Padres to become the 11th rookie to strike out 200 batters in one season.
1989 — Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers became the first pitcher to strike out 5,000 batters. Ryan struck out 13, walked two and allowed only five hits in a 2-0 loss to Oakland. Ryan began the night needing six strikeouts and fanned Rickey Henderson swinging, leading off the fifth inning, for the record.
1999 — Mark McGwire became the first player to hit 50 homers in four consecutive seasons, hitting Nos. 49 and 50 in the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Mets.
2007 — The Texas Rangers became the first team in 110 years to score 30 runs in a game, setting an American League record in a 30-3 rout of the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader. It was the ninth time a major league team scored 30 runs, the first since the Chicago Colts set the major league mark in a 36-7 rout of Louisville in a National League game on June 28, 1897.
2012 — Oakland A’s P Bartolo Colon is suspended for 50 games for testing positive for testosterone, eight days after Giants OF Melky Cabrera was also suspended for using the same performance-enhancing substance.
2016 — Adrian Gonzalez hit three of the Dodgers’ seven homers — driving in a career-high eight runs — to lead Los Angeles to an 18-9 win over the Cincinnati Reds.
2021 — Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers becomes the 28th player to hit 500 home runs with a solo home run off of Steven Matz of the Blue Jays.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Just three days after imagery surfaced of China’s first known crewed tiltrotor aircraft to take to the air, we have gotten our first sight of a previously unknown compound coaxial helicopter. The aircraft, the designation of which remains unknown, is also now undergoing test flights and is a direct clone of the U.S.-made Sikorsky S-97 Raider. The development confirms that China, too, is looking at harnessing the benefits of this kind of aircraft, which offers much higher speeds than a conventional helicopter, as well as increased maneuverability.
A non-edited version and slightly closer crop of the image that appears at the top of this story. via X
The images showing the new compound coaxial helicopter emerged today, apparently first being posted to China’s Weibo microblogging site. They show the rotorcraft in flight and immediately betray its close connection to the S-97. Most fundamentally, the Chinese design adopts the same propulsion configuration, with four-blade coaxial main rotors — which looks like a rigid design — and a pusher propeller. The Chinese aircraft appears to be of almost identical size and also has the same ‘tadpole’-like fuselage shape and landing gear configuration. Like the S-97, the Chinese helicopter also has a relatively large, plank-like horizontal tail with endplate tailfins. However, the tailfin design is different, with the larger part of the fin projecting above the tailplane, rather than below it.
S-97 Raider. Sikorsky
At this point, it’s worth recalling that this is far from the first Chinese design to share a significant superficial resemblance to a Western aircraft. In the rotary field, the Harbin Z-20 helicopter is widely regarded as a Chinese clone of the H-60/S-70 Black Hawk/Seahawk, while the Chinese FH-97 drone looks like a carbon copy of the XQ-58A Valkyrie. These are just two examples, and while accusations of simply aping existing Western designs are an oversimplification, China has been accused on multiple occasions of hacking detailed design information from U.S. aerospace defense contractors.
A rear view of the new compound rotorcraft flying behind a Changhe Z-8/Z-18 medium-lift helicopter. via X
Regardless of what kinds of Western technologies may have been exploited for its new compound coaxial helicopter, it’s interesting that China is now making a foray into this field and that it’s following the established S-97 design so closely.
Sikorsky’s S-97 prototype, which is a descendant of the same company’s X-2 and X-49 demonstrators, was developed as an 80-percent surrogate for the larger Raider X and weighed around 14,000 pounds. In tests, the helicopter has achieved speeds in excess of 200 knots, well beyond the top speeds of conventional rotorcraft. While the Raider X has a more pointed nose and a reversed landing gear arrangement, the aircraft were otherwise essentially very similar in form.
Central to the compound coaxial configuration of the S-97/Raider X (and now the analogous Chinese rotorcraft) is the pusher prop in the tail and the rigid, contrarotating rotors that eliminate the need for a tail rotor. The pusher prop allows for bursts of speed and rapid deceleration, increased maneuverability, and a higher sustained cruise speed. Range will also be increased compared to a standard helicopter, although not to such an extent as a tiltrotor. Unlike a conventional helicopter, a compound coaxial like this can fly forward with its nose up or backward with its nose pointed at the ground, while the Raider has routinely demonstrated an ability to ‘pirouette’ nose-down around a single point.
These compound coaxial helicopters can also fly at top speed while maintaining a level attitude, compared to a regular helicopter that has to point its nose down to accelerate forward. In forward flight, the pusher prop can be activated, and the spinning rotors are slowed to act more like wings than rotors, reducing drag and boosting speed and efficiency. Essentially, unlike a standard helicopter where the blades create lift during only part of their rotation, the rotor blades generate lift on both sides of the aircraft as they spin.
A nearly finished Sikorsky Raider X prototype. Sikorsky
Speed is very far from a promise of immunity to battlefield threats, but it is certainly a valuable enhancement. It translates to reduced exposure to threats, including traditional ground fire, with less reaction time for the enemy to make a successful engagement. Other advantages of speed include reduced transit times to combat areas and the possibility of escaping certain threats with a high-speed dash.
FARA was a flop, while Sikorsky’s Defiant X — on which Sikorsky is teamed with Boeing — was a contender for the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) program that will eventually replace at least portions of the UH-60 Black Hawk fleet. The Defiant X shared the same basic configuration as the S-97/Raider X, but was scaled up to the 30,000-pound class. In the event, it lost out to the Bell’s V-280 Valor advanced tiltrotor for FLRAA.
A render of the production-representative Defiant X. Sikorsky
This means that Sikorsky’s compound coaxial helicopters currently don’t have a foothold in the small and medium categories within the U.S. Army’s broader Future Vertical Lift (FVL) initiative, which included FARA and FLRAA.
That’s not to say the concept is dead, however, and China clearly thinks its capabilities are worth exploring.
It’s also notable that the appearance of China’s new compound coaxial helicopter comes so soon after it was confirmed that its first known crewed tiltrotor aircraft was also being flight-tested.
The new Chinese tiltrotor that was first seen flying earlier this week. via X
This mirrors the competing design philosophies for FLRAA in the United States, and it’s certainly conceivable that a decision might be made between the compound coaxial and tiltrotor designs to inform what one or more next-generation rotorcraft for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might look like. At the same time, it’s also possible that China envisages a discrete role for the two different rotorcraft configurations. With the likelihood that these are demonstrators, there’s also potential for one or both of them to be scaled up, in much the same way that Sikorsky leveraged the S-97 design for both the Raider X and the larger Defiant X.
An older Lockheed Martin graphic showing how it saw the evolution of the X2 technology demonstrator and the S-97 Raider continuing in the future. The FVL Medium and FVL Light efforts were renamed FLRAA and FARA, respectively. Lockheed Martin
Equally fascinating is to consider how the PLA might envisage the future of rotorcraft on the battlefield more generally.
A Russian Mi-24/35 series helicopter is shot down by a Ukrainian missile, likely from a MANPADS:
Looking at the Indo-Pacific theater specifically, TWZ has, in the past, weighed up the arguments for canceling FARA as the Pentagon increasingly reconfigures for the possibility of a high-end fight with China in this region.
“Procuring hundreds of highly complex helicopters with relatively short-range capabilities — even those that are uniquely optimized for more range and speed than their predecessors — at great cost makes no sense when it comes to a fight in the Pacific. The opportunity cost of the dollars that would be spent on FARA instead of more relevant priorities and emerging technologies is just far too large for what the Army would be getting in return.”
“In a Pacific fight, for the vast majority of use cases, FARA, even with its enhanced range, will not be able to get from anything resembling a feasibly secure basing location to where they can have a major impact and survive to do so repeatedly. The most likely outcome is that these aircraft would have little to do during such a conflict, not because they are not highly capable, but because they simply can’t get to the areas where the fight is occurring, and the odds of returning home alive would be questionable even if they could.”
For the PLA, the situation is a little different, in that it would be better able to preposition its rotary assets ahead of a conflict and, while the distances to cover are still huge, support assets, spares, and other parts of the logistics trail are that much closer to where the fighting would be taking place.
Even in peacetime, China has a significant requirement to deliver cargoes to remote locations, including island outposts in the South China Sea. China also has access to a growing fleet of amphibious assault ships that would be ideal platforms for hosting advanced rotorcraft.
One of China’s Type 075 amphibious assault ships. via Chinese internet
China is keenly aware of the need to maintain wartime operations without access to conventional airstrips, and helicopters would play a fundamental part in this.
On the other hand, even with the additional speed and agility that a compound coaxial offers, helicopters of any kind remain vulnerable when operating on a modern battlefield, with its layered air defenses. When it comes to the attack and reconnaissance roles, survivability increasingly depends on the respective ranges between the helicopter and its target. With that in mind, the kinds of weapons and sensors that production versions of China’s next-generation rotorcraft might field are just as important as the airframes themselves.
An armed Z-20 helicopter carrying KD-10 anti-tank guided missiles on a stub wing system. Chinese internet
There’s also the question of how China sees the future balance between crewed rotorcraft and different kinds of uncrewed aircraft on the battlefield. Already, it is looking at the potential of tiltrotor designs that can be either crewed or uncrewed. China’s huge pivot toward uncrewed air systems will likely also see these play a hugely important role alongside crewed helicopters in a mutually beneficial force mix.
At this point, there are more questions than answers about China’s new compound coaxial helicopter, with a lack of clarity about its intended role as well as its design authority. On the other hand, it’s notable in itself that China is now exploring rotary technologies that should allow speeds of close to double that of conventional helicopters.
Even though Sikorsky says it still has hopes for its X-2 technology, it would be highly ironic if its potential ends up being exploited by America’s top pacing threat, China.
At the invitation of India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid an official visit to India on August 18th and 19th. The visit is being considered as a significant step for the restoration of Sino-Indian bilateral relations. On the first day of his visit, Wang Yi sat for a meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. In the meeting, Jaishankar stressed building a stable, cooperative, and forward-looking relationship between India and China, and differences between the two states must not turn into disputes. Then Wang Yi stressed that China and India should strengthen the momentum of improving bilateral relations, expand cooperation, and provide much-needed certainty and stability. The next day, Wang Yi met Ajit Doval to attend the 24th round of Border Talks. Both Doval and Wang emphasized maintaining peace and tranquility in the border areas for the well-being of the Sino-Indian bilateral relations. Before departure, Wang Yi called on the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and handed over the invitation from China’s president to India’s prime minister for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit being held in Tianjin, China.
For some years, due to some issues, including border tensions, there has been a kind of coldness in the bilateral relations between the two states. Especially after the Galwan border clash in 2020, the bilateral relations between the two states turned highly complicated. Then both states had deployed a large military presence close to the border. In addition, both states imposed several sanctions on one another, including cutting off direct flights, visa restrictions, banning social media apps, etc.
The situation started to change last year when India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping held a direct bilateral meeting at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. This was the first direct meeting between the heads of the governments of the two states after the Galwan border clash. Since the meeting, both states have started withdrawing their troops from sensitive areas of the border. Some meetings have been held between officials from the foreign and security affairs of both states. Both parties have emphasized normalizing the relations between the two states and increasing cooperation. This was the first major move for the realignment of the Sino-Indian bilateral relations.
For the second major move, US President Donald Trump has played a big role. His reciprocal tariff policy has encouraged both India and China to come close. Trump imposed a 50% tariff on several key Indian products. On the other hand, China is also in discomfort with Trump’s trade policy, though negotiation with the US is still going on regarding tariff issues. It is creating pressure on the Chinese economy.
Despite the economy, Trump’s geopolitical strategy is also pushing India and China to walk in an aligned way. After the Pahelgam attack, India did not get expected support from the US. Rather, Pakistan has gotten an advantage from the US, including a lower tariff than India and a warm reception of Pakistan’s Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, in Washington and Tampa back-to-back within two months after the Pahelgam attack.
On the other hand, China has huge discomfort with the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) of the US. Through the Quad alliance, the US is trying to create pressure on China’s supply chain in the Indo-Pacific region. China’s dispute with the US over Taiwan is on the way to growing. In addition, the growing US military presence in the South China Sea has become a major concern for China.
From there, it can be well understood that the US’s tariff policy and geopolitical strategy have become a common issue of discomfort for both India and China at this moment. As a result of all of these, the two immediate neighboring states have started to realize that partnership rather than rivalry between them can be useful for their mutual benefit.
As part of the partnership, both states have already started to take several initiatives. Both states have agreed to operate direct flights between them. Visa restriction is taking back from both sides. China has agreed to supply fertilizer and a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) to India. Recently China has allowed resuming the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra for Indian pilgrims. India has agreed to open its market for Chinese investment. According to a Reuters report, China promises to address India’s rare earth mineral needs.
Last month Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaisankar visited China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization foreign ministers’ summit. This was Jaisankar’s first China visit after the border clash.Now China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has made a visit to India. In the call with Wang Yi, Narendra Modi confirmed that he will visit China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit at the end of August.High officials’ visits like these indicate the intention and effort to normalize relations from both sides.
While the apparent initiatives taken by the two states for the realignment of the bilateral relations should be considered in a positive way. But it must be kept in mind that there are several major and complex obstacles standing in the way of a complete stabilization of the relationship between the two states. For example, just as India is uneasy about China’s Dalai Lama and Pakistan policy, on the other hand, China is also uneasy about India’s expansion of regional influence and effective involvement in the Quad alliance. In addition, there is still no stable solution to the border problem. In this scenario, both states have to come forward with equal effort and willingness for their mutual benefit.
A stable and cooperative Sino-Indian relationship has far-reaching benefits not only for both states but also beyond. Regional and global economic growth, security, and connectivity are deeply intertwined with the activities of these two states. Economically, China is the world’s second largest economy, and India is the fifth largest. In terms of military strength, China is the third and India is the fourth. Besides, both states are the most populous states in the world. Therefore, if these two states can resolve their differences through diplomatic means and move forward together in partnership, it will bring mutual prosperity not only to them but also to the regional and global scales. For this, realignment between the bilateral relations of the two states is highly required. Recent visits and several initiatives taken by the two states can be considered as significant moves of the realignment. And if the realignment takes place properly, then Dragon and Elephant can dance together.
The Ukrainian president said China has helped Russia, despite also calling for a peaceful resolution to the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ruled out the chance that China could serve as a security guarantor in the event of a future peace deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president’s remarks follow discussions this week between United States and European leaders about how to establish a future peacekeeping force in Ukraine should the war end.
“Why is China not in the guarantees? First, China did not help us stop this war from the beginning,” Zelenskyy told reporters, according to a report by The Kyiv Post media outlet on Thursday.
“Secondly, China helped Russia by opening the drone market,” Zelenskyy said.
Beijing has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine war, but its ongoing economic support for Russia has undermined its neutral image with Zelenskyy and Western leaders.
Despite Beijing’s ambitions of playing a greater role in mediating international conflicts, the Ukrainian leader’s remarks suggest that China will have no role in a Russia-Ukraine peace process.
Zelenskyy has said that international security guarantors are needed to ensure that Russia does not resume its attacks on Ukraine after signing a peace deal, and those participating should only be drawn from countries that have supported Kyiv since the Russian invasion in 2022.
In April, Zelenskyy accused China of supplying Russia with weapons and assisting in arms production, in the first direct accusation of its kind from the Ukrainian president.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning denied the claims and called them “groundless” and “political manipulation”.
China has said previously it only traded in “dual-use components” – those that can be used for both civilian and military purposes.
Questions about Beijing’s role in the war, however, have persisted for years due to the close relationship between the Russian and Chinese leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin visited Xi in Beijing and signed a “no limits partnership” between both countries.
Since then, China has helped keep Russia’s economy afloat in spite of sweeping international sanctions.
The EU and the US have both accused China of helping Russia to evade sanctions and continue to trade with Moscow in energy, electronics, chemicals and transportation components, according to the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Country steps up crackdown on online scammers, who lure victims using promises of romance to invest in fake cryptocurrency investments.
Nigeria has deported 102 foreign nationals, including 60 Chinese and 39 people from the Philippines, who were convicted of “cyber-terrorism and internet fraud”, according to the country’s anticorruption agency.
The announcement by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday comes as the country steps up a crackdown on online scam operations, which lured victims through online romances to hand over cash for fake cryptocurrency investments.
EFCC spokesman Dele Oyewale later told the AFP news agency that another group of 39 Filipinos, 10 Chinese and two people from Kazakhstan had also been deported since August 15.
More deportations were also scheduled in the coming days, he added.
The anticorruption agency released pictures of Asian men wearing surgical face masks, lined up at airport check-in counters.
The deportees were among 792 suspected cybercriminals arrested in a single operation in the affluent Victoria Island area of Lagos in December. At least 192 of those arrested were foreign nationals, of whom 148 were Chinese, the EFCC said.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has a reputation for internet fraudsters known in local slang as “Yahoo Boys”, and the EFCC has busted several hideouts where young crime suspects learn online scamming skills.
According to the agency, foreign gangs recruit Nigerian accomplices to find victims online through phishing scams. The attackers typically try to deceive victims into transferring money or revealing sensitive information such as passwords to accounts.
The scams target mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and Europeans, the EFCC said.
Experts say the fraudulent investment schemes used by cyber-scammers have become increasingly sophisticated and dynamic as they leverage the latest technologies and digital tools.
The schemes ultimately leave victims – many of whom invest their savings, business capital, and borrowed money – unable to do anything but watch their hard-earned money disappear.
Experts also warn that foreign “cybercrime syndicates” have set up shop in Nigeria to exploit its weak cybersecurity systems.
In 2012, when President Xi Jinping first coined the term “Chinese Dream”, it was seen as a patriotic call for national revival, a promise was made to restore China’s lost historical pride after a century of humiliation. The narrative of this analogy was powerful and emotionally resonant. Domestically, it stirred unity, strength and pride. Internationally, it was framed as a peaceful vision of shared prosperity in the foreseeable future..
Surprisingly, a decade later, the Chinese Dream has transformed into something far more tangled and complex, and very contradictory. Although Beijing continues to promote the notion of Chinese Dream as an amiable blueprint for progress and development, nevertheless it also projects a growing assertive foreign policy that raises questions about the true intent of the Dream i-e: Is China’s vision one of joint development, or does it cloak a strategic push for dominance?
China’s ambitions regarding the tensions between peaceful rise and nationalistic assertion are now the heart of global unease. This analogy of Chinese dream might have still inspired many Chinese, but for the world outside China, it is beginning to look more like a dilemma. Moreover these contradictions are no longer just theoretical they are unfolding in real time. For instance, China’s increased military activity off late (2025) near Taiwan and its expanding assertiveness in the South China Sea have clanked the Indo-Pacific. Fears of confrontation are ignited by naval incursions, coast guard problems and air defense drills, while the Philippines and Japan are seeking broadened security ties with the US. Meanwhile, the China–US rivalry ended up intensifying on new fronts, especially in AI, quantum computing, and semiconductor supply chains, signaling that technological dominance has become a new battle ground for China to pursue its strategic vision of rejuvenation, whether it’s the recent American export limitations on advanced chips or Beijing’s retaliatory curtailment on rare earth elements.
In order to completely comprehend the Chinese Dream and its motives, one must trace back to its historical roots. The “century of humiliation” that is identified by colonial invasions, unjust ententes, and foreign assertiveness left a deep imprint on China’s collective consciousness. Communist Party of China (CPC) has marked itself as the soldier that would restore China’s once lost dignity since 1949. But under President Xi, this narrative has been positioned as a national mission for a longer time: rejuvenation/ rebirth.
However, rejuvenation in this context isn’t just about China’s lost pride and economic growth but it’s more about being on top of the global hierarchy because it’s China’s right to be a global leader. This dream was initially confined to national revival but now it’s propagating beyond its traditional spheres, and this new dimension of this Dream has profound implications for foreign policy. China’s claim of a “Near Arctic State”, it’s leadership role in AIIB and BRICS, investment in Latin America and Africa lately sheds light on it’s global ambitions and the deliberate effort to shape global governance structures and asserting influence internationally.
The question that arises here is that, whether this Dream actually aligns with global peace as claimed by China or not. Xi has consistently emphasized on “win-win cooperation,” for a shared and cooperating future of the world system. Global endeavors like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are marked as tools for connectivity, collective progress and development.
Yet behind the literal meaning of this language lies a more complex and calculated strategy. For instance, the BRI has been lagging due to the constant criticism for opaque deals and debt traps etc. This criticism has deeply sharpened recently. In 2024–25, certain countries like Kenya, Malaysia, and Italy either rearranged or withdrawn from the BRI projects, due to obscurity and debt sustainability. There’s a growing discomfort regarding China’s approach to infrastructure diplomacy globally. China’s increasing propagation towards different continents often brings not only infrastructure but also an expanding political influence and economic dependence.
Another worrying aspect of this increasing global dominion by China is it’s actions in the South China Sea, and it’s policies towards ethnic minorities and the brutality in Uyghurs, and the way China has been handling dissent at home is contrary to the harmonious image it seeks to project in the international arena. The questions is, Is the Chinese Dream of national revival merely a soft power element layered over hard power objectives? Most know the answer.
Neo-realism makes this trajectory of China’s foreign policy seem less ambiguous. It’s the same old tale of survival and power maximization in an anarchic global system.In this sense, the Chinese dream is a strategic doctrine disguised in cultural rhetoric.
China’s military advancement, tech capabilities, aggressive border posturing and parallel global organizations I-e: AIIB all reflects a far more significant goal: reshaping the global BOP in China’s favor, which is not illegitimate as that’s how all the great powers operate in the international system to gain influence, however, it does challenges China’s notion of a peaceful actor.
Here the dream becomes a dual use instrument, internationally it justifies China’s strategic expansion and domestically consolidates legitimacy for the CPC. For instance, the on going AI and semi conductor war with the US, along with the naval brinkmanship near Taiwan sheds light on China enforcing it’s Dream through deterrence rather than diplomacy.
There’s another contradiction i-e: reconciling nationalism at home and claims of cooperation and development abroad. To explain this further, the Dream is a reassembling cry for unity, historical justice and strength. President Xi has positioned himself as the defender of this vision, and in order to do so, has tapped into springing up nationalist sentiments. And any discerned compromise with the international powers would be seen as a weakness- by the Chinese. Nevertheless, China is chanting the melodies of multilateralism and peace, by speaking the language of diplomacy while practicing coercion. This duality of the Chinese dreams inspires citizens at home but at the same time alarms foreign policy makers. Hence the widening credibility gap.
China’s Dream has often been met with caution and skepticism in the international arena. US has openly called this Dream a “strategic competition”. Moreover, EU has always been open to engagement and partnerships but now empathizes “de-risking”, while India, Japan, ASEAN countries and Australia are strengthening their ties and diversifying their supply chains. Even, from Pakistan, the so called iron brother of China, resistance has risen. The 2025 protests in Baluchistan specially Gwadar over economic segregation and security risks has challenged the entire motto of CPEC as a mutual win.
Africa and Central Asia has shown growing concerns as well regarding the consequences of long term dependency on Beijing beside the fact that these states are China’s traditional partners. China so far has stood its ground and retained influence through development and diplomacy but its assertive posture is, in the meantime eroding the trust genuine leaderships requires.
The Chinese Dream of rejuvenation seems benign. Its emphasis on unity, prosperity, revival, dignity and international cooperation offers a significant and meaningful vision for the century if pursued consistently. But in order to make this possible, China must tend to the contradictions from it’s roots. The BRICS expansion in 2025, which was driven by Beijing’s diplomatic momentum signals that China’s not only attempting to hold a greater influence but is also seeking to craft parallel governance frameworks. This still remains an open question, is it genuine multi-polarity or a cloaked hegemony?
China simply cannot promote soft power while reneging to hard power. It absolutely can not demand respect and legitimate for it’s foreign policy while ignoring transparency. It can not claim to be seeking peace while equipping for confrontation.
Moreover, the dream will be constantly met with caution and resistance unless China decides on whether the Dream really is a path to shared growth? Or is it just a blueprint for dominance.
Conclusion
The Chinese Dream might have succeeded in galvanizing and restoring national pride but it’s contradictions between words and actions has greatly undermined it’s global acceptance. If China’s truly focused on the Dream to bring peace and development globally, it must first gain trust in the international system.
China’s President Xi Jinping has made a rare visit to Lhasa to mark 60 years since Chinese rule was consolidated with the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region. State media says he was greeted by 20,000 people as the tightly controlled region staged a parade and celebrations.
The final score was 8-3 in favor of the Colorado Rockies, although the game was far more one-sided than that. And the result, combined with San Diego’s win over the Giants, cut the Dodgers’ lead in the National League West to just a game.
Yet the word the team used most often to describe the night was lucky because two hours after Ohtani took a line drive off his right leg, the reigning National League MVP said he had dodged serious injury when the ball missed his knee and struck him in the thigh.
“I think we avoided the worst-case scenario,” he said through an interpreter. “So I’m going to focus on the treatment.”
“It was in the thigh, fortunately, and not off the knee,” added manager Dave Roberts. “But it got him square.
“We’ll see how it comes out. But I’m hopeful, confident.”
Bryce Teodosio doubled off reliever Graham Ashcraft (7-5) to open the eighth and took third on a wild pitch. Oswald Peraza grounded out, with Teodosio holding, and Rengifo fisted an RBI single over third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes’ head for the lead.
Reid Detmers (4-3) struck out two in a scoreless eighth for the victory. With Angels closer Kenley Jansen unavailable because of a left rib-cage injury, Luis Garcia retired the side in order in the ninth for his first save.
From Ira Gorawara: It was a night when defenders draped over Kelsey Plum, her path to the rim often crowded. And when she turned to the officials for relief, the whistles were elusive.
But when it mattered most — that being with 3.3 seconds to play and the Sparks trailing by one — Plum lowered her shoulder and slipped between swiping arms and lunging bodies.
One defender stumbled, another bit on a fake and Plum glided almost untouched into the lane, kissing a floater off the glass as the horn sounded in an 81-80 Sparks escape.
“Just a heck of a finish by her,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said.
Plum’s teammates mobbed her, embracing the veteran who appeared unsatisfied during her seven minutes on the bench and frustrated after Dallas defenders batted away her attempts at the rim. All of it faded, though, once she poured in 10 fourth-quarter points en route to 20 on the night.
“I feel like that’s what basketball is all about — putting on a show for [fans],” the Sparks’ Rickea Jackson said. “Both teams truly did that and everyone enjoyed themselves and got their money’s worth tonight.”
From Patrick J. McDonnell and Jad El Reda: Julio César Chávez Jr., whose high-profile boxing career was marred by substance abuse and other struggles and never approached the heights of his legendary father, was in Mexican custody Tuesday after being deported from the United States.
His expulsion had been expected since July, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him outside his Studio City home and accused him of making “fraudulent statements” on his application to become a U.S. permanent resident.
In Mexico, Chávez, 39, faces charges of organized crime affiliation and arms trafficking, Mexican authorities say.
1901 — William Larned wins the first of seven men’s singles titles in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championship.
1914 — Walter Hagen captures the U.S. Open golf title by edging Chick Evans.
1920 — Jock Hutchinson wins the PGA golf tournament with a 1-up victory over J. Douglass Edgar.
1932 — Helen Hull Jacobs beats Carolyn Babcock to win the women’s singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association.
1982 — Mystic Park becomes the first 3-year-old trotter to win the American Trotting Championship.
1985 — Mary Decker sets the world record in the mile run with a time of 4:16.71 in Zurich.
2003 — Paul Hamm puts together a near-perfect routine on the high bar to become the first American man to win the all-around gold medal at World Gymnastics Championships. Needing a 9.712 or better to beat China’s Yang Wei, Hamm strings together four straight release moves during his 60-second routine — one of the toughest feats in gymnastics — for a 9.975 and the gold.
2004 — American super-swimmer Michael Phelps wins his 6th gold medal of the Athens Olympics even though he doesn’t swim the final of men’s 4 x 100m medley relay; US wins in world record 3:30.68.
2008 — At the Summer Olympics in Beijing, Yukiko Ueno pitches 28 innings in two days, including seven to shut down the U.S. softball team, 3-1, and give Japan the gold medal. It was the first loss for the Americans since Sept. 21, 2000 — 22 straight games. LaShawn Merritt upsets defending champion Jeremy Wariner to lead a U.S. sweep of the 400 meters track event. David Neville gets the bronze. The U.S. men and women both drop the baton in the Olympic 400-meter relays and fail to advance out of the first round. Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown easily wins the 200 meters to cap the first sweep of all four men’s and women’s Olympic sprints in 20 years.
2010 — Kyle Busch makes NASCAR history with an unprecedented sweep of three national races in one week, completing the trifecta with a victory in the Sprint Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Busch, winner of the Nationwide race a day earlier and the Trucks race on Aug. 18, becomes the first driver to complete the sweep since NASCAR expanded to three national series in 1995.
2011 — The Sparks run off 16 straight points to overcome a 15-point, second-half deficit and hand the Tulsa Shock their WNBA-record 18th consecutive loss with a 73-67 victory. The Atlanta Dream lost 17 in a row in their inaugural season of 2008.
2016 — Kevin Durant scores 30 points and helps the Americans rout Serbia 96-66 for their third straight gold medal. That caps an Olympics in which the U.S. dominated the medal tables, both the gold (46) and overall totals (121). The 51-total-medal margin over second-place China the largest in a non-boycotted Olympics in nearly a century.
2018 — Liu Xiang of China sets a world record time of 26.98 seconds to win the women’s 50-meter backstroke gold medal at the Asian Games. Liu becomes the first woman to swim under 27 seconds in the event, breaking the mark of 27.06 set by fellow Chinese swimmer Zhao Jing at the 2009 world championships in Rome.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1926 — Ted Lyons of the Chicago White Sox pitched a no-hitter over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The 6-0 victory was achieved in 1 hour, 7 minutes.
1930 — Chick Hafey of the St. Louis Cardinals hit for the cycle and drove in five runs in a 16-6 rout of the Philadelphia Phillies.
1931 — Babe Ruth hit his 600th home run as the Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns 11-7.
1947 — The first Little League World Series was at Williamsport, Pa. The Maynard Midgets of Williamsport won the series.
1972 — Steve Carlton of Philadelphia had his 15-game winning streak snapped when Phil Niekro and the Atlanta Braves beat the Phillies 2-1 in 11 innings.
1975 — Pitching brothers Rick and Paul Reuschel of the Chicago Cubs combined to throw a 7-0 shutout against the Dodgers. Rick went 6 1-3 innings and Paul finished the shutout for the first ever by two brothers.
1982 — Milwaukee pitcher Rollie Fingers became the first player to achieve 300 career saves as the Brewers beat the Seattle Mariners 3-2.
1986 — Spike Owen had four hits and became the first major league player in 40 years to score six runs in a game as the Boston Red Sox routed the Cleveland Indians 24-5 with a 24-hit attack.
2007 — Garret Anderson of the Angels drove in a team-record 10 runs in an 18-9 rout of the New York Yankees. Anderson hit a grand slam, a three-run homer, a two-run double and an RBI double to become the 12th player in major league history to have 10 RBIs in a game.
2007 — Arizona’s Mark Reynolds tied the major league record for consecutive strikeouts by a non-pitcher when he fanned in his ninth straight plate appearance in a 7-4 loss to Milwaukee. Reynolds struck out in his first two at-bats against Dave Bush to match the record. Bush hit Reynolds with a pitch in the sixth, ending the streak.
2011 — Johnny Damon lost a grand slam to a video review in the seventh inning, then hit a game-ending home run in the ninth that lifted the Tampa Bay Rays over the Seattle Mariners 8-7. Damon connected for a leadoff shot in the ninth on the first pitch from Dan Cortes. The Rays trailed 5-4 in the seventh when Damon launched a drive to right-center field. First ruled a home run, the umpires changed the call to a three-run double after a video review.
2015 — Mike Fiers pitched the second no-hitter in the major leagues in nine days, leading the Houston Astros to a 3-0 victory over the Dodgers. Having never thrown a complete game in his five-year career, Fiers was dominant. He struck out 10 and walked three, retiring the final 21 batters. Fiers struck out Justin Turner on his 134th pitch to end it.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Islamabad, Pakistan – With clasped hands and half-smiles, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, China and Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban posed as they gathered in Kabul on Wednesday for a trilateral meeting.
It was the second such meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Pakistan’s Ishaq Dar and their Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi in 12 weeks, after they huddled together in Beijing in May.
That May meeting had led to the resumption of diplomatic ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan after a period of high tension between them. It also set the stage for talks on extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a part of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – into Afghanistan. The BRI is a network of ports, railroads and highways aimed at connecting Asia, Africa and Europe.
But as China plans to expand its footprint in the region, its attempts to forge peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan reflect its unease over the security of its interests even along the existing CPEC, say analysts.
And while Beijing is a vital partner to both Islamabad and Kabul, experts believe its influence over both remains untested, as does China’s willingness to take on the risks that it might confront if it seeks to bring Pakistan and the Taliban, once thick allies but now embittered neighbours, back into a trusted embrace, they say.
The Sixth Trilateral Foreign Ministers Dialogue was held on 20 August 2025 in Kabul between Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister of Pakistan @MIshaqDar50, Foreign Minister of China @MFA_China, and Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan @mfa_afghanistan, focusing on political,… pic.twitter.com/i6n8I2oYgr
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) August 20, 2025
Shifting regional dynamics
The Beijing conclave took place under the shadow of a four-day conflict between Pakistan and India, but much has changed since then on the regional chessboard.
In recent months, Pakistan – long seen as China’s closest ally and reliant on its northeastern neighbour for military and economic support – has strengthened ties with the United States, Beijing’s main global rival.
China, for its part, has resumed engagement with India, Pakistan’s arch adversary and its key competitor for regional influence. India has also continued to deepen ties with the Afghan Taliban, who have ruled Afghanistan since August 2021, following the withdrawal of US forces.
Pakistan and Afghanistan, meanwhile, remain at odds. Islamabad was once the Taliban’s chief patron. Now, it accuses the group of providing a safe haven to groups carrying out cross-border violence, while Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of human rights violations by expelling Afghan refugees.
Amid this, China has positioned itself as mediator, a role driven largely by the CPEC, the $62bn infrastructure project running from the Pakistan-China border in the north to Gwadar Port in Balochistan.
A senior Pakistani diplomat with direct knowledge of the recent Pakistani interactions with their Chinese and Afghan counterparts said China, as a common neighbour, places a premium on neighbourhood diplomacy. For China, he added, a peaceful neighbourhood is essential.
“China has attached high importance to stability and security to pursue and expand its larger BRI project, so expansion of westward connectivity and development can only succeed when, among others, these two countries are stabilised,” the official told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.
“Development and connectivity cannot be achieved in the absence of security. Hence its efforts to bring the two neighbours together,” he added.
CPEC under strain
CPEC, launched in 2015 under then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, elder brother of current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has been hailed by many in Pakistan as a “game-changer” for the country – a giant investment with the potential to create jobs and build the economy.
But the project has slowed down in recent years. Later this month, Prime Minister Sharif is expected to travel to China to formally launch the second phase of the CPEC.
While political upheaval has hampered progress, China’s primary concerns remain the safety of infrastructure and the security of its nationals, who have frequently been targeted.
Separatist groups in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but poorest province, have long attacked Chinese personnel and installations, accusing them of exploiting local resources. Attacks on Chinese citizens have also occurred in Pakistan’s north.
Nearly 20,000 Chinese nationals currently live in Pakistan, according to government figures. Since 2021, at least 20 have been killed in attacks across the country.
Stella Hong Zhang, assistant professor at Indiana University Bloomington in the US, said China has long wanted to bring Afghanistan into the CPEC, to expand the project’s scope and to promote regional integration.
But Zhang, whose research focuses on China’s global development engagement, said it is unclear how convinced Beijing is about investing in either Afghanistan or Pakistan.
The trilateral meeting in Kabul was the sixth iteration of the forum, with the last formal meeting having taken place in May 2023 [Handout/Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs]
“China might promise investments, but even though we are seeing actions on China’s diplomacy front,” she told Al Jazeera, it is uncertain whether officials in the two nations “will be able to convince China’s state-owned enterprises and banks to invest in further projects in both countries, given CPEC’s disappointing track record and the substantial risks in both countries”.
For Muhammad Faisal, a South Asia security researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, improvement in Pakistan’s internal security is paramount for China.
“This concern is what guides Beijing’s push for improvement in Pak-Afghan bilateral ties since the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is operating from the Afghan soil, while Baloch militant groups have also found space in Afghanistan,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Through high-level trilateral talks, Beijing is aiming to narrow Islamabad-Kabul differences and also urge both sides to address each other’s security concerns to avert a breakdown of ties,” he added.
Pakistan Taliban, also known as TTP, founded in 2007, is a group which is ideologically aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan but operates independently both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Taliban has repeatedly rejected allegations that it allows its soil to be used for attacks against Pakistan and has consistently denied any ties with the TTP.
Security challenges
Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, Pakistan has faced a sharp rise in violence, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, both bordering Afghanistan.
Islamabad has repeatedly alleged that Afghan soil is being used by armed groups, especially the TTP, to launch attacks across the porous frontier.
Data from the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) shows that in the first six months of 2025, 502 fighter attacks killed 737 people, including 284 security personnel and 267 civilians.
Compared with the first half of 2024, fighter attacks rose 5 percent, deaths surged 121 percent, and injuries increased 84 percent, according to PICSS.
China, too, has also voiced concern over the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), accusing its fighters of using Afghan territory to launch attacks against China.
Abdul Basit, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said that since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, China has emerged as South Asia’s main geopolitical player.
“Without addressing Pakistan’s Afghan-centric security concerns, BRI’s Pakistan component, CPEC, will remain underutilised and underdeveloped. Hence, China has started the trilateral to help Afghanistan and Pakistan resolve their security issues under a holistic policy which tries to isolate economy and diplomacy from security trouble,” he told Al Jazeera.
Faisal, of the University of Technology Sydney, added that China brings political weight, offering both diplomatic backing at multilateral organisations – particularly on counterterrorism – and the promise of economic inducements.
But he was cautious about Beijing’s long-term leverage. “Beyond underlining the importance of stability via enhanced security coordination between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the outcomes of China’s efforts have been limited, partially due to Beijing’s own security anxieties,” he said.
The senior Pakistani diplomat said China’s BRI and related projects have brought it leverage in Southeast Asia and Central Asia, and expressed optimism that Beijing could bring about change between Pakistan and Afghanistan “armed with the political, diplomatic, economic and financial tools”, even if results have so far been limited.
But will China act as mediator and guarantor between Pakistan and Afghanistan? The diplomat was sceptical.
“As for guarantorship, I’m not sure whether China is willing or keen to do so. It certainly can play that role because of a high degree of trust it enjoys, but whether it would do so or not remains to be seen,” he said.
State media reports Chinese leader’s arrival in Tibet was greeted with people waving bouquets of flowers and dancing ‘to joyful rhythms’.
China’s President Xi Jinping has made a rare visit to Tibet to mark the 60th anniversary of the consolidation of Chinese rule over the long-contested Himalayan territory, state news reports.
The state-run Xinhua News Agency said that Xi arrived in Tibet’s regional capital, Lhasa, on Wednesday, where he was met by about 20,000 officials and local people from “all ethnic groups and all walks of life”.
In Lhasa, Xi urged the building of a “modern socialist” Tibet “that is united, prosperous, civilised, harmonious and beautiful”, Xinhua reported.
State broadcaster CCTV said Xi emphasised the need to “guide Tibetan Buddhism in adapting itself to socialist society”.
China claims Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, but many Tibetans say they were essentially independent for most of that time under their own Buddhist theocracy.
On the morning of Thursday, a grand rally was held in Lhasa to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the #Xizang Autonomous Region. The celebration featured a large-scale parade with 26 marching contingents and floats proceeding in turn to festive music. The first… pic.twitter.com/qi2yNt09Wv
Communist forces occupied Tibet in 1951, and in 1965, Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s single-party dictatorship established the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Decades of political repression followed, and in more recent years, large-scale migration of majority Han Chinese to the high-altitude region has occurred.
Tibet is largely closed to journalists and foreigners.
China also insists on the right to appoint a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s highest-ranking spiritual leader, who recently turned 90 and lives in self-imposed exile in neighbouring India after fleeing Chinese rule in 1959.
Xi’s arrival in Tibet coincided with another rare trip this week by China’s foreign minister Wang Yi to India, where both Beijing and New Delhi pledged to rebuild ties damaged by a deadly 2020 border clash involving troops from both countries.
Tibet is a highly strategic region for China due to its border with India, though Beijing’s latest mega hydropower project in the Tibetan plateau has also unsettled India downstream.
Xi has said the project must be “vigorously” pursued as part of China’s carbon reduction goals while protecting Asia’s “water tower”.
India and China have agreed to step up trade flows and resume direct flights in a major diplomatic breakthrough, as the two most populous nations try to rebuild ties damaged by a 2020 deadly border clash and amid US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable foreign policy.
The two rivals also agreed to advance talks on their disputed border during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s two-day visit to India.
The rebuilding of India-China ties coincides with friction between New Delhi and Washington, following the recent imposition of steep tariffs on India by the Trump administration.
So why did India and China decide to mend their ties, and what steps were taken to address their border dispute?
What specific points were agreed?
Discussions covered a range of issues related to withdrawing tens of thousands of troops that both countries have amassed along their Himalayan border, boosting investment and trade flows, hosting more bilateral events, and enhancing travel access.
The Asian neighbours agreed to reopen several trading routes – namely the Lipulekh Pass, Shipki La Pass and Nathu La Pass. An expert group will also be established to explore “early harvest” steps (i.e. mini-agreements that can be implemented quickly before the conclusion of a more complex deal) to improve border management, a move India had previously opposed.
In the past, India was keen to avoid a situation where China secured partial gains up front, but where its territorial integrity concerns remained unresolved. India’s opposition has accused the government of ceding territory to China.
Elsewhere, China has reportedly agreed to address India’s concerns over its export curbs on fertilisers, rare earth minerals and tunnel-boring machines, according to Indian media reports.
But Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning, when asked about Indian media reports on the lifting of export controls, said she was not familiar with the media reports.
“As a matter of principle, China is willing to strengthen dialogue and cooperation with relevant countries and regions to jointly maintain the stability of the global production and supply chain,” she said in a media briefing on Wednesday.
New Delhi and Beijing also agreed to resume direct flights between the two countries, enhance river-sharing data and drop certain visa restrictions for tourists, businesses and journalists.
US President Donald Trump meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 13, 2025. [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
Who said what?
During his two-day trip, Wang Yi held meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, encounters that will pave the way for Modi’s first visit to China in seven years at the end of August.
“Stable, predictable, constructive ties between India and China will contribute significantly to regional as well as global peace and prosperity,” Modi posted on X after his meeting with Wang.
Meanwhile, Doval said that China and India had achieved a “new environment” of “peace and tranquillity”. He added that “the setbacks that we faced in the last few years were not in our interest”, and “delimitation and boundary affairs” had been discussed.
A readout from China’s Foreign Ministry said Wang told Doval that “the stable and healthy development of China-India relations is in the fundamental interests of the two countries’ people”.
The two sides “should enhance mutual trust through dialogues and expand cooperation”, Wang said, and should aim for consensus in areas such as border control and demarcation negotiations.
Looking ahead, Modi is scheduled to travel to China at the end of this month to take part in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – his first visit to the country since June 2018.
Why did relations sour in the first place?
Relations between the two countries plummeted in 2020 after security forces clashed along their Himalayan border. Four Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the worst violence in decades, freezing high-level diplomatic relations.
The chill in relations after the deadly Ladakh clash – the first fatal confrontation between India and China since 1975 – also affected trade and air travel, as both sides deployed tens of thousands of security forces in border areas.
Following the border tensions, India imposed curbs on Chinese investments in the country. Months later, New Delhi banned dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, citing security concerns.
But despite the soaring tensions, the bilateral trade between the two countries did not see a drastic drop, and in fact, New Delhi’s imports from Beijing have grown to more than $100bn from $65nb in the financial year 2020-2021 as the country’s electronics and pharma industries heavily rely on raw materials from China.
On Monday, Wang said, “The setbacks we experienced in the past few years were not in the interest of the people of our two countries. We are heartened to see the stability that is now restored on the borders.”
For his part, Modi emphasised the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border and reiterated India’s commitment to a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question”, his office said in a statement on Tuesday.
Ties between India and China have improved since Indian Prime Minister Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia in October 2024. [File: China Daily via Reuters]
Why did the two sides decide to mend ties?
The geopolitical disruption caused by Donald Trump’s trade wars has helped create an opening for Asia’s leading and third-largest economies to try to mend their diplomatic and economic relations.
Indeed, the improvement in ties has accelerated since Trump increased tariffs on both countries earlier this year – particularly India, which had been pursuing a closer relationship with the United States in a joint front against China.
Moreover, India and the US have been haggling over free trade agreements for months, with Trump accusing India of denying access to American goods due to higher tariffs. China has also been locked in months-long trade negotiations with the US.
China and India increased official visits and discussed relaxing some trade restrictions and easing the movement of citizens since Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia last October. In June, Beijing even allowed pilgrims from India to visit holy sites in Tibet while India issued tourist visas to Chinese nationals in a sign of improving ties.
But Trump’s decision to declare a 25 percent “reciprocal” tariff on India in June over the country’s imports of Russian oil – and his move a week later to raise it again to 50 percent – have hastened dramatic diplomatic realignment. Even the US’s close allies – South Korea and Japan – have not been spared by Trump’s tariffs.
Top Trump officials have accused India of funding Russia’s war in Ukraine, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday accusing India of “profiteering”.
But China’s imports of Russian oil are even larger than India’s. And on August 12, the US extended a tariff truce on Beijing for another 90 days – staving off triple-digit tariffs. In turn, New Delhi has accused Washington of double standards over its tariff policy.
Suhasini Haidar, an Indian journalist writing in the newspaper The Hindu, said that the rationale behind the US sanctions on India is “dubious”. “The US has itself increased its trade with Russia since Trump came to power,” she wrote.
US Treasury Secretary Bessent, however, has defended Washington’s decision not to impose secondary sanctions against China, saying Beijing “has a diversified input of their oil”. Beijing’s import of Russian oil, he said, went from 13 percent to 16 percent while India’s went from less than one percent to over 40 percent.
Trump’s claim that he secured a ceasefire between India and Pakistan has further caused anger in India, which has refused to give credit to the US president for the May 10 ceasefire that stopped the five-day war between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Trump’s hosting of the Pakistan Army’s General Asim Munir has not helped the cause, either.
US-India relations have frayed despite Modi cultivating personal ties with Trump, particularly during his first term. The Indian prime minister was Trump’s first guest in his second term in February, when he coined the slogan “Make India Great Again” (MIGA), borrowing from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base. “MAGA plus MIGA becomes a mega partnership for prosperity,” Modi said.
The US has slapped 50 percent tariff on India over New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil. But many are asking why China – the biggest buyer of Moscow’s crude – spared [File: AFP]
But Trump’s repeated attacks on India have poured cold water on “the partnership”, with Indian foreign policy experts fearing the ties are headed towards uncharted territory.
“At risk is three decades of India’s economic ascent, and its careful positioning as an emerging power, shaped in the shadow of US strategic backing,” wrote Sushant Singh, a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University, in the Financial Times. “Trump has shredded India’s road map; it could be replaced by strategic drift, realignment or eventual rapprochement.”
The turbulence in India-US ties has forced New Delhi to repair ties with its adversary China, which supplies military equipment to Pakistan and took the side of Islamabad during the recent war.
Amid Trump’s trade war, New Delhi and Beijing have joined forces to improve trade and people-to-people contact.
The new developments may also boost relations between members of the BRICS bloc – with India and China being the group’s founding members, along with Brazil, Russia and South Africa. India and China will host the 2026 and 2027 BRICS summits, respectively. Trump has also railed against BRICS nations, warning the member nations against challenging the US dollar.
Shares in Pop Mart soared over 12.5% in daily trading in Hong Kong on Wednesday after the Chinese company released stellar earnings.
The creator of the Labubu doll saw its revenue jump 204% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, coming in at 13.88 billion yuan (€1.66bn). Net profit soared 386% to 4.68bn yuan (€559.39 million), beating forecasts.
Around 40% of sales were made up by purchases outside of mainland China thanks to the international appeal of the firm’s Labubu brand, part of its “The Monsters” range.
“The Monsters” brought in 4.81bn yuan (€574.99mn) in the first half of the year, accounting for 34.7% of total revenue.
The elf-like dolls have become a viral sensation, boosted by the endorsement of celebrities like Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian and David Beckham.
Part of the attraction is that the toys are sold in blind-box packaging. This means that customers don’t know what they have purchased until they open the product.
Although the firm was created back in 2010, Pop Mart launched its first blind-box series in 2016. The popularity of the range allowed the company to list in Hong Kong in December 2020, achieving a market capitalisation of around €6bn. Since the IPO, shares have risen by over 300%.
Pop Mart opened its first European store in London in January 2022, hoping to expand in overseas markets. Today, the company operates around 2,600 vending machines and almost 600 stores across the globe, meaning Labubu dolls can be bought in more than 30 countries.
Given the demand for dolls, Pop Mart is now considering expansion in the Middle East, Central Europe, and Central and South America. The firm operates around 40 stores in the US, with 10 more sites expected to open by the end of 2025.
In an earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Wang Ning also said that Pop Mart would this week launch a new, mini version of Labubu that can be attached to phones.
Wang added that his firm was on track to meet its 2025 revenue goal of 20bn yuan (€2.39bn), noting that “30bn this year should also be quite easy”.
Some analysts have nonetheless raised doubts over the sustainability of the company’s rise, driven by social media sites like TikTok.
“The craze for the elf-like Labubu dolls is translating into big profit and cash flow,” said AJ Bell head of financial analysis, Danni Hewson. ““Consumers can be capricious when it comes to this type of fad though and Pop Mart will have to work hard to build on this success if it is to avoid being a one-hit wonder.”
United States President Donald Trump has threatened to slap new sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions on countries that buy Moscow’s crude in efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
While Trump imposed an additional 25 percent tariff earlier this month – to a total of 50 percent – on India’s goods, citing its continued imports of Russian oil, he has not instigated similar punitive actions against China, the largest buyer of Russian energy.
So, why has the Trump administration mounted pressure on India to stop purchasing Russian oil while taking little action against China?
Who is buying Russia oil, and how does Trump want to prevent that?
As the largest purchaser of Russian oil, China imported a record 109 million tonnes of this product last year, representing nearly 20 percent of its total energy imports, Chinese customs data showed.
India, by contrast, imported 88 million tonnes of Russian oil in 2024.
As such, China has arguably been Russia’s key economic lifeline, leading to accusations that Beijing is indirectly helping Moscow in its war on Ukraine, now in its fourth year.
It is understood that lawmakers from both main US political parties are pushing for a bill – the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 – that would target any country that buys Russian oil and natural gas.
The bill would give Trump the authority to impose 500 percent tariffs against nations that are perceived to be helping Russia. US senators are reportedly waiting on Trump’s OK to move the bill forward.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) speaks with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) during a visit to the Zvezda shipyard, accompanied by Rosneft Russian oil giant chief Igor Sechin (C) [File: Alexander Nemenov/Pool via AFP]
What reasons has Trump cited for not imposing new tariffs on China?
Asked by Fox News on August 15 if he was considering secondary sanctions on Beijing after he and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to agree on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire in Alaska last week, Trump said, “Well, because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that.”
“Now, I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don’t have to think about that right now,” he said.
Observers suspect Trump is buying time to allow negotiations on a broad trade deal that would include rare earth minerals.
Rare earths are a group of 17 elements essential to numerous manufacturing industries, from auto parts to clean energy and military technology. China has long dominated the mining and processing of rare earth minerals.
Because numerous US industries are heavily reliant on Chinese minerals, they remain a central issue in ongoing trade talks.
Trump has other reasons for giving China an easier ride than India. In particular, he’s keen to avoid a tariff spike just as US retailers stock up on inventories of Chinese goods ahead of December’s Christmas holiday season.
For his part, Trump has taken steps to reduce trade flashpoints in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the US eased some of its export restrictions on advanced semiconductors – a key demand from China.
On August 11, Trump permitted US company Nvidia to sell advanced chips to China – even if the tech giant would have to pay 15 percent of its China sales to the federal government. Trump had previously barred the deal.
Speaking to CNBC news on Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended Washington’s decision not to impose secondary sanctions against China saying, Beijing purchased 13 percent of Russian oil before the Ukraine war, which has now increased to 16 percent. “So China has a diversified input of their oil,” he said.
He added that China had not engaged in the kind of “arbitrage” done by India.
But Bessent accused India of “profiteering”. He pointed out that before the Ukraine war, India’s import of Russian oil was less than 1 percent. But “now, I believe, it’s up to 42 percent,” he said. “This is what I would call the Indian arbitrage – buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product,” he told CNBC.
“They’ve made $16bn in excess profits – some of the richest families in India.”
On Monday, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro became the second senior Trump administration official to accuse India of financing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Earlier this month, Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff at the White House, said that New Delhi’s purchase of Russia crude was “not acceptable”.
What have other officials said?
On August 12, US Vice President JD Vance declined to say whether Trump would move against Beijing as he did with New Delhi the previous week, when Washington announced an extra 25 percent tariff on India’s imports over its continued purchase of Russian oil.
“The president said he’s thinking about it, but he hasn’t made any firm decisions … the China issue’s a little bit more complicated because our relationship with China, it just, it affects a lot of other things that have nothing to do with the Russian situation,” Vance said.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that energy prices could rise if the US imposes secondary sanctions on China for refining Russian oil.
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Rubio said, “If you put secondary sanctions on a country – let’s say you were to go after the oil sales of Russian oil to China. Well, China just refines that oil. That oil is then sold into the global marketplace, and anyone who’s buying that oil would be paying more for it.”
Meanwhile, Beijing’s embassy in Washington said China’s trade with Russia falls within the scope of international law.
“The international community, including China, has conducted normal cooperation with Russia within the framework of international law,” said Liu Pengyu, the embassy’s spokesman, on July 6.
How would heightened tariffs impact the US and Chinese economies?
A ceasefire deal in Ukraine, with the resulting reduction of sanctions on Russia, would bring greater stability to the international system and a boon for China’s economy, not least after the last subdued economic data in July.
Last month, China’s economy slowed as factory activity, investment and retail sales fell from June, suggesting that spillovers from Trump’s tariffs are casting a pall over the world’s number-two economy.
Elsewhere, China’s youth unemployment rate rose to its highest level in 11 months in July, as the urban jobless rate for the 16-24 age group, excluding students, rose to 17.8 percent – up from 14.5 percent in June.
Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that “Cracks are starting to show [in the Chinese economy] and the overall picture is not great.”
Still, she said that “Chinese banks and firms have been preparing for the possibility of secondary sanctions for a long time already. They already started worrying about this under the [Joe] Biden administration.”
In recent years, Beijing has stepped up its efforts to diversify trade routes and build greater numbers of strategic products at home, making China’s economy “harder to strangle through elevated or secondary sanctions”, said Garcia Herrero.
“Clearly,” she said, “given the high level of goods imports from China to the US, higher tariffs would also raise inflation for American consumers.”
On August 12, the US and China extended a pre-existing tariff pause – and avoided an all-out trade war – for 90 days. With the extension, the imposition of higher US tariffs on China was suspended until November 10, with all other elements of the truce remaining in place.
The two sides agreed to their first tariff pause on May 11.
In April, China was slapped with a tariff of 145 percent while Beijing slapped a reciprocal tariff of 125 percent on the US – rates that amounted to a virtual trade embargo between the countries.
High tariffs prompted the US trade deficit with China to fall to its narrowest level since 2004 in June, according to US Census Bureau data. The US trade gap with China fell by $22.2bn from March to August. That amounts to a 70 percent drop from one year earlier.
But the tariff truce agreed to in May in Geneva, Switzerland, lowered the temperature by temporarily slashing US tariffs on Chinese imports to 30 percent, while Chinese levies on US exports fell to 10 percent. Beijing also agreed to resume some rare earth exports.
“I think there will be a [trade] deal of some sort soon,” Garcia Herrero said. “Nothing dramatic, as the levels of trust on both sides are low. But the US and China both need some positive news, or they face hitting economic walls.”
The new account comes as Trump has three times delayed implementing a ‘sell or ban’ law for the Chinese-owned app.
The White House has launched an official TikTok account, even as the future of the Chinese-owned social media app in the United States remains uncertain due to legislation passed by the US Congress last year.
The official White House account’s first post on Tuesday was a 27-second video featuring a voiceover from President Donald Trump, saying: “Every day I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the People all across this nation. I am your voice.”
The account’s description read: “Welcome to the Golden Age of America”.
TikTok, which remains owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, is popular among young people, and has an estimated 170 million users in the US.
Trump has so far delayed the implementation of a 2024 law that ordered TikTok to either to sell to non-Chinese buyers or be banned in the US, with three 90-day extensions.
The US House of Representatives voted 352 to 65 in favour of the “sell or ban” bill in March 2024, with widespread support from both Republicans and Democrats.
The latest extension delaying the ban is due to expire in early September.
“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump posted on the Truth Social network, which he owns, in April.
Few representatives questioned the bill to ban TikTok at the time it was passed, although then-Democratic representative Barbara Lee asked why only one company was being singled out in an attempt to address problems that relate to social media companies more broadly.
“Rather than target one company in a rushed and secretive process, Congress should pass comprehensive data privacy protections and do a better job of informing the public of the threats these companies may pose to national security,” Lee had posted on the social media platform X.
Although the vast majority of both Democratic and Republican representatives supported the “sell or ban” bill, many members of both parties have used the TikTok platform for campaigning and official communications.
Both Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Trump used the app to campaign in the 2024 Presidential election.
On Tuesday, the US state of Minnesota joined a wave of states suing TikTok, alleging the social media giant preys on young people with addictive algorithms that trap them into becoming compulsive consumers of its short videos.
Minnesota is also among dozens of US states that have sued Meta Platforms for allegedly building features into Instagram and Facebook that addict people. The messaging service Snapchat and the gaming platform Roblox are also facing lawsuits by some other states alleging harm to children.
United States President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 300 percent on semiconductor imports, with exemptions for foreign companies that commit to manufacturing in the US.
Trump has cast the proposed tariff as a way to drive investment to the US, but experts say it could also disrupt global supply chains and even penalise companies already making chips in the US.
What are the details of Trump’s plan?
Few details have been released since Trump announced plans for a 100 percent tariff at a White House event on August 7.
The US president said exemptions would be given to companies that build research or manufacturing facilities in the US, but tariffs could be applied retroactively if they failed to follow through on their planned investments.
“If, for some reason, you say you’re building, and you don’t build, then we go back, and we add it up, it accumulates, and we charge you at a later date, you have to pay, and that’s a guarantee,” Trump told reporters.
On Friday, Trump told reporters on board Air Force One that more details would be announced soon and that the tariff could be much higher than previously suggested.
“I’ll be setting tariffs next week and the week after, on steel and on, I would say chips – chips and semiconductors, we’ll be setting sometime next week, week after,” Trump said en route to Alaska to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I’m going to have a rate that is going to be 200 percent, 300 percent,” he added.
Why does Trump want to impose tariffs on chip imports?
Trump wants to impose a tariff on chips for several reasons, but the main one is to re-shore investment and manufacturing to the US, said G Dan Hutcheson, the vice chair of Canada’s TechInsights.
“The primary goal is to reverse the cost disadvantage of manufacturing in the US and turn it into an advantage. It’s mainly focused on companies that are not investing in the US,” Hutcheson told Al Jazeera.
“Exclusions are negotiable for entities that align with his goal of bringing manufacturing back to the US.”
More broadly, the tariff is also intended to address the US dependence on imported semiconductors and buttress Washington’s position in its ongoing rivalry with China, another chip-making powerhouse.
Both issues are bipartisan concerns in the US.
The Trump administration earlier this year launched a Section 301 investigation into alleged unfair trade practices in China’s semiconductor industry, and a Section 232 investigation into the national security implications of US reliance on chip imports and finished products that use foreign chips.
Who will be impacted by the tariff?
Foreign tech giants that have already invested in the US, including the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and South Korea’s Samsung, would likely not be affected by the tariff.
It is less clear how the measure could affect other companies, including chip makers in China, where companies face barriers to US investment from both US and Chinese regulators.
Yongwook Ryu, an assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, said the tariff could be used as leverage by the US as it negotiates the rate of its so-called “reciprocal tariffs” on China.
The US has imposed blanket tariffs of 10-40 percent on most trade partners since August 7, but negotiators are still hammering out a comprehensive trade deal with Beijing.
“My view is that while the reciprocal tariffs are generally aimed more at addressing the US trade deficit problem and re-shoring manufacturing back to the US, product-specific or sectoral tariffs [like semiconductors] are aimed at serving the strategic goal of strengthening US technological hegemony and containing China,” Ryu told Al Jazeera.
What is the value of US chip imports each year?
The US imported about $40bn in chips in 2024, according to a report by the American Enterprise Institute, citing United Nations trade data.
Imports mainly came from Taiwan, Malaysia, Israel, South Korea, Ireland, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Mexico and China, but experts say this data does not capture the full picture of chip flows in and out of the US.
Chips can cross borders multiple times as they are manufactured, packaged, or added to finished goods.
Chris Miller, the author of Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology, estimates that another $50bn worth of chips entered the US in 2024 via products like smartphones, auto parts and home appliances from countries like China and Vietnam.
Miller also estimates that a “substantial portion” of US chip imports are manufactured in the US before being sent overseas for packaging – a labour-intensive process – and then re-imported.
“Many of the chips imported from key trading partners like Mexico, Malaysia and Costa Rica are likely actually manufactured by US firms like Texas Instruments and Intel, which have manufacturing in the US but often have their test and assembly facilities abroad,” Miller told Al Jazeera.
Why is the tariff a concern for the global chip industry?
Trump’s tariff plans have injected further uncertainty into an industry already grappling with his administration’s sweeping efforts to reorder global trade.
“It’s unclear whether the US government has the capacity to effectively enforce this and… there’s not really any guidance in terms of what these tariffs are actually going to look like,” Nick Marro, the lead analyst for global trade at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told Al Jazeera.
The White House has yet to provide details on whether the tariff will apply to chips originally made in the US and chips contained in finished products.
If the latter were included in the tariff plans, the fallout would extend to industries like electronics, home appliances, automobiles and auto parts.
Miller said that it would be consumers in the US and elsewhere who would be among those most affected by the tariff.
“Initially, it appears that most costs would be paid by companies via lower profit margins, though in the long run, consumers will pay the majority of the cost,” he said.
Chinese military to showcase advanced fighter planes, missile systems on 80th anniversary of end of World War II.
China will stage a massive military parade next month in the heart of Beijing to commemorate 80 years since the end of World War II, and to showcase new Chinese weaponry that will be “displayed to the outside world for the first time”, state media report.
Hundreds of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including fighter jets and bombers as well as ground forces with the latest military equipment, will be featured in the parade, Chinese military officials said at a news conference on Wednesday.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said the military parade and “joint armament formations… will be organised in a manner reflecting their functions in real combat”, and will include air, land and sea combat groups.
“The military parade will feature new fourth-generation equipment as the core, including advanced tanks, carrier-based aircraft and fighter jets, organised into operational modules to demonstrate Chinese military’s system-based combat capability,” China’s state-affiliated Global Times media outlet reported.
“All the weaponry and equipment on display in this military parade are domestically produced active-duty main battle equipment. This event showcases a concentrated display of the new generation of weaponry and equipment of the Chinese military,” the Global Times added.
Military vehicles carrying Wing Loong, a Chinese-made medium altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, travel past Tiananmen Gate during a military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on September 3, 2015 [Andy Wong/pool/Reuters]
The September 3 event will be the second parade since 2015 to mark the formal surrender of Japanese forces in 1945.
Foreign military attaches and security analysts told the Reuters news agency that they were expecting China’s military to display a host of new weaponry and equipment at the parade, including military trucks fitted with devices to take out drones, new tanks and early warning aircraft to protect China’s aircraft carriers.
The United States and its allies will be closely watching the display of military might, particularly for China’s expanding arsenal of missiles, especially antiship missile systems and weapons with hypersonic capabilities.
The “Victory Day” parade, involving 45 contingents of troops, will take about 70 minutes to file past President President Xi Jinping in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The Chinese leader will be accompanied by a number of invited foreign leaders and dignitaries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also attended the last anniversary parade in 2015.
Chinese authorities have stepped up security in downtown Beijing since early August, when the first large-scale parade rehearsal was held, setting up checkpoints, diverting road traffic and shutting shopping malls and office buildings.
Hundreds of humanoid robots showed of their skills at the first World Humanoid Games in Beijing. The spectacle drew laughs from the crowd, but participants say the technology behind it could shape fields from self-driving cars to healthcare.
Hong Kong activist Tony Chung and ex-lawmaker Ted Hui have been granted asylum in the UK and Australia, years after facing charges linked to the 2019 anti-government protests. Both fled amid Beijing’s crackdown under the national security law that criminalised dissent.
