China

TikToks claiming luxury brand goods are manufactured in Chinese factories have gone viral in shoppers’ feeds. This comes after the closure of a major import loophole and 145% tariffs on Chinese goods. What do these videos reveal about American consumer culture and the course of this trade war?

Noting string of fatal incidents, President Xi Jinping calls for stronger safety measures for tourism and public events.

A sudden storm in southwestern China’s Guizhou province has capsized four boats, killing 10 people and injuring 70.

More than 80 people fell into the water, state media reported on Monday, when the rain and hailstorm struck the vessels on a stretch of the Wu River near Qianxi City on Sunday afternoon.

Rescue operations ran overnight. Initial reports said nine people had died, with one person missing. However, rescue personnel discovered the missing person, who “showed no signs of life”, around noon, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

In one video shared by state media, a man could be seen performing CPR on a person, while one of the vessels drifted upside-down.

Initial reports suggested two tourist vessels had capsized. However, CCTV later confirmed that four boats were involved – two of which were not carrying passengers at the time – in the incident, which occurred on the upper reaches of the waterway, which is a tributary of the Yangtze River, China’s longest.

The seven crew members on board the two vessels, carrying no passengers, managed to swim to safety, the broadcaster said.

A witness interviewed by the state-owned Beijing News said some passengers managed to swim to safety after the storm had descended rapidly, and thick mist obscured visibility on the river.

According to CCTV, the boats involved were not overloaded. Each had a maximum capacity of 40 passengers.

Provincial authorities dispatched some 500 emergency personnel to lead the rescue operation.

President Xi Jinping called for “all-out efforts” in the search and rescue operations and treatment of those injured, state news agency Xinhua said.

Xi also “underscored the importance of strengthening safety measures in tourist attractions” and other large public venues, the agency said.

He also noted a string of recent fatal incidents across the country.

The Wu River, which winds through Guizhou’s mountainous interior, is a popular destination for domestic tourists, particularly during holidays.

China’s May Day holiday, from May 1 to May 5, saw a sharp increase in domestic travel. Government data cited by state media showed that many tourist destinations across the country were overwhelmed by crowds.

For years, President Trump has blamed “communists” for his legal and political troubles. Now, the second Trump administration is deploying that same historically loaded label to cast his opponents — from judges to educators — as threats to American identity, culture and values.

Why? Trump explained the strategy last year when he described how he planned to defeat his Democratic opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, in the presidential election.

“All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody who is going to destroy our country,” he told reporters at his New Jersey golf club in August.

Trump did just that — branding Harris as “Comrade Kamala” — and he won in November. Though slightly more than half of voters cast ballots against him, he won the assent of more than 77 million Americans — 49.8% of the vote. And Trump is carrying that strategy into his second term.

Not actually ‘communism’

In 2025, communism wields big influence in countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba. But not the United States.

“The core of communism is the belief that governments can do better than markets in providing goods and services. There are very, very few people in the West who seriously believe that,” said Raymond Robertson of the Texas A&M University Bush School of Government & Public Service. “Unless they are arguing that the government should run U.S. Steel and Tesla, they are simply not communists.”

The word “communist,” however, can carry great emotional power as a rhetorical tool, even now. It’s all the more potent as a pejorative — though frequently inaccurate, even dangerous — amid the contemporary flash of social media and misinformation. After all, the 20th century fear and paranoia of the Russian Revolution, the Red Scare, World War II, McCarthyism and the Cold War are fading into the past.

But Trump — 78 and famous for labeling his opponents, often insultingly — remembers.

“We cannot allow a handful of communist radical-left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws,” Trump said Tuesday in Michigan while marking the first 100 days of his second term. The White House did not reply to a request for what Trump means when he calls someone a “communist.”

The timing of his use of “communist” is worth noting.

Trump’s Michigan speech came during a week of dicey economic and political news. Days earlier, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs published a poll showing that more Americans disagree with Trump’s priorities so far than agree with them, and that many Republicans are ambivalent about his choices of focus. After the speech, the government reported that the economy shrank during the first quarter of 2025 as Trump’s tariffs upend global trade.

On Thursday, senior presidential aide Stephen Miller stepped to the White House lectern and uttered the same c-word four times in about 35 minutes during a denunciation of past policies on transgender, diversity and immigration issues.

“These are a few of the areas in which President Trump has fought the cancerous, communist woke culture that was destroying this country,” Miller told reporters.

His collection of words offered a selection of clickbait for social media users, as well as terms that could catch the attention of older Americans. Voters over age 45 narrowly voted for Trump over his Democratic rivals in 2020 and 2024.

Smack in the middle of Miller’s sentence: “communist.”

“It tends to be a term that is loaded with negative affect, particularly for older Americans who grew up during the Cold War,” said Jacob Neiheisel, a political communications expert at the University at Buffalo. “Appending emotionally-laden terms to political adversaries is a way to minimize their legitimacy in the eyes of the public and paint them in a negative light.”

Red Scare figure influenced a young Trump

The perception that communists could influence or even obliterate the United States hovered over the country for decades and drove some of the country’s ugliest chapters.

The years after World War I and the Russian Revolution in 1917, along with a wave of immigrants, led to what’s known as the Red Scare of 1920, a period of intense paranoia about the potential for a communist-led revolution in America.

McCarthyism after World War II meant the hunt for supposed communists. It’s named for Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin Republican who conducted televised hearings at the dawn of the Cold War that drove anti-communist fears to new heights with a series of threats, innuendos and untruths.

Culturally, the merest suggestion that someone was “soft” on communism could end careers and ruin lives. Blacklists of purported communists proliferated in Hollywood and beyond. McCarthy fell into disgrace and died in 1957.

The senator’s chief counsel during the hearings, Roy Cohn, became Trump’s mentor and fixer in the 1980s and 1990s, when Trump rose as a real estate mogul in New York. The Cold War was more than three decades old. The threat of nuclear war was pervasive.

Communism started to collapse in 1989, and the Soviet Union was dissolved two years later. It’s now Russia, led by President Vladimir Putin — still authoritarian but no longer communist.

But communism — at least in one form — lives on in China, with which Trump is waging a trade war that could result in fewer and costlier products in the United States. By week’s end, Trump was acknowledging the potential consequences of his government stepping in: Americans might soon not be able to buy what they want, or they might be forced to pay more. He insisted China would be hurt more by the tariffs.

The real modern debate, Robertson says, is not between capitalism and communism, but about how much the government needs to step in — and when. He suggests that Trump is not really debating communism versus capitalism anyway.

“Calling people who advocate for slightly more government involvement ‘communists’ is typical misleading political rhetoric that, unfortunately, works really well with busy voters who do not have a lot of time to think about technical definitions and economic paradigms,” he said in an email. “It is also really helpful [to Trump] because it is inflammatory, making people angry, which can be addictive.”

Kellman writes for the Associated Press.

Ken Griffin, one of Republicans’ billionaire donors who’d convinced themselves that President Trump wouldn’t do some things he campaigned to do, finally got it right last week. Griffin inadvertently identified the irony of Trump’s presidency so far: The man who made a brand of his own name (“TRUMP,” all caps) — and a fortune licensing it as a signifier of success on products from hotels to sneakers — has all but wrecked the United States’ brand in 100 days.

“We’re eroding that brand right now,” Griffin lamented at an economic forum. Everything that “USA” has long stood for — financial stability, military strength, cultural prestige and more — undermined. “It can take a very long time,” Griffin warned, “… to remove the tarnish.”

A related sad irony: Trump has rivaled President Franklin Roosevelt, who popularized the “first 100 days” marker, for swift, decisive action out of the gate. But where FDR rescued a crashed economy and envisioned a social safety net that’s endured nearly a century, Trump took what economists considered a “stellar” economy and crashed it, while deputizing minions to tear holes in the safety net and take chainsaws to the federal government and the rule of law.

Lawsuits against the Trump administration proliferate at the rate of two a day, according to trackers, especially over billionaire Elon Musk’s assaults on federal workers and spending laws, and against Trump’s immigration crackdown. The president continues to defy a Supreme Court ruling to “facilitate” the return of a man wrongly deported to El Salvador’s gulag. As J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a federal judge named by President Reagan, wrote for the 4th District Court of Appeals on April 17, “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process.”

Internationally, Trump is wrecking the legacy of Roosevelt’s last days, the global structure of alliances that has been a force-multiplier for the United States against Russia, China and other adversaries. The dollar and U.S. Treasuries are diminished as safe harbors. The toxicity of the Trump-U.S. brand was dramatically evident in elections on Monday in Canada: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party came from way behind to win, as voters took out their disgust with Trump’s Canada-bashing on conservative candidates.

Characteristically, Trump conjures his own self-serving reality. At a MAGA rally in Macomb County, Mich., on Tuesday, he exulted, “This is the best … 100-day start of any president in history, and everyone is saying it.”

No, they’re not. A slew of recent polls show that Trump’s job-approval rating has slid to the lowest of any new president in eight decades, with nearly six out of 10 Americans disapproving of his performance in surveys by Pew Research Center and AP/NORC. On a range of issues, including the two that arguably got him elected, immigration and the economy, Trump now gets negative reviews, including in a Fox News poll.

“We’ve just gotten started,” he said in Michigan. “You haven’t even seen anything yet.”

On that he’s probably right: Worse is yet to come.

Americans seem to think so. On Day 100 came a report that consumer confidence plunged in April, a signal of a recession ahead. On Day 101, Wednesday, came news that the economy contracted 0.3% in the first quarter, after a 2.4% annual growth rate in the previous quarter — the last of the Biden presidency. Stocks tumbled, yet again.

That “golden age” that Trump announced in his inaugural address seems to begin and end with the new bling in the Oval Office.

His tariffs have taken such a toll on businesses and consumers that he softened auto-related levies in time for his Michigan visit. But that only exacerbated the chaos surrounding his “beautiful” tariffs, and the economic uncertainty he’s spawned. And it put the lie to his claims that Americans don’t pay tariffs, China does.

And because consumers pay, Trump had to clean up another 100th-day tariff mess, in aisle Amazon. On Tuesday he phoned CEO Jeff Bezos, another of his billionaire donors, to get the e-commerce giant to drop a plan to show tariff costs on customers’ bills. (They’ll still pay more, they just won’t see the proof.)

Yet 100 days is 99 more than candidate Trump said he’d need to Make America Great Again. He campaigned ad nauseum saying he’d solve this, that or another problem on Day 1. At least 53 times he promised to end Russia’s war on Ukraine before he took office. (He’d spoken “in jest,” Trump told Time magazine last week.)

What he did do before he took office? Admit it would be “very hard” to bring down prices as he’d pledged. (Forget bringing them down: He drove them up with tariffs.)

“There will be a little disturbance, but we’re okay with that,” Trump told a joint session of Congress in March. Oddly, he’s been hailing as his economic model the late 19th century period when “it was all tariffs” and America was “most successful.” In fact, that era saw repeated recessions, depressions and financial panics.

Who’s going to tell him he’s wrong? Trump, in the bubble of sycophancy he’s created in the Cabinet, Congress and among his base, proceeds with few checks. “I run the country and the world,” he boasted to the Atlantic last week.

He’s not wrong, given that he does lead what is still the world’s superpower and — impulsive, unpredictable and vengeful as he is — often forces others to bend his way. He hasn’t totally destroyed America’s brand. But he still has more than 1,300 days to go.

@jackiekcalmes

After being sworn in as second-in-command of the Arcadia City Council, Eileen Wang addressed a controversy that has taken a back seat in the months since the Eaton fire devastated nearby Altadena.

“We broke up the fiance relationship,” Wang said of her former campaign manager, Yaoning “Mike” Sun. “We keep the friendship.”

Wang said their romantic relationship ended last spring, eight months before federal prosecutors charged Sun with conspiracy and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

The April 15 statement from Wang, now mayor pro tem of the San Gabriel Valley city, was one of the few times she has publicly addressed the charges against Sun, who allegedly worked with China to cultivate Wang, in hopes that she would rise in politics and help promote pro-China policies, including opposition to Taiwan.

Facing calls for her resignation, Wang had vowed in January not to step away from the council, emphasizing that she was “not responsible for the action of others.”

Wang did not respond to several calls and emails from The Times. The other four council members also did not respond to emails.

“I have a lot of questions,” said former Councilmember Sheng Chang, who ran against Wang in 2022 and recalled being stunned by the fundraising prowess and plum endorsements of “the new kid on the block.”

Sheng Chang, who lost an Arcadia City Council race to Eileen Wang in 2022, at his office in San Gabriel.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto released a short statement soon after Sun was charged in December, saying Wang was cooperating with the FBI and that Sun “had no involvement whatsoever with City of Arcadia business or decision-making.”

Wang, who immigrated to the U.S. from China three decades ago, was never charged, and it’s unclear whether she was aware of the alleged scheme. In a criminal complaint against Sun, prosecutors identified her only as “Individual 1.”

The complaint provides a rare glimpse into the covert influence the Chinese government allegedly seeks to have on politicians and organizations in the San Gabriel Valley, a landing spot for many Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants.

Campaign records examined by The Times indicate that Sun served as Wang’s campaign manager, lending money and helping bring in donations — some of which came from sources with ties to the Chinese government.

James Su, president of EDI Media in West Covina, donated $500 to Wang’s campaign on Oct. 10, 2022. Su’s media company, which includes several L.A.-based media groups, including the Chinese-language website iCity News, had to register as a foreign agent in May 2022 because it formerly printed the U.S. version of a newspaper considered a “foreign mission” of the Chinese government.

As the November 2022 election neared, iCity News published a slew of glowing articles on Wang, a political novice and owner of an after-school tutoring company.

“Remember! You must vote for Eileen!” concluded an article, one of roughly half a dozen the outlet published that year on Wang, who would receive an endorsement from Su as well as the $500 donation.

There were no stories on Chang, Wang’s opponent, a Taiwanese immigrant who ran a bare-bones campaign with $34,000 he lent himself.

Lina Li, an office manager for EDI who said she was responding on Su’s behalf, wrote in an email that the $500 donation was made from Su’s personal funds because he believed Wang was a “good candidate.” The company has not had to register as a foreign agent since 2022, she said.

The L.A. arm of Sing Tao US, a subsidiary of a Chinese-owned newspaper that is registered as a foreign agent, also donated to Wang’s campaign, giving $3,300 on Aug. 9, 2022, according to campaign finance records.

Wang paid the company the same amount for print ads, according to the records.

The Sing Tao Daily is one of the oldest newspapers in Hong Kong and has long been featured on newsstands in Chinatown and the San Gabriel Valley. Sing Tao US wrote in a government filing it is “editorially independent” from its Chinese parent company.

Robin Mui, chief executive of Sing Tao US, said Wang’s campaign made an error on its campaign finance forms. Sing Tao never contributed to Wang’s campaign and only received payment from it for ads, Mui said.

The “L.A. [branch] never made any political contribution — unless you prove to me otherwise,” Mui said.

The criminal complaint against Sun described extensive interactions between Sun and John Chen, who was sentenced to federal prison last year for acting as an illegal Chinese agent and plotting against Falun Gong, a spiritual practice banned in China.

Chen reportedly described a former L.A. County supervisor, identified only as M.A., as “friendly to China.” Chen’s Chinese handler told him that he would be given funds to “socialize with” the former supervisor in the hopes of getting an introduction to M.A.’s successor, identified as C.B.

Former Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who oversaw a district including parts of the San Gabriel Valley from 1980 to 2016, said he first met Chen at a dinner for a Chinese association and would occasionally run into him at community events. He never felt Chen was pushing a political agenda, he said.

Antonovich said the only time he felt pressure from the Chinese government was before Double Ten Day, a national holiday in Taiwan on Oct. 10. Every year, the Chinese consulate would reach out to each supervisor and ask them not to attend local celebrations, Antonovich said.

Antonovich said he didn’t heed the guidance and spoke at Double Ten celebrations twice.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who succeeded Antonovich, said she has never met with Chen or Sun and has no records of either man reaching out to her office, according to her spokesperson.

Much of the campaign Sun orchestrated for Wang would be considered standard fare for an up-and-coming San Gabriel Valley politician.

Wang, a longtime resident of Arcadia, hired Santa Maria Group, a prominent lobbying firm. She nabbed plum endorsements from big-name politicians: L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) and Chu’s husband, former state Assemblymember Michael Eng.

In total, Wang raised $119,000, mostly from donors with addresses in the San Gabriel Valley. Another top fundraiser, Councilmember Michael Cao, brought roughly $125,000 into his campaign that year.

Chang, who was seeking a third term on the City Council after winning a seat in 1994 and 2000, said that for the first time, his heritage became a talking point during an election, when a supporter asked him to remove her name from his list of endorsements because she had heard that he supported Taiwan independence.

Wang’s Instagram account from that time is full of videos of her on the campaign trail, set to zippy pop songs. She previously told The Times that she knocked on every door in her district multiple times to make sure she reached every resident.

“I walked about 140 days … I never stopped,” she said over a dim sum lunch last November, before the criminal charges against Sun. “I walked my district five times.”

Social media campaign depicts fictional scenes of officials becoming disillusioned with ruling Chinese Communist Party.

The CIA has launched a Chinese-language social media campaign calling on government officials in China to switch sides and leak secrets to the United States.

The two videos released on Thursday depict fictional scenes involving Chinese officials who approach the top intelligence agency after becoming disillusioned with the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP).

In one of the videos, an actor depicting a senior CCP member describes the fear he feels for his family as he witnesses officials around him being purged like “worn-out shoes”.

“This man, who has diligently worked his way to the top throughout his life, now profoundly realises that no matter how high his status is, it is insufficient to protect his family in these turbulent and unsettling times,” reads a Chinese-language description of the video on YouTube.

“He yearns to take control of his destiny and find a path to safeguard his family and the achievements he has built through years of hard work. Aware that everything he possesses could vanish in an instant, he is driven to make a difficult but crucial decision to safely reach out to the CIA.”

The videos, which were released on platforms including Facebook, Telegram, Instagram and X, contain instructions on “safely” and “securely” contacting the CIA, including by using the dark web browser Tor.

“One of the primary roles of the CIA is to collect intelligence for the president and for our policymakers,” CIA director John Ratcliffe said in an interview with Fox News.

“One of the ways we do that is by recruiting assets that can help us steal secrets.”

China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Desmond Shum, a Chinese property tycoon-turned-dissident who lives in the United Kingdom, described the CIA campaign as the most “aggressive public move” by the agency against China in living memory.

“This kind of public outreach is exactly the sort of provocation that enrages the CCP – and Xi Jinping personally,” Shum said on X, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“His obsession with lifelong rule stems from a singular goal: to secure the Party’s unshakable control over China.”

Ministry of Commerce says ‘door is open’ to talks, but it is willing to ‘fight to the end’ otherwise.

China has said it is considering proposals by the United States to begin negotiations on US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

The US has “recently, through relevant channels, actively conveyed messages to China, expressing a desire to engage in talks”, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Friday.

“China is currently evaluating this.”

Beijing’s remarks come after Chinese state media reported earlier in the week that the Trump administration had “proactively reached out” through multiple channels.

Trump’s trade war with China has resulted in a de facto mutual trade embargo between the world’s two largest economies.

Businesses and investors have been anxiously waiting for signs that Washington and Beijing will ease their steep tariffs on each other’s goods amid fears that a protracted standoff will inflict serious damage on the global economy.

The International Monetary Fund last month lowered its global growth forecast for 2025 to 2.8 percent, down from 3.3 percent in January, while JPMorgan Chase has put the likelihood of a US recession this year at 60 percent.

Trump, who has slapped a 145 percent tariff on Chinese exports, has repeatedly insisted that his administration is in negotiations with Beijing, a claim that Chinese officials have rejected as “groundless”.

On Wednesday, Trump said there was a “very good chance” he would reach a trade deal with China, so long as it was “fair”.

In its statement on Friday, China’s Commerce Ministry said that its stance on the trade dispute had been consistent.

“If there is a fight, we will fight to the end; if there are talks, the door is open,” the ministry said.

“The tariff war and trade war were unilaterally initiated by the US, and if the US wants to talk, it should demonstrate sincerity by preparing to correct its erroneous actions and rescind the unilateral imposition of additional tariffs,” it said, adding that “attempting to use talks as a pretext to engage in coercion and blackmail” would not work with China.

‘Wakeup call’

In an interview with Fox News that aired on Thursday night, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Trump’s tariffs were badly hurting the Chinese economy and Beijing was keen to talk.

“The Chinese are reaching out, they want to meet, they want to talk,” Rubio told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “We’ve got people involved in that.”

Rubio also said that the tensions were a “wakeup call” for the US and the country should not be as dependent on China.

“Two more years in this direction, and we are going to be in a lot of trouble, really dependent on China,” he said. “So I do think there is this broader question about how much we should buy from them at all.”

It is not just a race to cut emissions. The scramble for clean energy is turning into a battle over political and economic dominance.

In the United States, President Donald Trump is moving to fast-track fossil fuel projects and to roll back climate policies.

China is ramping up clean technology investment to cement its dominance.

Europe is facing challenges in catching up with the two nations.

Developing nations are falling behind, demanding a fair shot at green energy investment.

With climate change-fuelled disasters causing billions of dollars in damage, the race for clean energy has never been more critical.

China welcomes the measure, saying Beijing ‘highly appreciates’ the East African country’s move.

Somalia’s ban on transit and entry of all Taiwanese passport holders has taken effect, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which accused China of pressuring the East African country into introducing the measures.

The ministry of the self-ruled island, claimed by China, said on Tuesday evening that Somalia’s civil aviation authority informed it last week of the new policy that came into force on Wednesday.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strongly protested Somalia’s action made under the instigation of China to restrict the travel freedom and safety of Taiwanese nationals and has demanded that the Somali government immediately revoke the notice,” it said.

The ministry also said Somalia cited United Nations Resolution 2758, which in 1971 called for member states to restore Beijing as the “only lawful representatives of China” to the body, and invoked the “one China” principle.

It “firmly rejected and strongly condemned” Somalia’s “misinterpretation” of the UN resolution, accusing Mogadishu of using it to “create the false impression that Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China”.

The move comes amid deepening ties between Taiwan and Somaliland, a breakaway region that declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but remains unrecognised by most of the world.

In 2020, the two self-governed territories opened de facto embassies in each other’s capitals, prompting anger in Mogadishu.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun said the decision was a legitimate step to protect Somalia’s interests and demonstrates “that Somalia firmly abides by the one China principle”. Beijing “highly appreciates” the move and pledges its support for Mogadishu’s claim to Somaliland, he added.

He said China also opposes “any form of official exchange” between Taiwan and Somaliland.

Limited recognition

Taiwan, under its official name the Republic of China, lost its UN seat to China in 1971, a year before it was evicted from the World Health Organization.

While only 11 countries and the Vatican formally recognise Taiwan as a state, many – including the United States – maintain close unofficial ties.

China views Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control.

Taiwan’s state news agency Focus Taiwan said the Somalia travel restriction is unlikely to have much practical effect, noting that Taiwanese nationals rarely visit the country.

Citing government data, it said only 16 trips were made to Somalia by Taiwanese citizens between 2016 and February this year.

Japan’s Ishiba and Philippines’s Marcos meet in Manila as nations confront China’s assertiveness in South China Sea.

The leaders of Japan and the Philippines have pledged to deepen their security ties, including increased intelligence sharing, as they grapple with territorial disputes with China.

On his first visit to the Philippines since assuming office in October, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Tuesday that the two countries oppose “attempts to change the status quo in the East China Sea and the South China Sea by force or coercion”.

Speaking after talks with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in Manila, Ishiba said the two leaders agreed to begin negotiations on a defence pact formally known as the Acquisition and Cross-servicing Agreement.

The deal would allow the provision of food, fuel and other necessities when Japanese forces visit the Philippines for joint training under a major defence accord that was signed last year and is expected to be ratified by the Japanese legislature. The Philippine Senate ratified it in December.

Ishiba said he and Marcos “also confirmed the start of government-to-government talks towards sealing a security of information agreement in the future”.

The Philippine president added that Tokyo’s previous security assistance had “allowed our security agencies and especially the Department of National Defence to achieve meaningful upgrades” and praised a “golden age” in their relations.

The talks in Manila were held as both Japan and the Philippines have faced increased tensions with China.

Chinese-Philippine ties have been tested repeatedly by confrontations involving the two nations’ coastguard vessels in the disputed South China Sea.

Japan has its own dispute with China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea known as the Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, which are claimed by Beijing but administered by Tokyo.

The Philippines and China are also at loggerheads over a disputed sandbank in the South China Sea.

On Monday, Beijing accused six Filipinos of illegally landing on the Tiexian Reef, also known as Sandy Cay, despite “warnings and dissuasion” from the Chinese side. Beijing said the action “violated China’s territorial sovereignty”.

Their shared grievances over China’s territorial claims have seen Japan and the Philippines draw increasingly close to each other as well as towards the United States.

Late last year, Marcos and former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Washington for a trilateral summit with then-US President Joe Biden.

Ishiba said he and Marcos had “affirmed the importance of Japan-US-Philippines cooperation” during Tuesday’s meeting.

On the economic front, the Japanese premier said the two men had also talked about the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz.

“We discussed the current measures taken by the United States as well as the impact felt on … the world economy because of the reciprocal retaliation seen between the United States and China,” Ishiba said.

A military parade held in Ho Chi Minh City concludes celebration of 50th anniversary since the fall of Saigon.

Thousands of Vietnamese have waved red flags and sang patriotic songs as a grand military parade held in Ho Chi Minh City concluded Vietnam’s 50th anniversary celebrations of the end of war with the United States.

Wednesday’s event commemorated the first act of the country’s reunification on April 30, 1975, when communist-run North Vietnam seized Saigon, the capital of the US-backed South, renamed Ho Chi Minh City shortly after the war in honour of the North’s founding leader.

A lotus-shaped float carrying a portrait of Ho Chi Minh was near the front of the parade as fighter jets and helicopters carrying red flags flew overhead.

Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from the city, said thousands of people stayed in the streets overnight to get the best vantage point for the parade, which was “a day of sombre reflection but also a day of celebration”.

“I am proud of having contributed to liberating the south,” said 75-year-old veteran Tran Van Truong who had travelled – dressed in full military uniform – from the capital, Hanoi, to see the parade.

“But what’s gone is gone, I have no hatred for those from the other side of the battle,” Truong told the AFP news agency. “We should join hands to celebrate the end of the war.”

For the first time, more than 300 soldiers from China, Laos and Cambodia also took part in the spectacle.

More than 300,000 Chinese soldiers were involved in the bloody conflict, according to state media, providing crucial anti-aircraft defence support and helping with logistics and supplies.

“I think Hanoi is signalling to China that they recognise China’s historical contribution,” said Zach Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington who focuses on Southeast Asian politics. “It’s also another way for them to signal: ‘Don’t think our foreign policy is lurching towards the Americans.’”

Strain in US ties

This year marks the 30-year anniversary of diplomatic ties between Vietnam and the US.

In 2023, Vietnam upgraded its relations with the US to that of a comprehensive strategic partner, the highest diplomatic status it gives to any country and the same level of relations as China and Russia.

There are new signs of strain in the relationship with Washington, however, with President Donald Trump’s imposition of heavy tariffs and the cancellation of much foreign aid, which has affected war remediation efforts in Vietnam.

Agent Orange contamination and unexploded ordnance in the countryside still threaten lives. The future of those projects is now at risk because of the Trump administration’s broad cuts to USAID.

Three others were injured in blaze that engulfed a multi-storey building in Liaoyang, authorities say.

At least 22 people have been killed and three others injured in a fire at a restaurant in China’s northern city of Liaoyang, Chinese authorities said.

Authorities did not provide details on what caused the blaze, which broke out shortly after noon local time (04:25 GMT) on Tuesday.

But images from the scene showed huge flames spurting from the windows and doors of the multi-storey building in Liaoyang, about 580km (360 miles) northeast of the capital Beijing.

“The incident has resulted in 22 deaths and three injuries,” state broadcaster CCTV said.

Videos published on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, showed paramedics wheeling one victim on a stretcher into an ambulance and several firefighters battling the flames with hoses.

Another video from the social media platform shot from above the scene showed more than a dozen fire engines parked outside the restaurant.

Hao Peng, secretary of Liaoning’s provincial ruling party committee, said 22 fire trucks and 85 firefighters were deployed to the scene.

Hao said the on-site rescue work had been completed and people had been evacuated.

A long list of responding regional politicians – from the governor down – was provided, along with a pledge to get to the bottom of the disaster and severely punish those responsible.

China’s President Xi Jinping called for “every effort to treat the injured, properly handle the aftermath for the deceased and provide support to their families, swiftly determine the cause of the fire, and pursue accountability in accordance with the law”, according to CCTV.

Industrial accidents occur frequently in China, usually due to staff ignoring safety features due to a lack of training or pressure from their superiors.

Poorly maintained infrastructure, illegally stored chemicals and a lack of fire exits and fire retardant, often abetted by corruption, are often factors in such disasters.

The country has seen a spate of such deadly incidents in recent months. On April 9, at least 20 people died in a fire at a nursing home in northern China’s Hebei province.

In January, a blaze at a vegetable market in Zhangjiakou city, northwest of Beijing, killed eight people and injured 15.

And a month before that, nine people died in a fire at a construction site in China’s eastern city of Rongcheng.

The White House on Tuesday blasted Amazon over a proposal to show the cost of President Trump’s tariffs next to the price of some products on its e-commerce site.

“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a news conference. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?”

Amazon said in a statement that its team that runs Amazon Haul, where people can find low-cost items, considered listing import charges on some items but the suggestion “was never approved and is not going to happen.“ Amazon Haul features items as low as $2.99 along with other discounts.

The White House’s remarks came after Punchbowl News reported that the Seattle-based company was planning to show the cost of Trump’s tariffs on its e-commerce site.

The public spat between the White House and Amazon underscores the backlash the Trump administration faces over tariffs imposed on various countries including China.

While major tech companies including Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple have been trying to strengthen ties with Trump by touting investments they’re making in the United States, uncertainty over tariffs and regulation have also rattled the tech industry.

Trump placed tariffs of up to 145% on Chinese imports, a move that has prompted some merchants who sell goods made in China from providing discounts as part of Amazon Prime Day, Reuters reported.

In April, when Trump announced that his administration planned to impose a baseline 10% tariff on imports from all countries, tech industry trade groups warned that the move would drive up the cost of consumer electronics, including Apple’s iPhone.

The White House said that it’s imposing tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States and that relying too much on foreign producers could threaten economic security.

Trump then said he would exempt some electronics such as laptops and smartphones from tariffs.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amazon’s stock dropped after the White House’s remarks, but jumped back up after the company said it wouldn’t go through with the idea. On Tuesday afternoon, Amazon’s stock was trading at $187 per share, down 1%.

Chongqing in China is the world’s biggest megacity and is home to 32 million people – but it is a destination that is shrouded in mystery and is visited by very few tourists

An intrepid traveller booked a cheap ticket to one of the world’s biggest but often overlooked cities on a whim, and was bowled over by what she found.

Janet Newenham had no idea what to expect when she jetted out to Chongqing, which is the world’s largest city by population. The Chinese settlement is a colossal urban wonder sprawling over 31,815 square miles – an area matching the size of Austria.

Home to a staggering 32 million people, this Chinese behemoth remains strangely overlooked by tourists, despite boasting one of the most mesmerising geographical wonders on earth. Chongqing’s architecture has been compared to a “city in three dimensions” because of its complex, multi-tiered layout.

As China’s crucial economic and transport hub, it sits amidst soaring mountains and plunging valleys, with buildings clinging to cliff edges and connected by vertiginous roads. Situated in southeast China near the source of the Yangtze River, Chongqing has a rich history that stretches back over 3,000 years. It is only in the past four decades that it has been transformed from a small village to the megacity it is today.

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“It was literally a village 40 years ago, most of it has been built in the last 30 years. It has 32 million people living in the greater area, so it’s one of the most populated cities in the world but no one has heard of it. It’s a mega cyberpunk city and it’s unlike any other city I’ve been to in my life,” Janet explained.

“It was used a lot during the war. There are a lot of underground bunkers everywhere, these are turned into bars and hotpot shops nowadays. It’s pretty crazy. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The way in which Chongqing is built into a mountain gives it a mind-bending, MC Escher like effect. Tourists who do make it there emerge from stairwells looking baffled, having found themselves on the top of buildings or looking down into a valley, rather than at sea level.

Built across a series of impossibly steep mountainsides and vertiginous valleys at the dramatic confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers, neighbourhoods cling to cliffs, houses are built on bridges, and metro lines plunge through tower blocks.

It can be a very confusing place to visit, as map apps will take you to where you’re going – only for you to realise you’re ten storeys too low or high.

“It has trains that run through residential buildings, buses in the sky, roads that look like they’re made by AI, the world’s longest escalator, bomb shelters turned into secret bars. There are entire highways built under the city,” Janet went on.

The 38-year-old from Cork, Ireland decided to visit as she came across cheap flights. She then discovered that Chongqing is full of bargains. Janet enjoyed a luxury week there, staying in a 100 euro hotel room which had a hot tub, and another with a private mini indoor swimming pool.

“It ias super affordable. Most people in Ireland the UK have never heard of it. If you want to visit somewhere really unique in China, go here,” she said.

Every twist and turn in Chongqing promises an adventure, giving the feeling of wandering through a real-life animation with its 3D-like urban landscape interlaced with aerial pathways stretching into the distance.Navigating this vast metropolis is made easy by the city’s impressive public transport network, which includes a comprehensive subway system.

Begin your journey at Jiefangbei, the city’s highest point, a pedestrian area teeming with street food and snacks, to get a feel for the city’s layout. But it’s not all high-rises in Chongqing. The city also boasts several mountain ranges, including the Daba Mountains in the north, the Wuling Mountains in the southeast, the Wu Mountains in the east, and the Dalou Mountains in the south.

Hop on a cable car across the Yangtze River for stunning views of the Chongqing skyline, or take the monorail through a building to visit the Three Gorges Museum.

Other must-visit locations include the Hongya Cave, covering an area of 46,000 square miles, the People’s Liberation Monument, a cultural symbol and landmark attraction in Chongqing, and the UNESCO World Heritage site at Dazu Rock Carvings.

After United States President Donald Trump suspended his “reciprocal tariffs” on major US trading partners on April 9, he ramped them up on China’s goods. US trade levies on most imports from China have climbed to 145 percent. Beijing retaliated with duties of its own, at 125 percent on US goods.

Trump has long accused China of exploiting the US on trade, casting his tariffs as necessary to revive domestic manufacturing and reshore jobs back to the US. He also wants to use tariffs to finance tax cuts. Most economists remain sceptical Trump will achieve his aims.

For now, the US and China are locked in a high-stakes game of chicken. The world is waiting to see which country will yield and which will stay the course. As Trump nears his first 100 days in office for the second time, here’s where the tariff war with China stands:

What’s happening with negotiations?

Trump recently played up the possibility of securing a trade deal with China. Last week, the US president said his tariffs on China will “come down substantially” in the near future.

“We’re going to have a fair deal with China,” Trump told reporters on April 23, stirring hopes of a de-escalation. He also said his administration was “actively” negotiating with the Chinese side without elaborating.

On April 24, however, China’s Ministry of Commerce rebuffed president Trump’s remarks, saying there were no talks taking place between the two countries.

“Any claims about the progress of China-US economic and trade negotiations are groundless and have no factual basis,” ministry spokesman He Yadong said.

While he insisted that Beijing won’t duck any economic blows from Washington, he also said the door was “wide open” for talks.

Last week, the Reuters news agency reported that China was evaluating exemptions for select US imports – a list of up to 131 products.

Beijing has not made any public statement on the issue.

Has the tariff war impacted US exports?

Trump introduced his sweeping tariffs on China less than three weeks ago. The fallout for US businesses won’t be fully felt until later this year. Still, the warning signals are already flashing red.

Data from the US Department of Agriculture shows that exports of soya beans – the biggest US farm export – fell dramatically for the period April 11-17, the first full week of reporting since Trump’s China tariff announcement.

By April 17, net sales of US soya beans dropped by 50 percent compared with the previous week. That was driven by a 67 percent fall in weekly soya bean exports to China, which, until recently, was America’s biggest export destination for the legume.

According to Piergiuseppe Fortunato, an adjunct professor of economics at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, “China’s retaliatory tariffs will hit US farmers hard. Some may go out of business.” He added that all sectors with exposure to China would come under strain.

In 2023, the US exported roughly $15bn of oil, gas and coal to China. Losing that market would hit US energy firms.

Are imports to the US going to take a hit?

Since the start of Trump’s tariff war, cargo shipments have plummeted. According to Linerlytica, a shipping data provider, Chinese freight bookings bound for the US fell by 30 to 60 percent in April.

The drastic reduction in shipping from America’s third largest trading partner – after Canada and Mexico – has not yet been felt. In May, however, thousands of companies will need to restock their inventories.

According to Bloomberg News, retail giants Walmart and Target told Trump in a meeting last week that shoppers are likely to see empty shelves and higher prices from next month. They also warned that supply shocks could roll out to Christmas.

Electronic appliances, such as TV sets and washing machines, made up 46.4 percent of US imports from China in 2022. The US also imports a lot of its clothing and pharmaceutical product ingredients from China. The price of these goods will begin to rise from next month.

On April 22, the International Monetary Fund raised its US inflation forecast to 3 percent in 2025, owing to tariffs – a full 1 percentage point higher than in January. The lender also lowered its US economic growth forecast and raised its expectation that the US will tip into recession this year.

How will China’s economy be affected?

Despite growing tensions between the US and China, Washington and Beijing remain major trading partners.

According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, the US imported $438.9bn in Chinese goods last year.

That amounts to roughly 3 percent of China’s total economic output, which remains heavily reliant on exports.

In a report shared with its clients this month, Goldman Sachs said it expects Trump’s tariffs to drag down China’s gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 2.4 percentage points.

For their part, China’s top officials said the country can do without American farm and energy imports and promised to achieve a 5 percent GDP growth target for this year.

Zhao Chenxin, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that together with non-US imports, domestic farm and energy production would be enough to satisfy demand.

“Even if we do not purchase feed grains and oilseeds from the United States, it will not have much impact on our country’s grain supply,” Zhao said on Monday.

He also noted there would be limited impact on China’s energy supplies if companies stopped importing US fossil fuels.

In some ways, experts said, China has been preparing for this crisis.

Fortunato told Al Jazeera: “The US is one of China’s biggest export markets, so tariffs will slow GDP growth. But Beijing has played this smartly as it began diversifying its imports away from the US during the first Trump trade war” in 2018.

He also pointed out that “the US depends on China for up to 60 percent of its critical mineral imports, used in everything from clean energy to military technology. The opposite flow simply isn’t there, so the US is more vulnerable.”

Could the US lose its geopolitical standing?

Trump has made little secret of his wish to conscript US allies into a trade war. The administration said it aims to strike free trade deals with the European Union, Great Britain and Japan.

More generally, reports suggest that Washington is asking trade partners to loosen their economic ties with China as a pre-condition for securing relief from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs.

Nevertheless, US allies seem largely opposed to any economic showdown with China. Last week, the European Commission said it has no intention of “decoupling” from China.

Elsewhere, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves recently told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “China is the second biggest economy in the world, and it would be, I think, very foolish to not engage.”

Many countries are not in a position to abandon their trade ties with Beijing. The EU, in particular, has a huge trade deficit with China. Cutting off access to Chinese goods – both consumer products and inputs for industry – would bruise its already sluggish economy.

Across the developing world, China’s trade role is equally as crucial. Roughly a quarter of Bangladesh’s and Cambodia’s imports come from China. Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are similarly dependent on Beijing for their goods imports.

“It’s hard to see why countries would want to undermine their own business interests to try and reduce America’s trade deficit with China,” Fortunato said. “On this point, I think Trump has been short-sighted and may be forced to blink first on lowering tariffs with China.”

Is Trump losing his grip on Republican voters?

The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t need to worry about its next election cycle. Trump’s Republican Party does, so Beijing has the political upper hand in Trump’s trade war. Simply put, it has more time on its side.

For Trump’s party, his sabre rattling already looks politically costly. A new Economist-YouGov poll shows Americans reporting Trump’s economic actions have hurt them personally more than they’ve helped by a 30-point margin.

And public approval of the president’s economic management has been low for a while: It had fallen to 37 percent in a Reuters-Ipsos poll published on March 31, his lowest score ever in that survey.

If Trump stays the course, it is likely that his approval ratings might fall still lower, jeopardising the Republican Party’s fragile grip on the US House of Representatives – and possibly the Senate, experts said.

“For these reasons”, Fortunato said, “China does not feel compelled to rush to the negotiating table to secure a trade deal. That will probably fall to Trump.”

Philippine officials say a mission visited Sandy Cay reef in the disputed South China Sea and unfurled the national flag.

The Philippines has denied a Chinese Coast Guard report that China had “dealt with” a situation involving six Filipino personnel, whom Beijing accused of illegally landing on a tiny reef in the disputed South China Sea.

Chinese Coast Guard spokesperson Liu Dejun said in a statement on Sunday evening that six personnel from the Philippines had earlier that day “illegally boarded” the Tiexian Reef, also known as Sandy Cay, despite “warnings and dissuasion” from the Chinese side.

Liu said that Chinese Coast Guard personnel then “boarded the reef and investigated and dealt with it in accordance with the law”. The statement did not provide further details on the encounter or the identities of the six people from the Philippines.

“We urge the Philippines to immediately stop its infringement,” Liu said, adding that the actions “violated China’s territorial sovereignty”.

Officials in Manila denied on Monday that China had taken over Sandy Cay or that a Philippine mission on Sunday to Sandy Cay – a reef over which sand has accumulated – was interfered with by Chinese maritime forces in the disputed area.

Sandy Cay, part of the Spratly Islands, lies near Thitu Island, also called Pag-asa and the site of a Philippine military facility.

“Philippine government officials have categorically denied that China has seized Sandy Cay or has now permanently taken over Sandy Cay in the South China Sea, describing the statement that was released through Chinese state media over the weekend as an ‘outright lie’, as part of Beijing’s disinformation tactics,” Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo said, reporting from Manila in the Philippines.

“To prove this point they showed media a recent, as recent as Sunday morning actually, a mission to Sandy Cay by the Philippine Coastguard and the Philippine Navy. Showing photos and videos of the Philippine flag being unfurled on two of the three sand bars that make up Sandy Cay in the South China Sea,” Lo said.

Lo said Philippine officials confirmed that Chinese vessels were present near the disputed reef during the mission on Sunday, but denied that the Philippine mission was “dealt with” as claimed by China.

Chinese state media said on Saturday that the country’s coastguard had “implemented maritime control” over the Tiexian Reef during the middle of April. China’s state broadcaster CCTV said in the report that the Chinese coastguard landed on Sandy Cay to “exercise sovereignty and jurisdiction” over the reef, carry out an “inspection” and “collect video evidence regarding the illegal activities of the Philippine side”.

The broadcaster published a photograph of five people, clad in black, standing on the uninhabited reef as a dark inflatable boat bobbed in the nearby water. Another shot showed four coastguard officials posing with a national flag on the reef’s white surface, in what CCTV described as a “vow of sovereignty”.

According to reports, there is no sign that China has permanently occupied the reef.

Also on Monday, the Philippine and US militaries launched three weeks of annual joint exercises, called “Balikatan” or “shoulder to shoulder”, which will include an integrated air and missile defence simulation for the first time.

Beijing has said the manoeuvres “undermine regional strategic stability” and accused Manila of “collusion with countries outside the region”.

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said the unfurling of a Chinese flag by the coastguard on Sandy Cay was significant in terms of stating claim to the reef, and the timing in advance of the annual US-Philippine military exercises.

“So it seems that with the staking of this Chinese flag on this reef, it is sending a message not only to Manila but also to Washington,” Yu said.