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1 week ago | 
scmp.com | Sylvie Zhuang |Jun Mai
At the height of China’s rapid economic growth and embrace of globalisation it was unusual for the children of senior officials to follow their parents into the public sector. While government jobs are seen as decent and secure, they are low-paid and demanding, and there are more constraints on personal choices compared to those in the private sector.
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1 month ago | 
thestar.com.my | Dewey Sim |Sylvie Zhuang
As Beijing and Washington battle it out in a rapidly escalating and brutal tit-for-tat tariff war, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see how the two leaders could end up at the negotiating table. This is a moment when diplomatic backchannels could have an outsize role to play, according to observers, with some suggesting that such channels “might be the only way to go”.
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1 month ago | 
scmp.com | Jane Cai |Sylvie Zhuang
China’s development prospects are expected to be severely dimmed by the intensifying tariff war between Washington and Beijing, with many Chinese anticipating economic hardship as the country bears the brunt of a war that risks plunging the world into recession.
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1 month ago | 
scmp.com | Dewey Sim |Sylvie Zhuang
As Beijing and Washington battle it out in a rapidly escalating and brutal tit-for-tat tariff war, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see how the two leaders could end up at the negotiating table. This is a moment when diplomatic backchannels could have an outsize role to play, according to observers, with some suggesting that such channels “might be the only way to go”.
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1 month ago | 
scmp.com | Liu Zhen |Sylvie Zhuang
A remote US airbase in the western Pacific – best known as the departure point for the planes that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – has been reclaimed from the jungle to pose an asymmetrical threat to the Chinese mainland, analysts said. The US$120 million reconstruction of North Field on Tinian Island – just 193km (120 miles) north of Guam – has included at least 1.86 million square metres (20 million sq ft) of runway and other infrastructure.
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1 month ago | 
scmp.com | Sylvie Zhuang |Liu Zhen
Troops overseeing the South China Sea will remain on high alert and defend national sovereignty, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has said, while condemning joint drills by the Philippines, US and Japan in the contested waters. The PLA’s Southern Theatre Command carried out a routine patrol in the South China Sea on Friday, spokesman Senior Colonel Tian Junli was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua.
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2 months ago | 
scmp.com | Sylvie Zhuang |William Zheng
Political advisers in Beijing have cautioned against overregulation of artificial intelligence companies amid a growing debate about the emerging technology as the nation embraces the new Chinese chatbot DeepSeek. Members of China’s top political advisory body – the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – made the remarks ahead of the country’s annual parliamentary meetings that begin on Tuesday.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
scmp.com | Amber Wang |Sylvie Zhuang
US President Donald Trump’s latest call targeting China – this time to cut back on nuclear weapons – may be ignored by Beijing, according to some analysts. They said this was because China did not view its nuclear arsenal as being on a par with either the United States or Russia. The call from Trump was part of his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he floated the idea of talks with Russia and China about reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles.
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Jan 16, 2025 | 
scmp.com | Sylvie Zhuang |Phoebe Zhang
The influx of American “TikTok refugees” onto the Chinese social media app RedNote may feed into some of Beijing’s main talking points, but could also pose a challenge for China’s censors. As of Thursday afternoon, the topic “TikTok refugee” attracted more than 800 million views and 14.7 million discussions as new users, mostly with IP addresses in the United States, started posting on the app.
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Jan 13, 2025 | 
scmp.com | Sylvie Zhuang
Several counties in Fujian province have established Taiwan affairs offices, signalling that Beijing’s efforts to integrate the island with mainland China have intensified. “[We] have established separate Taiwan affairs offices in all counties with significant Taiwan-related responsibilities,” said Zhou Qingsong, director of the organisation office of the Fujian provincial committee of the Communist Party.
