‘Epoch-making’: Xi Jinping urges home-grown AI breakthroughs – but flags risks South China Morning Post
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China Watch
China’s investigation into its top general is taking President Xi Jinping’s years-long corruption purge into his innermost circle, underlining that even close personal ties do not offer protection…
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The world watches closely as the brave people of Iran protest against the Islamic Republic (IR) regime. Regime security forces have killed thousands of people as part of a crackdown on the protests, with an estimate placing the death toll for January 8 and 9 at more than 36,500. President Trump urged Iranians to “keep protesting,” telling them that “help is on the way.”
China made a major announcement over the weekend, saying it was investigating the army’s top general for suspected serious violations of discipline and law.
Gen. Zhang Youxia was the highest military member just below President Xi Jinping.
The Defence Ministry said Saturday that authorities were investigating Zhang, the senior of the two vice chairs of the powerful Central Military Commission, China’s top military body, and Gen. Liu Zhenli, a lower member of the commission who was in charge of the military’s Joint Staff Department.
The U.S. and Taiwan recently reached a historic trade deal. Taiwanese companies will invest at least $250 billion in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker, pledged $100 billion in U.S. investment in 2025. Taipei will provide an additional $250 billion in credit guarantees to Taiwanese companies.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has raised eyebrows by openly praising Canada’s growing cooperation with Communist China and declaring that the partnership is helping shape a “new world order.”
Carney made the stunning remarks during a high-profile visit to Beijing this week, marking the first visit by a Canadian prime minister in nearly a decade and celebrating the two countries becoming so-called “strategic partners.”
“Mine is the first visit of a Canadian Prime Minister to China in nearly a decade,” Carney told senior Chinese Communist Party officials, including Xi Jinping.
“The world has changed much since that last visit.
“And I believe the progress that we have made and the partnership sets us up well for the New World Order.”
“It’s a partnership with new focus and greater depth and a sense of purpose, and I look forward to realizing its promise and building on it in the years to come,” he added.
China’s loans to Africa plummet as Beijing pivots to strategic investments Semafor
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China Rewards Central American Allies With Major Projects While Nicaragua Gets Little La Prensa – Noticias de Nicaragua y el mundo
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Democratic Socialists of America link to Chinese Communist Party causes internal strife: ‘Isn’t what I signed up for’ New York Post
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Breitbart News senior contributor and author of The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon Peter Schweizer talked about China on FNC’s “The Ingraham Angle” on Tuesday.
Schweizer said, “They have effectively bought off large portions of America’s elites … the problem is that these elites are either overlooking or ignoring the central fact of the U.S.-China relationship which is, China’s goal … is not about getting a better deal or maybe capturing a larger share of the market. Sure they want that, and they want the political leverage over the United States. What they really are engaging in is civilizational warfare.”
Chinese Christians defiant in face of renewed official crackdown Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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Trump Invites China into US Auto Industry During Detroit Speech filmogaz.com
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BEIJING — Faced with new global challenges, the leaders of China and Canada pledged Friday to improve relations between their two nations after years of acrimony.
Xi Jinping told visiting Prime Minister Mark Carney that he is willing to continue working to improve ties, noting that talks have been underway on restoring and restarting cooperation since the two held an initial meeting in October on the sidelines of a regional economic conference in South Korea.
“It can be said that our meeting last year opened a new chapter in turning China–Canada relations toward improvement,” China’s top leader said.
Carney, the first Canadian prime minister to visit China in eight years, said better relations would help improve a global governance system that he described as “under great strain.”
He called for a new relationship “adapted to new global realities” and cooperation in agriculture, energy and finance.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney suggested on a recent trip that it is easier for his nation to deal with Communist China than to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
Carney made the comments this past Friday to reporters while in China, where he was in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing after being asked to share his thoughts on the relationship between Washington and China.
He responded, “With the U.S., our relationship, this is no insight, is much more multifaceted, much deeper, much broader, than it is with China.”
China’s Military Purge ‘Rivals the Cultural Revolution’ as Top Generals Vanish Vision Times
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Xi’s Power Wanes Amid Sweeping Party Purge and Succession Uncertainty Vision Times
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Surge in Missing Children Cases in China Fuels Concerns of Organ Harvesting Vision Times
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Keir Starmer warned he’s being manipulated by China in ‘spy hub’ plan Daily Express
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The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Communist Party’s state propaganda arms railed on Tuesday against President Donald Trump’s imposition of a 25-percent tariff on countries that do business with Iran.
The president announced the policy after two weeks of protests in the country calling for an end to the brutal Islamist regime, which has responded with widespread violence that, some estimates suggest, has killed as many as 3,000 people. The “supreme leader” of Iran, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has since said in public remarks that it is the democratically elected Trump administration, and not his regime, that is on the verge of collapse, and Khamenei’s underlings have insisted that the regime has the country “under control.”
Trump has since called on Iranian protesters to “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS” and suggested the White House would support them.
China’s Communist Party calls for reinforced anti-corruption efforts The Hans India
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CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Chinese, Russian and Iranian warships arrived in South African waters for a week of naval drills starting Friday off the coast of Cape Town as geopolitical tensions run high over the United States’ intervention in Venezuela and its move to seize tankers carrying Venezuelan oil.
The Chinese-led drills were organized last year under the BRICS bloc of developing nations and South Africa’s armed forces said they will bring members of the bloc together to practice maritime safety and anti-piracy operations and “deepen cooperation.”
China, Russia and South Africa are longtime members of BRICS, while Iran joined the group in 2024.
The Iranian navy was taking part in the drills while protests grow back home against the Islamic Republic’s leadership.
It was not immediately clear if other countries from the BRICS group — which also includes Brazil, India and the United Arab Emirates among others — would take part in the drills. A spokesperson for the South African armed forces said he wasn’t yet able to confirm all the countries participating in the drills, which are due to run until next Friday.
Simultaneous disruption and progress, with a relentless Taiwan-focused capability development deadline.
That’s the overriding theme of the 25th edition of the Department of Defense’s China Military Power Report, released on Dec. 23, 2025. Despite extensive leadership purges and ongoing disciplinary investigations across China’s military and defense industry, the 2025 report concludes that China continues to make progress toward General Secretary Xi Jinping’s 2027 “Centennial Military Building Goal” and associated warfighting capabilities against Taiwan.
The report shows China’s military undergoing simultaneous disruption and advancement, with leadership purges and procurement-related investigations generating short-term turbulence even as Xi’s armed forces surge forward.
Chinese vice premier meets Disney CEO Xinhua
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A team of researchers in China has just pulled the curtain back on a new sodium-sulfur battery design that could fundamentally change the math on energy storage. By leaning into the very chemistry that has historically made sulfur a headache for engineers, they have managed to build a cell that is incredibly cheap to make but still packs a massive energy punch.
The design, which is currently being tested in the lab, uses dirt-cheap ingredients: sulfur, sodium, aluminum, and a chlorine-based electrolyte. In early trials, the battery hit energy densities over 2,000 watt-hours per kilogram – a figure that blows today’s sodium-ion batteries out of the water and even gives top-tier lithium cells a run for their money.
China warns satellites from Elon Musk’s Starlink are ‘safety and security’ risk South China Morning Post
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China’s Xi renews promise to take back Taiwan 1News
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South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung is set to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping as he seeks to reset frayed ties with his country’s biggest trading partner.
Regional security and Beijing’s unofficial ban on Korean pop culture are also on the agenda for Monday’s meeting, which is their second summit since November, when Xi visited South Korea.
Given what a vital economic partner China is, experts say Lee is looking for assurances that it would not weaponise that relationship in the face of political tensions in the region.
China says it ‘stands firmly against external interference’ in Iran amid protests Anadolu Ajansı
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