China raises a formal complaint to the EU over a report from the European Parliament that it labels as riddled with prejudices. – Demócrata
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Far East Watch
Korea to Phase Out Military Service Exemptions, Delays Cuts to AI Researcher Program – Seoul Economic Daily– news.google.com
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South Korea test-flies its first domestically developed hypersonic weapon– nypost.com
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South Korea flight-tested on Thursday its first domestically developed hypersonic weapon, designed to fly at least five times the speed of sound and evade missile defense systems, bringing Seoul closer to what it says could be game-changing weapons capabilities.
There was no immediate response from North Korea, which last week tested its own hypersonic missile that landed in the waters near Japan.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung attended the test, saying it’s a major step in strengthening the country’s conventional defense capabilities, according to a statement. It did not elaborate where the test took place.
The statement said the weapon separated from its booster rocket at the planned altitude, then descended and maneuvered both vertically and horizontally before hitting a test target. It said once developed, the weapon would be able to strike key targets by surprise in the “Korean Peninsula theater of operations.”
US pastor says he was arrested while praying outside Chinese Embassy – Premier Christian News
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EU-China trade talks begin in Beijing amid escalating pressure – Al Jazeera
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North Korea criticizes the US over weapons supplied to Taiwan and warns of the risks of a confrontation with China – Informat.ro
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China has sent a military convoy into the border nation of Laos, which is raising concerns of Laotians who have bad memories of colonization from world powers. The military is being moved into a permanent “Training Center,” which is raising even more red flags among the local population.
China Sends its Military to Laos and Calls it a “Training Center”: “We had a very bad experience with the French during colonial times” – El Mundo America
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A Chinese military convoy crosses a road leading to Ban Keun airport, about 45 kilometers north of Vientiane, the capital of Laos. “China is always helping us a lot, but I don’t like seeing soldiers from other countries here,” says a middle-aged Laotian taxi driver in good English who cannot explain what those Chinese soldiers are doing there. “We had a very bad experience with the French during colonial times and then with the United States during the Vietnam War bombings.”
The scene summarizes Beijing’s latest advance in this small and peaceful Southeast Asian country: after trains, construction companies, and tourists, military facilities arrive. The chosen name avoids the word base. Instead, two friendlier words appear: training and friendship.
The Chinese Ministry of Defense has announced the opening of a “support and training center” in Laos. It has not detailed how many Chinese soldiers will be there, what equipment they will bring, or how long they will stay. But the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) gains access to an air infrastructure in the heart of Indochina. Pilot training is the announced mission; the future scope of that presence remains unexplained.
France, Germany seek new EU weapon to instantly cut off market access for China – South China Morning Post
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Analyst says Beijing tapping overseas Chinese to annex Taiwan – Taiwan News
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Former Chinese Journalist Accuses Jiangxi Investigators of Torture, Coercion– www.visiontimes.com
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A former journalist who spent more than a decade working for publications affiliated with China’s state-run People’s Daily has publicly accused anti-corruption investigators in Jiangxi Province of torturing him and coercing him into signing what he describes as a fabricated bribery confession.
In a complaint published Sept. 28 on the WeChat account “Xiaozhou Fengyu,” Zhou Wenshui used his real name and identified himself as a Hong Kong permanent resident and former editor and reporter for People’s Daily-affiliated publications. He accused Wang Yang, deputy director of the Guixi Municipal Supervisory Commission, and other investigators of abusing their authority during a 2024 investigation. The original complaint was later archived by China Digital Times.
Alleged Chinese agent accused of surveilling Taiwanese president’s son appears in federal court– www.cbsnews.com
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A suspected Chinese agent appeared in a Los Angeles federal court Monday after she allegedly surveilled the Taiwanese president’s son near Seattle last year.
Orange County, California, realtor Wanying “Heather” Zhang, 34, appeared calm, dressed in a tailored, white zip-up jacket, sweatpants and white sneakers, with shackles on her wrists and ankles. CBS News was first to report that the FBI arrested Zhang on Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport before she boarded a flight to Shanghai, China.
In court, she spoke only to confirm her name and that she understood the charge against her of working as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government.
China warns France, Germany against ‘protectionist’ trade tools– www.channelnewsasia.com
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BEIJING: China called on France and Germany to steer clear of “protectionist” trade measures on Tuesday (Oct 6), after their leaders urged the European Union to develop a legal arsenal for a potential trade war.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that “we need a credible instrument” for swift and decisive action.
This includes the ability to cut off access to the European single market “if needed”, according to the letter seen by AFP on Monday.
Macron and Merz stopped short of explicitly naming China but their letter comes just days before EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic heads to Beijing to tackle trade frictions.
China’s commerce ministry, in a statement on Tuesday, urged France and Germany to “refrain from encouraging the EU to resort to protectionist tools at every turn”.
“We hope that France and Germany, as major economies in the world, will uphold openness, cooperation and free trade,” the ministry said in a statement.
“They should avoid going down the wrong path in the wrong way, only to ultimately suffer the consequences themselves.”
Trump says South Korea to invest $200 billion in U.S.– www.cnbc.com
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The U.S. and South Korea have announced “historic” investments by Seoul into America, with President Donald Trump saying the $200 billion in new investments will help transform his country “for generations.”
South Korean investment include nuclear power plants, a natural gas power facility in Texas and potentially the long-planned Alaska LNG project.
“We are thrilled to announce one of the largest energy infrastructure investments in American history,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday, adding that South Korea would invest up to $200 billion.
South Korea’s participation in the Alaska LNG project is not yet finalized. The joint statement said that it would be contingent on “commercial reasonableness,” with no details on allocations toward the project.
Trump, however, in a Truth Social post late Wednesday stateside said the countries had agreed to work on the Alaska LNG project, pegging its value at $50 billion.
South Korea has stopped short of committing to that project over questions about its commercial viability. Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan described it last year as a “high-risk” and said participation would be difficult unless it could generate sufficient cash flow, according to Yonhap News.
British Intelligence Accuses China Of Spying On UK’s AI Research– dailycaller.com
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British security officials warned that a Chinese research body is funding academic work that aids Beijing’s spy agency.
Britain’s MI5 security service on Wednesday named the China General Technology Research Institute (CGTRI) as a funder of work by more than 100 academics based in the UK, including artificial intelligence research, according to an espionage alert the agency published. The service said CGTRI is closely tied to China’s civilian spy agency — the Ministry of State Security (MSS) — and exists mainly to bankroll research that sharpens that agency’s technical tools.
“MI5 has identified that the primary purpose of CGTRI is to fund academic research that directly improves MSS technical capability for espionage,” the alert stated in part.
U.K. academics have contributed to CGTRI-funded projects on AI, cybersecurity, covert communications systems and steganography, according to the MI5 alert. The agency said some universities and researchers likely did not know CGTRI’s link to Chinese intelligence when they took the money, Reuters reported. (RELATED: As Trump Meets Xi, Experts Say China Targets Weak Spots In Western Tech)
Researchers who keep working with the institute could be prosecuted under Britain’s National Security Act, a 2023 law aimed at foreign spying and hostile state activity, MI5 warned.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is ‘extremely obese’ after gorging on steak and lobster diet, South Korean spies say– www.thesun.co.uk
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KIM Jong-un is “extremely obese” according to spy agencies, who say his lavish diet of steak and lobster could lead to an early downfall.
Already facing international sanctions and regime instability, the North Korean dictator now faces a new threat – chronic obesity.
The supreme eater weighs more than 310lb (140kg) at just 5-foot-7-inches, putting him at serious risk of cardiovascular disease, according to South Korea‘s National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Kim’s heavy smoking and body mass raise serious international questions about who would succeed him as leader of the volatile nuclear-armed state if he were to suddenly die.
Xi and Trump: Resetting the Strategic Framework of US-China Relations? – orfonline.org
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China carves new military presence in Southeast Asian neighbour – CNBC TV18
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South Korea demands apology from Ukraine over North Korean prisoners of war disclosure– www.channelnewsasia.com
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According to the statement, Ukraine later disclosed the transfer in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to the United Nations General Assembly without sufficient prior consultation and subsequently denied the existence of any confidentiality agreement.
Seong said the denial had seriously damaged trust between the two governments and could harm bilateral relations.
Ukraine’s embassy in Seoul did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly last week that Ukraine had transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to South Korea. He said the men had recently been sent there after being captured while fighting for Russia in the war against Ukraine.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung days earlier said Ukraine had disclosed the transfer in breach of a non-disclosure agreement.
In a post on X, Lee said “it was appropriate in every aspect not to disclose” the transfer, given the potential consequences, and that the two sides had agreed to keep it confidential.
“I do not know what circumstances led the Ukrainian side to disclose the matter despite the confidentiality agreement, but it is deeply regrettable,” he wrote.
Ukraine captured the two North Koreans in Russia’s Kursk region in January 2025. They were the first North Korean soldiers to be captured alive since Pyongyang entered the war in 2024, assisting Russia.
Chinese VP says China ready to work with all parties to advance Global Development Initiative – Global Times
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China pushes back against US on Iran and Cuba in UN speech– www.channelnewsasia.com
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UNITED NATIONS: China pushed back against the United States in its speech at the UN General Assembly on Saturday (Sep 26), saying the sovereignty of countries in the Gulf should be respected and urging the “relevant country” to stop threatening Cuba and lift its blockade on it.
Vice President Han Zheng did not mention the US by name in his remarks. The US has launched a pressure campaign on Cuba that has largely blocked oil from reaching the island. The US war on Iran started with US-Israeli strikes in February.
The comments stood in sharp contrast to the bonhomie on display earlier this week at the White House, where President Donald Trump feted Chinese leader Xi Jinping with military flyovers and at a lavish state dinner.
“Major countries should have special responsibilities for safeguarding international peace and security, and they should take the lead in complying with the rules, upholding rule of law, and doing what’s right,” Han said.
“China holds that the sovereignty and security of countries in the Middle East, including the Gulf, should be respected.”
Trump warned Xi against providing support to Iran during the Washington talks and received assurances that China would not do so, the US ambassador to China said on Friday.
It’s Simple: China Eats Our Lunch Unless America Builds Data Centers and the Power to Run Them– www.westernjournal.com
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WASHINGTON — The contest to win the artificial intelligence race may come down to which country can keep the lights on, experts warn.
Energy and industry leaders made the case that American AI ambitions will outpace the nation’s ability to power them without a major buildout at Thursday’s Daily Caller Live event co-hosted by the Caller and the Daily Caller News Foundation and presented by ClearPath.
Cristopher Johnson, president of the American Energy Leadership Institute (AELI), and Mark Bednar, a principal at Monument Advocacy and former vice president of communications at the American Exploration & Production Council, emphasized that the United States must add reliable power and build the plants and data centers here, or else AI infrastructure moves to China.
“[I]f we’re not building data centers here and powering them here, where it’s tons cleaner [and where] we’re doing solar and storage and nuclear, … all those data centers, all that compute, is gonna go to China, where they are building coal plants every week,” Johnson said during a panel discussion moderated by DCNF investigative reporter Sean Moran. “This is totally backwards.”
China began construction on 94.5 gigawatts of new coal-fired power capacity in 2024, the most since 2015 and 93 percent of global coal construction starts, according to a Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor report.
Why Xi believes the U.S. and China can overcome the ‘Thucydides Trap’– www.cnbc.com
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BEIJING — China is embracing the idea of competition without confrontation, by invoking an academic concept.
“The Thucydides Trap can be overcome,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said on arriving at the White House to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, according to the Chinese side’s official readout.
That framing contrasts with the rhetorical question he posed at the May summit of whether the two countries could avoid the Thucydides Trap.
The Thucydides Trap, popularized by Harvard professor Graham Allison in the early 2010s, refers to how tensions between a rising and ruling power have historically often resulted in a war.
Thucydides was an Athenian general in ancient Greece. His historical record of the Peloponnesian War described how Athens’ rapid rise in power alarmed Sparta and made war between the two city-states inevitable.
Allison has met Xi and visited China multiple times, including in June 2026 for a World Economic Forum event. Allison was founding dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School, which for decades trained many of China’s government officials.
Chinese AI models surge in global adoption– www.cnbc.com
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AI was a major focus as U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met this week.
The most advanced U.S. models lead most benchmarks, but Chinese companies like DeepSeek, Z.ai and Alibaba have released new models with major performance gains in tasks such as coding.
According to usage data shared with CNBC, the global adoption of Chinese models by companies has increased substantially in 2026.
Chinese AI models have gone from a relatively small share of usage to a majority on two major developer platforms that provide gateways for companies to access models from different providers. On OpenRouter, they accounted for 57%-67% of tokens used in the week of Sept. 14, up from 6%-13% in February. On Vercel, their share rose to 55% in August from 11% in January.
OpenRouter’s data related to companies in the U.S., Europe and what it defines as the “Global South” — 82 countries across Central and South America, Africa, and Asia. Vercel did not specify its data’s geographical breakdown.
Concern is growing in Washington, where two U.S. House Committees are investigating the impact of rising adoption of Chinese models.
The U.S. has sought to preserve its AI lead by restricting Chinese AI companies from buying the most advanced chips through export controls.
Washington is concerned about them accessing Nvidia chips remotely, via overseas data centers, and gaining ground by using “distillation” where new models mimic older, more established ones.
German auto lobby warns of China trade imbalances, backs WTO-based response – Reuters
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UK offers Huawei limited role in 5G networks – Arab News
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China’s Xi Jinping launches ‘dramatic purge’ on top military generals – what we know – The Independent
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The CCP is Trying—and Failing—to Extinguish Defiance among Chinese Citizens– freedomhouse.org
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Recent propaganda and censorship efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have revealed an urgent desire among party leadership to blunt a spirit of defiance within Chinese society. Despite the party’s attempts to curb dissent, however, China’s citizens continue to defy authority, as evidenced by recent findings of Freedom House’s China Dissent Monitor (CDM).
Earlier this year, China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) conducted a campaign that blamed “foreign forces” for funding the spread in China of “lying flat” (躺平), a term that has become widely used to describe the rejection of societal expectations that push individuals to strive for material and social achievement. The official media attributing the trend of lying flat to foreign interference was promptly pilloried by Chinese netizens who filled online comment sections with criticism and satire. A popular vlogger sarcastically complained that he wanted to “report” foreign forces for failing to pay him despite his tireless efforts to lie flat. These responses have all since been censored.
The CCP’s seeming obsession with curbing the lying flat mindset is worth understanding. The term’s popularity rose in response to China’s grueling “996” work culture, in which many companies expect their employees to work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. for 6 days each week. But as the concept of lying flat has expanded, the CCP has become worried that it reflects an underlying resistance to the party’s designs for Chinese people, and that an increasing number of citizens simply don’t care about or support the idea of working harder to contribute to a more powerful state. The Communist Party’s leader Xi Jinping has explicitly spoken out against the lying flat attitude.
Chinese Coast Guard rams Philippine vessel in South China Sea clash– www.foxnews.com
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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Tensions in the South China Sea escalated again Friday after a Chinese Coast Guard vessel collided with a Philippine government ship, an encounter captured on video that prompted competing accounts from Manila and Beijing.
The Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessel BRP Datu Magat Salamat was distributing fuel to Filipino fishermen when the collision occurred at 11:13 a.m., roughly 54 nautical miles off the coast of Palawan province — an area Manila says is well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
Footage released by the Philippine Coast Guard showed crew members shouting, “Brace for impact!” moments before the collision. Photographs taken afterward showed bent and detached railings, damaged metal supports and debris scattered across the Philippine ship’s deck. No injuries were reported.
China’s biggest bank failed its compliance tests. What does that mean for its African partners? – The Africa Report
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Chief Justice Rejects Request to Re-nominate Supreme Court Justice, Citing Lack of Constitutional Basis – news.sbs.co.kr
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