China-US relations

Amid the ongoing US-China rivalry, both powers have been sending their navies on exercises in the Yellow Sea, as a signal to each side, stopping just short of actual engagement. This mirrors earlier near-confrontations. Is this all just military posturing ahead of a possible Xi Jinping-Joe Biden summit before the end of the year?

China’s Huawei suddenly launched a new smartphone, equipped with a 7 nm chip said to be made in China and with network speeds reaching 5G levels, shocking the US political circles. What far-reaching impacts will China's breakthrough in chip technology have? How will Washington respond? Lianhe Zaobao correspondent Edwin Ong takes us through the recent developments and what it means for the US’s strategy against China’s tech advancements.

With North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to Russia recently, observers worry that North Korea and Russia, together with China, are drawing closer, forming a greater “axis” of nuclear threat. But academic Jin Kai sees the sense of a greater “alliance” forming as all part of the US and its allies’ “geopolitical imagination”, which could see them taking steps that escalate the situation in the Korean peninsula.

Former journalist Goh Choon Kang notes the gap between the global north and global south, with more affluent countries not delivering on promises and commitments made to less developed countries. Is there hope of reconciling the strong and the weak?

During a recent geopolitics conference in Taipei, experts weighed in on the Taiwan Strait situation, assessing that political factors are more likely than military factors to trigger a war. Lianhe Zaobao journalist Miao Zong-Han tells us more about what the experts said.

Issues such as gender diversity and environmental protection seem to be too abstract for first-generation Chinese immigrants in the US, who see these problems as having no impact on day-to-day life. US academic Wu Guo mulls over the reasons why this group of new immigrants, for all their desires to be part of the American education system, is a staunch detractor of progressive ideals that are part and parcel of the system itself.

The EV adventure in China has been successful in some respects, not least with 5.9 million EVs sold on the Chinese market, amounting to 59% of EVs sold globally. However, as a means to reduce climate change, the effort has tended to “put the cart in front of the horse”, because EVs are not particularly environmentally friendly without a steady stream of renewable electricity supply. Academic Erik Baark lays out the factors involved.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s likely absence from the upcoming G20 summit in New Delhi sends a message, amid tensions with India. However, it also means that there is less of an opportunity for China to engage with the US. Does this also mean that China is less interested in talking to the US, or is it leaving that encounter for later at the upcoming APEC summit in San Francisco?

The diplomatic focus on third world countries during Mao Zedong’s era has taken a renewed form in Xi Jinping’s era with the focus on the global south, notes EAI academic Chen Gang. International circumstances could propel the Chinese to further elevate the importance of the global south, not least with the recent expansion of BRICS to include several global south countries.