China News Now

Last Updated:January 01, 2026, 09:42 IST Many young Chinese argue that pricier condoms will not change their decision not to have children when the cost of raising a child remains among the highest in the world. (Representational image) China has begun 2026 by introducing a measure that has puzzled, angered and amused millions: a 13 per cent value-added tax on condoms and other contraceptives. For the first time in more than three decades, products such as condoms, birth control pills and intrauterine devices are no longer exempt from VAT. The change, which takes effect from Thursday, comes as Beijing struggles with a deep demographic crisis, a shrinking population and declining birth rates that have per sisted for several years. The new tax is part of a broader overhaul of China's VAT regime, which was first introduced in 1993. Back then, contraceptives were exempt because China was actively enforcing its one-child policy and providing free or subsidised birth control ...

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers an important speech during a grand gathering to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 3, 2025. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) BEIJING | Xinhua | Xinhua News Agency on Monday unveiled its selection of the top 10 news stories that defined China in 2025. Below is a concise summary of these key events, listed in chronological order: 1. CPC launches Party-wide education campaign on improving conduct Members and cadres of the Communist Party of China (CPC) from Langshan Town Street of Chongchuan District visit an exhibition on the central Party leadership's eight-point decision on improving conduct in Nantong, east China's Jiangsu Province, June 5, 2025. ...

BEIJING - China is allocating 62.5 billion yuan (S$11.5 billion) from ultra-long special treasury bond funds to fund the first tranche of subsidies for consumers to replace domestic appliances, state news agency Xinhua reported on Dec 30. Beijing launched the scheme in 2024, providing financial support when consumers replace old appliances, bicycles and even cars, in a bid to shore up domestic demand battered by a years-long housing slump and trade pressures abroad. A total of 300 billion yuan in subsidies was allocated in 2025, double the amount seen in 2024.  In 2026, digital and smart products will be included in the scheme, with smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and smart wristbands qualifying for a 15 per cent rebate, capped at 500 yuan each, China's state planner and Finance Ministry said in a separate statement. The Xinhua report did not specify the total size of the fund for the 2026 scheme.  Under the scheme, consumers pu rchasing any of six categories of major home ...

China has announced plans to implement proactive macro policies in 2026, aiming to boost the overall economy and shore up long-term sustainable growth. The announcement comes as China's industrial sector experienced the steepest fall in profits at a record pace over a year, showing signs of weakening domestic demand and persistent deflation. According to the National Bureau of Statistics' data, in November the profit fell 13.1 percent from a year earlier after a 5.5 percent decline in October. The state media CCTV also quoted President Xi Jinping's expectations related to Beijing's growth target this year. Xi declared that China is set to achieve a growth target of about 5 percent in 2025. Xi said in his address at a New Year's party, the economy is expected to reach 140 trillion yuan or $20 trillion in 2025. "Our country's economy is expected to m...

China has fired rockets into waters off Taiwan, showcasing new assault ships in its most extensive war games to date. The two-day Justice Mission 2025 drills come two weeks after the US announced a record US$11.1 billion arms package to Taiwan. The Chinese military said the drills, which marks the largest by area and the closest yet to Taiwan, are aimed at "deterring outside intervention". Taiwan's President William Lai has said troops are prepared to defend the island, but it is not seeking to escalate the situation. Deborah Wong reports from Shenzhen and Victoria Jen reports from Taipei.

On relations with Washington - "the world's most important bilateral relationship" - Wang said China had experienced "ups and downs" but maintained overall stability. He also said the direction of ties would shape global peace and development. "Whether China and the US can achieve mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation is the key to whether the relationship can develop steadily and benefit the world," Wang said, adding that Beijing remained firm on issues involving China's core interests while remaining open to dialogue and cooperation. Wang also said China would play a more proactive role in shaping global order and governance, emphasising Beijing's concept of building a "community with a shared future for mankind". China would oppose hegemonism and power politics, promote multilateralism and work towards a more "just and reasonable" international order, with the United Nations at its core, Wang sai...

In this edition of Newstrack, the focus is on the diplomatic storm triggered by the teaser of Salman Khan's upcoming film, 'Battle of Galwan'. China's state-run Global Times has slammed the movie, accusing it of distorting facts about the June 2020 clash. The programme features a panel including screenwriter Advaita Kala and Lieutenant General Sanjay Kulkarni, who discuss Beijing's insecurity and attempt to control the narrative. The report also draws parallels with the film 'Dhurandhar', which sparked similar outrage in Pakistan.

Access Denied You don't have permission to access "http://www.business-standard.com/world-news/china-ai-chatbot-new-rules-curb-suicide-gambling-abuse-emotional-safety-125123000385_1.html" on this server. Reference #18.5d1d2017.1767080229.844063dd https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.5d1d2017.1767080229.844063dd

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

China has warned against "external forces" backing Taiwan's independence, after launching extensive live-fire drills around the island. It comes just 11 days after the US announced its largest-ever arms sale to Taipei, worth US$11 billion. Taiwan says it spotted 89 Chinese military aircraft, along with 28 warships and coast guard vessels, encircling the island. It adds that this is the highest number of Chinese aircraft reported for a single day since October last year. Tan Si Hui reports. 

BEIJING (AP) — China's decision to bring serious firepower to bear for military drills in the waters off Taiwan this week has deep roots — both in the past several weeks and the past several decades. The island is the most sensitive political subject for China. It has been ever since Taiwan split from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war. Today, though the island governs itself, China claims it as sovereign territory . China has often held military drills around Taiwan, both around what it considers specific provocations and in general. Here's a look at th e context around the latest drills. How Taiwan came to be governed separately China was ruled by the Kuomintang, or Nationalists, from 1927 to 1949. When civil war broke out, and Mao Zedong's communists overthrew the Nationalists, they fled to Taiwan, off the coast of southern China. There, they set up a government, and it evolved into a multiparty democracy that h...

The Chinese military released two posters titled "Shields of Justice: Smashing Illusions," and "Arrows of Justice: Control and Denial", along with a third graphic depicting four locations across the island with targets locking on, following the drill announcement. China's state broadcaster said the exercises would focus on sealing off Taiwan's vital deep-water Port of Keelung to the island's north and Kaohsiung to Taiwan's south, the island's largest port city. While the PLA practised port blockades around Taiwan during war games last year, this marks the first time it has publicly stated that drills around the island are aimed at "deterrence" of outside military intervention. The Japanese prime minister's remarks triggered a surge in Chinese messaging stressing its sovereignty claims. Chinese leader Xi Jinping told US President Donald Trump in November that Taiwan's "return to China" after World War II was central ...

By Simone McCarthy, Wayne Chang, Yong Xiong, Laura Sharman, CNN (CNN) — China's military announced Monday it was mobilizing army, navy, air and rocket units around Taiwan for "major military drills" aimed at sending a "serious warning" against any push for Taiwanese independence and "external" forcing interfering with the island. The exercises – dubbed "Justice Mission-2025" – would test combat readiness and "blockade and control of key ports and critical areas," China's Eastern Theater Command said. Live-fire activities would take place in five maritime and airspace zones encircling the island, according to information released by the command. Taiwan's government condemned the drills, accusing China of "military intimidation," while its defense ministry said it was "fully on guard" and would "take concrete action to defend the values of democracy and freedom."...

This is not a paywall: non-profit, impartial and 100% independent, HKFP remains free-of-charge thanks to our members. Learn more . 💡 You've read article/s this month. Support Team HKFP – unlock 8 benefits by joining as a HK$150/month+ member. Promos disabled for members. China's sprawling high-speed rail network passed 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) in total operating distance with the opening of a new line on Friday, state media reported. A high-speed train in Guizhou, China. Photo: Francisco Anzola, via Flickr. The country has the world's largest rail network — one-fifth longer than the circumference of the earth. The trip begins in the city of Xi'an — home to China's famed Terracotta Warriors — and ends in Yan'an to its north, state broadcaster CCTV said. Both cities...

China's overall vehicle output, including buses and lorries as well as passenger cars, may hit 33 million units in 2025, compared with an estimated capacity of around 50 million units, Nick Lai, head of auto research in Asia-Pacific at JPMorgan, said in October. The average net per-vehicle ­margin – the gap between the ­selling price and production costs such as raw materials, labour and logistics – stood at about 5,000 yuan among Chinese carmakers, according to Lai. He added that this margin could rise four-fold to 20,000 yuan if carmakers were to export more vehicles to overseas markets, where their products could command higher prices. Stephen Dyer, Greater China co-leader and head of Asia automotive practice at AlixPartners, said in July that only 15 Chinese EV brands, or 10 per cent of the country's total, would turn a profit over the next five years, as price competition continued to squeeze profit margins. The price war could accelerate the pace of consolidation in...

TENSION WITH CHINA GROWS The budget announcement comes as Japan's row with China escalates following Takaichi's remark in November that the Japanese military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan. The disagreement escalated this month when Chinese aircraft carrier drills near southwestern Japan prompted Tokyo to protest when Chinese aircraft locked their radar on Japanese aircraft , which is considered possible preparation for firing missiles. The defence ministry, already alarmed by China's rapid expansion of operations in the Pacific, will open a new office dedicated to studying operations, equipment and other necessities for Japan to deal with China's Pacific activity. Two Chinese aircraft carriers were spotted in June almost simultaneously operating near the southern Japanese island of Iwo Jima for the first time, fueling Tokyo' s concern about Beijing's rapidly expanding military activity far beyond its borders and areas around...

ERROR: The request could not be satisfied Request blocked. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner. If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation. Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront) Request ID: 9Z0JvO1b652LDRQCUjT2y2A82uZSyuYup07GY9B4oWC3WepbLzIIXw==

Scientists in a top-secret Chinese facility "have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent," according to a Reuters exclusive that read more like a geopolitical thriller than news. Reuters reported that scientists in "a high-security Shenzhen laboratory" developed a working prototype of the specialized equipment used to manufacture the semiconductor chips for weapons of war, smartphones, and, crucially, AI technology. With the help of engineers recruited from ASML — a prominent Dutch semiconductor company with a " near monopoly " on the technology in question — Chinese scientists reportedly "reverse engineered" the firm's extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, or EUVs . The undertaking was described as China's " Manhattan Project ," an ominous reference to the United States' ultimately successful effort to develop nuclear weapons before the Axis powers did during World War II. That conflict-fueled arm ...

Earlier on Christmas Day of this year, images of a Chinese shipping vessel carrying several containerized vertical launch cells systems appeared online. The basis of the Vessel in question appears to be a standard civilian container carrier, further augmented with radars, Vertical Launch Systems, and other systems. Naval News was able to independently confirm the existence of the vessel as satellite images show it present in Shanghai. The otherwise unremarkable vessel features several sets of containerized Vertical Launch Cells, numbering at least 48, split into 3 rows of 16 with what appears to 4 cells per container with each row 4 containers wide. The vessel in question also is fitted with a Type-1130 Close in Weapons system and at least 3 decoy launchers (presumably six when accounting for the possibility of mountings facing the opposite direction) towards the bow. Sensors have also been fitted within shipping containers, i...

The proposed arms sales, approved by the US on Dec 18, cover eight items, including HIMARS rocket systems, howitzers, Javelin anti-tank missiles, Altius loitering munition drones and parts for other equipment, Taiwan's defence ministry said in a statement. "The United States continues to assist Taiwan in maintaining sufficient self-defence capabilities and in rapidly building strong deterrent power and leveraging asymmetric warfare advantages, which form the foundation for maintaining regional peace and stability," it said at the time. The ministry said the package is at the Congressional notification stage, which is where Congress has a chance to block or alter the sale should it wish, though Taiwan has widespread cross-party support. In a series of separate statements announcing details of the weapons deal, the Pentagon said the arms sales serve US national, economic and security interests by supporting Taiwan's continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces ...

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping has installed new military leadership for its central and eastern regions amid an unprecedented purge of the top defence echelons. General Yang Zhibin has become commander of the Eastern Theatre Command, responsible for Taiwan operations, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. The report also named General Han Shengyan as the new commander of the Central Theatre Command, which oversees defence forces in the capital Beijing, Tianjin and five other provinces. The moves were revealed at a general promotion ceremony on Dec 22 – Mr Xi's first so far in 2025 – and came after the ouster of several top generals. The former commander of the Taiwan command, General Lin Xiangyang, was removed in October for violating party discipline and laws. Meanwhile, General Wang Qiang, the former Central Theatre commander, missed a military parade in Beijing in September without reason. The report did not indicate Gen Wang's next job. At that parad...

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

China is highlighting its success in joint law enforcement with the sentencing of two men in a drug-related money laundering case following a tip-off from the United States. The People's Daily stated on Saturday that officers in Shenyang, in northeast China's Liaoning province, had received information in April last year from US authorities about a Chinese citizen surnamed Tong. 01:44 US, China join forces to counter global fentanyl trade US, China join forces to counter global fentanyl trade Chinese authorities established a task force and sent 25 teams to 16 provinces in the search for evidence that Tong and an accomplice named Chen had engaged in illegal foreign exchange trading, according to the report. The police had contacted some 2,000 people and obtained more than 10 million trading records from hundreds of companies, the report said. They found that since 2017, Tong and others had initially operated a car showroom in the US, selling vehicles and providing currency...

Policymakers will flexibly deploy tools including cuts to banks' reserve requirement ratios and interest rates [BEIJING] Chinese leaders promised on Thursday (Dec 11) to maintain a "proactive" fiscal policy next year that would stimulate both consumption and investment to maintain high economic growth, which analysts expect Beijing to target at roughly 5 per cent. Those pledges were published in a readout by state news agency Xinhua of the annual Central Economic Work Conference held from Dec 10 to Dec 11, a key gathering of the Communist Party to set the policy agenda and targets for next year. The prospect of forceful fiscal stimulus could ease worries over the slowdown s een in the second half of the year in almost every area of the economy that is not contributing to China's trillion-US dollar trade surplus. But the dual, contradictory, focus on consumption and investment cements concerns that Beijing is not yet ready to shift from a production-driven economi...

As China's consumption sector expands amid structural upgrades, policies designed to stimulate spending are gaining momentum to reinforce this key pillar of the world's second-largest economy. In its latest policy move, Chinese authorities, including the Ministry of Commerce and the People's Bank of China, unveiled a circular on Sunday, calling for coordinated fiscal, commerce and financial policies to channel credit into key consumption sectors and expand support for emerging consumption fields such as elderly care, culture, tourism, digital services and green industries. China will roll out plans to boost residents' income, advance high-quality full employment and raise basic pensions to enhance consumption capacity, an official from the Office of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs said, adding that quality products and services will be provided to meet new demands and unreasonable restrictions will be lifted to fully unlock consumption poten...

The COVID-19 lockdowns also presented unprecedented challenges. When Yangtze River ports stalled in 2020, ILSTC services stayed operational. "It showed customers they had an option," Kim said. But turning a crisis-driven shift into long-term behaviour has been slower. Infrastructure capacity is another constraint.  Qingling Motors' Tan said train frequency to Qinzhou "is still relatively low", while the port's container handling capacity tightens during peak periods. "When vessel booking is tight, costs rise. We hope there can be more support to ease some of these bottlenecks," he said. For smaller companies, barriers are more fundamental. Singapore-based machine vision firm JM Vistec was matched through the JIDF with CISDI, a major Chongqing-based steel technology conglomerate.  The partnership opened doors into a new industry, said JM Vistec's managing director Eugene Goh, but has yet to translate into comme rcial returns.  "At pres...

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Wednesday (Dec 17) she is "always open" to dialogue with China despite a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing over comments she made about Taiwan. "China is an important neighbour for Japan, and we need to build constructive and stable relationships," Takaichi told a news conference. "Japan is always open to dialogue with China. We're not shutting our door." China and Japan are enmeshed in a spat over Takaichi's suggestion in November that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attack on Taiwan. Beijing claims the self-ruled democratic island as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under its control. The comments triggered a sharp diplomatic backlash from China, which has urged its citizens to avoid travelling to Japan. Official data released on Wednesday showed the warning has had an impact on visitor numbers. Arrivals from mainland China to Japan last mo...

China launches island-wide special customs operations in Hainan FTP By: Global Times | Published: Dec 18, 2025 10:55 AM China on Thursday launched island-wide special customs operations in the Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP), the world's largest FTP by area, allowing freer entry of overseas goods, expanded zero-tariff coverage and more business-friendly measures, according to Xinhua News Agency. The move is widely seen as a landmark step in China's ...

The first cargo truck passes through Xinhai Port in Haikou following the launch of island-wide special customs operations at the Hainan Free Trade Port, on December 18, 2025. Photo: Tao Mingyang/GT The Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP) officially launched island-wide special customs operations on Thursday, with a package of policies — including zero tariffs and preferential tax rates — taking effect, marking another milestone in China's opening-up. With the move, the tropical island of more than 30,000 square kilometers has been designated as a special customs supervision zone, which makes it the world's largest FTP by area, according to the Xinhua News Agency.  Following the island-wide launch, Hainan will operate as a special customs supervision zone, implementing a liberalized and facilitative system characterized by a clearly defined framework of "freer access at the first line, regulated access at the second line, and free flows within the island." Under this...