News

The 30-minute simulated disruption was part of the island’s effort to test and build people’s resilience in the face of a potential Chinese attack.

Drought and wildfires intensify across continent, while tropical storms bring heavy rain and disruption to east Asia
High pressure has dominated central and eastern Europe in early August, breaking across the region. Austria recorded a high of 41.2C (106.2F), while Slovakia reached 42.2C. Hungary hit a peak of 41.8C, surpassing a record set in 1905, while overnight temperatures remained above 28C in some areas, marking it as a tropical night.
The extreme temperatures have been driven by a heat dome beneath the high-pressure system, which traps warm air close to the surface.

Typhoon Dolphin has made landfall, bringing strong winds and heavy rain across eastern China including Shanghai.

Authorities warn that days of intense rain could trigger widespread flooding and landslides as storm moves north and further inland
More than a million people were moved to safety across eastern China by Sunday evening as amid fears torrential rain would cause flooding and landslides.
Wenzhou, a coastal city in Zhejiang province, said it relocated more than 900,000 people and opened more than 1,500 emergency shelters. In neighbouring Fujian, 98,900 people were moved from high-risk areas.

Tropical cyclone brings torrential rain and high winds to east coast after hitting Japan’s southern Okinawa province
Typhoon Dolphin, the most powerful tropical cyclone to hit China this year, has made landfall on the country’s east coast, bringing torrential rain and strong ⁠winds and triggering warnings ​of flooding and landslides.
The storm has already swept through Japan’s southern Okinawa prefecture, injuring six people and cutting power to more than 50,000 buildings.

Inspired by Ukraine’s battlefield gains, Taiwan is betting on drones to deter a potential Chinese invasion.

Exclusive: Serious questions raised about whether Chinese citizen was properly monitored at centre run by US prison giant

Get our , or
The US private prison company running Australia’s immigration detention system was warned that a newly detained Chinese citizen expressed suicidal ideation and had a history of self-harm less than 24 hours before she died by suicide in a Melbourne detention centre, internal documents show.
The death has raised serious questions about whether the detainee was properly monitored and whether she was placed in an appropriate room, given her state of mind.

Imports this year now account for 14% of the market amid claims vehicles are being dumped in the EU and UK
Chinese electric car sales have risen across Europe to a record high driven by strong demand and low tariffs in the UK and a surge in buyers in Italy.
Against a backdrop of claims that Chinese carmakers are “dumping” state-subsidised vehicles in the EU and UK to gain market share, the figures will give impetus to calls for quotas and higher tariffs to protect European manufacturers.

Recent FBI searches and a separate foreign-agent case have renewed concerns among Chinese American leaders that allegations involving individuals could fuel broader suspicion and discourage civic ...

Recent FBI searches and a separate foreign-agent case have renewed concerns among Chinese American leaders that allegations involving individuals could fuel broader suspicion and discourage civic ...

Ever the strategist, the Chinese leader is taking the offensive, both abroad and at home. That’s bad news for global order, and minorities in his country
Imagine what would happen if a British prime minister in London told the Scots they could not have their own parliament, national football team or fly the saltire. Or if the Welsh were told their language and poetry were banned and must no longer be taught in schools. The ensuing uproar would probably destroy the United Kingdom. Yet that’s exactly what Xi Jinping, China’s communist emperor, is telling the roughly 125 million members of the 55 who together comprise about 9% of the country’s (majority Han Chinese) population.
Xi claims his sinicisation policy, embodied in a new “ethnic unity” law, will boost national identity and integration and, by expanding compulsory use of the Mandarin language, improve life and work prospects. Minorities should “hug tightly like pomegranate seeds” to build a strong, united China, he says. But Tibetans, Mongolians, and others who value their separate language and customs fiercely object to what they see as into a conformist, intolerant monoculture dominated by the Communist party’s tunnel vision. For them, it’s ethnic cleansing by another name.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Responding to an article by China’s ambassador to the UK, Prof Paul H Cleverley advocates shared openness standards, while Dr Claire Jenkins says British AI can offer a distinctive path
Ambassador Zheng Zeguang rightly celebrates openly released AI models, and the Chinese labs behind Qwen, DeepSeek and Kimi have led the way – competition that benefits everyone, especially where models can run on modest hardware in the developing world ().
But his claim that openness is a defining feature of China’s AI development deserves scrutiny. Take , the geoscience system from Zhejiang Lab showcased at last month’s World AI Conference as a model of jointly governed open science. It is promoted to countries as open, yet under the model openness framework – endorsed in a – it would not qualify as open at all. It releases model weights (built mainly on Alibaba Qwen, whose licences are not -compliant), , and its governance committee answers to Zhejiang Lab itself.