Chinese President Xi Jinping ‌called for a more robust, resilient and dynamic ‌strategic partnership with the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, as Beijing intensified what observers have described as its “quiet but pragmatic” diplomacy during the Iran crisis. In a meeting with Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu ‌Dhabi, Xi unveiled a four-point proposal to safeguard Middle East stability, stressing the importance of national sovereignty, the international rul...

The Philippine military on Tuesday rejected Beijing’s claim that Manila had staged a “cyanide stunt” near a contested reef in the South China Sea, after Filipino officials accused Chinese fishermen of using cyanide around a grounded warship that serves as a military outpost. “We reject any statement that this is fabricated news,” said Navy Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, a spokesman for the Armed Forces of the Philippines. At the centre of the dispute is the BRP Sierra Madre, a derelict na...

Negotiating teams from America and Iran could return to Islamabad as early as the end of this week, days after 21 hours of talks in the Pakistani capital ended without a deal, Reuters reported. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that “we’ve been called by the other side” and “they want to work a deal”. A limited or temporary settlement remained possible as the two sides were cautiously approaching a de-escalation despite a total deficit of trust, according to analysts. But they warned t...

The conventional indictment runs like this: blinded by ideology and captured by special interests, the US and Israel have blundered into a region they never understood, sowing instability they neither anticipated nor desired. It is a damning argument. It also happens to be, in one important respect, too generous. The more unsettling possibility, supported by two decades of observable behaviour, is that these policies produce not disorder as a side effect but something far more useful: a confl...

A Hong Kong retiree has been jailed for a year under the domestic national security law over seditious remarks on social media, after suggesting that last year’s Wang Fuk Court fire could trigger unrest similar to the 2019 anti-government protests. Former salesman Raymond Chong Wai-man, 61, pleaded guilty on Tuesday at West Kowloon Court to knowingly publishing 53 seditious Facebook posts that denigrated the central and local authorities between March 26, 2024 and November 29 last year. Chong...

The United States is planning a fuel depot in southern Philippines to support humanitarian and maritime security missions for its long-time ally in Asia, as part of a growing network of forward-based refuelling hubs in the Western Pacific. Located far from the flashpoint reefs at the centre of Manila’s maritime dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea, the depot marks what one observer called a “more mature and more serious stage” in the US-Philippine alliance: a shift from base access and...

Diamond-studded necklaces, golden pectorals and ceremonial smallswords are among about 200 jewellery and decorative pieces, covering 4,000 years of history across five continents, to be showcased in Hong Kong from Wednesday. Titled “Treasures of Global Jewellery from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Body Transformed”, the show at the Hong Kong Palace Museum marks the US institute’s first major travelling showcase of its jewellery collection. About 200 exhibits have been selected from the...

At a top-level meeting of her 26 department chiefs in March, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen quietly approved a plan to stop EU funds from going to clean technology projects containing Chinese inverters. Inverters are the essential power electronics at the heart of solar and wind systems. Industry groups estimate that Chinese companies led by Huawei Technologies control more than 220 gigawatts of Europe’s installed solar capacity via the devices. The commission wants to...

A statutory advisory body in Hong Kong will be given new powers as early as June to investigate government department heads over “serious, widespread or systemic” problems, as part of a broader push to institutionalise official accountability. The subsidiary legislation drafted by the Civil Service Bureau, which was submitted to the Legislative Council on Tuesday, sought to grant the Public Service Commission, an independent, statutory body that advises the government on civil service...

The United Nations has issued a grim warning about the costs of prolonged conflict in Iran for the Asia-Pacific region, forecasting job losses, crippling inflation and food insecurity, with the poorest nations brutally exposed to the oil shock and millions of informal workers facing the body blow of rising transport costs. More than 8 million people in the Asia-Pacific could be plunged into poverty if a crisis that has closed the Strait of Hormuz continues to drag on, according to a study...

Israel’s ambassador to Japan and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre have condemned a Japanese political commentator over remarks he made on a morning news programme that were widely criticised as suggesting Jared Kushner should not be involved in negotiations with Iran because he is Jewish. Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, joined Vice-President J.D. Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff in Islamabad over the weekend for talks aimed at ending the war between the US, Israel and...

As China looks to central Asia for more energy supplies to offset shipping disruptions amid the Iran war, Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang will travel to Turkmenistan to visit local gas fields and to attend a bilateral cooperation meeting. Ding, who is China’s top-ranking vice-premier, will kick off his three-day visit on Wednesday by attending the groundbreaking ceremony for the fourth phase of the Galkynysh gas field as President Xi Jinping’s special representative, Xinhua reported. Ding will als...

Melaka police are tracking a 36-year-old express bus driver after a video showing him driving with a woman seated on his lap near the Bemban Rest and Recreational area went viral in Malaysia. Jasin Superintendent Lee Robert said initial investigations found the incident occurred at about 7.30pm on Sunday at the entrance to the area. He described the driver’s actions as extremely dangerous, noting that such behaviour could impair vehicle control and cause serious distraction, posing a risk to...

China is gaining from America’s trillion-dollar artificial intelligence spending spree despite Washington’s efforts to curb Chinese technology ties, as the US data centre boom ripples through Asian technology supply chains, according to research by Oxford Economics. Roughly US$2 trillion worth of data-centre projects are planned or under way in the US, according to a report by the consultancy, with as much as three-quarters of the cost tied to equipment such as semiconductors and servers. Tha...

An AI computing centre capable of predicting weather patterns weeks in advance typically carries a price tag of US$100 million or more. Now, Chinese researchers say a small-scale quantum system can outperform such facilities at less than 1 per cent of the cost. The findings raise questions about the long-term economics of the global artificial intelligence infrastructure race. If compact quantum systems can deliver competitive performance in specific tasks, could today’s colossal data centres...

As part of a public trial held by the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, China Evergrande Group founder and former chairman Hui Ka-yan admitted guilt and expressed remorse over a set of charges including embezzlement of corporate assets and corporate bribery, according to a statement issued by the court. The trial was held on Monday and Tuesday, and the court will issue its judgement at a later date. More to follow ...

Unreasonably low prices offered by some mainland Chinese tourist groups visiting Hong Kong are a major factor behind coerced shopping, industry leaders have said, urging authorities to step up random inspections during the coming Labour Day “golden week” holiday. The Travel Industry Authority announced on Monday that it had previously revoked the licence of Star Link Travel over four suspected cases of coercing inbound mainland tourists to shop. Sara Leung Fong-yuen, a consultant with the...

China’s export growth softened in March as disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz drove up transport costs and energy prices, a trend which also led imports to rise considerably. Exports rose 2.5 per cent year on year to US$321.03 billion in March, according to data released by China’s General Administration of Customs on Tuesday. The reading fell short of the 4 per cent growth forecast by economists polled by the financial data provider Wind. Imports grew by 27.8 per cent to US$269.9 billion ov...

Jet fuel shortages and surging prices are forcing flight cancellations across the Asia-Pacific, a squeeze that could intensify after the United States began controlling oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz following failed peace talks with Iran. Tehran’s effective closure of the strait – a chokepoint for about 20 per cent of global oil supply – is hitting regional airlines, particularly in countries without strategic energy reserves, analysts said. Jet fuel reached nearly US$198 in the...

A leading European business association in China has urged Brussels to avoid becoming a “passive recipient” of US-China trade negotiations, as European firms scramble to navigate Beijing’s export controls. In a report released on Tuesday, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China asserted that the EU must take the lead in discussions affecting its interests, while urging Beijing to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to export controls. “We’re in a situation where Europe simply cannot...

A resident of Hong Kong’s fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court housing estate in Tai Po has said that a drawer in her flat had been rummaged through, prompting a police investigation and rekindling burglary fears in the sealed residential complex. Police launched the probe after a resident surnamed Lee raised concerns about a possible burglary early on Tuesday. A government social worker had sent her a photograph of her flat in Wang Cheong House the day before, which showed drawers and boxes that...

The developer of Hong Kong’s Discovery Bay is considering extending its trial period and limiting operating hours for cabbies to gain full access to the resort-style seaside community amid opposition from some residents. The Islands District Council’s Traffic and Transport Committee held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the paper presented by Hong Kong Resort Company in the presence of more than 20 residents who held differing views on the plan. Before the meeting, supporters and opponents of ...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered its global economic growth forecast, including for China, citing shocks from the US-Israeli war in Iran. In its flagship World Economic Outlook published on Tuesday, the IMF projected worldwide gross domestic product growth at 3.1 per cent this year, down 0.2 percentage points from its January estimate. China – the world’s second-largest economy – is now expected to expand by 4.4 per cent this year. That would miss the IMF’s January estimate b...

Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory, its largest production base, is poised to build humanoid robots in future, relying on its manufacturing efficiency and innovative capability to advance CEO Elon Musk’s hopes of commercialising the technology swiftly. Allan Wang Hao, China president of Tesla, said in a media briefing on Tuesday that the Shanghai Gigafactory would provide a “golden key” to the mass production of robots designed to resemble and move like humans. “Like other Tesla factories, Giga...

Japan is planning to replace some of its attack helicopters with multipurpose drones, prompting warnings from some Chinese media outlets and analysts that this could be seen as a hostile move. The country’s defence budget, which took effect on April 7 for this financial year, allocates 11.1 billion yen (US$70 million) for the procurement of five wide-area unmanned aerial vehicles. A further 280 billion yen was allocated for research and development into “unmanned asset defence...

China has slammed the US blockade of Iranian ports as “dangerous and irresponsible”, calling for an immediate and full ceasefire and for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened. Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters at a daily briefing in Beijing on Tuesday that the US action would only “inflame tensions, escalate the situation and undermine an already fragile ceasefire”, and that would further jeopardise the safety of navigation in the strait. “We urge all parties to abide by the...

A Japanese court on Tuesday sentenced a former teacher to two years in prison for taking indecent images of pupils and sharing them on social media, making him the first among members of an alleged teachers’ voyeurism ring to receive a prison sentence in a high-profile case that came to light last year. The Nagoya District Court handed down the sentence to Katsuya Ishikawa, 28, who was a teacher at a junior high school in Hayama, Kanagawa Prefecture, at the time of his arrest in September. Ju...

A leading sovereign wealth fund from Central Asia has cast a vote of confidence in Chinese debt and the country’s currency by becoming the first institution from the region to sell yuan-denominated debt, known as panda bonds, in China’s onshore market. The decision by Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna, to sell 3 billion yuan (US$440 million) in China’s interbank market comes as global investors are looking for safe havens amid geopolitical uncertainties such as the Iran war. T...

Hong Kong’s sole legal betting operator and lawmakers were caught off guard by the government’s abrupt decision to suspend the rollout of legal basketball betting, which some believe was intended to align with Beijing’s efforts to curb gambling amid a surge in prediction markets. The government confirmed on Monday that it would suspend its plan to launch basketball betting, which had been scheduled for September. Officials cited the rise of prediction markets – cryptocurrency-based platforms...

China and Spain should work closely to resist “the law of the jungle” and defend true multilateralism in a turbulent world caught in “a contest between justice and power”, Chinese President Xi Jinping told visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in a meeting on Tuesday. The meeting came after both sides strongly condemned the US-Israel miliary actions on Iran and criticised the US blockade of Iranian ports. Sanchez, who landed in Beijing on Saturday for a five-day trip, is on his fourth...

Hong Kong students sitting the citizenship and social development paper in university entrance exams on Tuesday were tested on the “One Country, Two Systems” governing principle, as well as contemporary topics such as e-commerce, online influencers and the new economy. About 50,300 candidates sat the CSD paper for the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) this year, up from 48,000 last year. While foundational national education concepts remained central to the paper, educators noted a noticea...

Hong Kong’s insurance complaints body recorded a 32.7 per cent jump in new cases last year to 857, with medical and travel insurance accounting for most of the disputes. The Insurance Claims Complaints Panel under the Insurance Complaints Bureau on Tuesday released the numbers for 2025, which showed that last year’s 857 new complaint cases reflected an increase of about a third from 646 recorded in 2024. The figure marked a rise from 616 new cases in 2023, 607 in 2022 and 512 in 2021. “More...

Prediction markets are surging in popularity as cryptocurrency-based gambling platforms offering diverse gameplay and attractive odds, observers have said, warning against the risks of reneged payouts after the Hong Kong government halted plans for legalised basketball betting. They also warned on Tuesday that Hong Kong residents who participate in these platforms, which use cryptocurrency for transactions, could be breaking gambling laws while falling into unregulated contract disputes with ...

Hong Kong’s tram operator has launched a new mobile app that provides real-time arrival information while pledging not to raise fares this year. Hong Kong Tramways on Tuesday announced the new app which would use location data to inform commuters of the arrival times and destinations of the next three trams at their stop. Paul Tirvaudey, managing director of Hong Kong Tramways, said the operator had installed more than 400 radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors along the 30km route, as...

A Chinese nurse working at a hospital in Japan has come under fire from both Chinese and Japanese netizens after allegedly routinely posting the personal and medical information of patients online. The Tokyo-based woman, identified as “Zhaozhaozzz”, has around 21,000 followers on social media where she regularly shares content about her life and work. Her personal details remain unclear. While working at the hospital, she filmed so-called “immersive Tokyo nurse vlog” videos with...

At least 26 South Korean tankers are thought to be stranded near the Strait of Hormuz. That fact alone may best explain why President Lee Jae Myung walked into a diplomatic firefight with Israel last week, analysts say. The row erupted on Friday when Lee commented on a grainy clip that appeared to show Israeli soldiers pushing a body from a rooftop. The footage, which dates to September 2024, was originally posted by a Palestinian activist account alongside a caption falsely claiming it showe...

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has called for an end to allegations of diesel being supplied to the Philippines, stating that the claim is untrue. Anwar said the recent shipment of diesel was not from national oil company Petronas but from a foreign commodity company, Vitol. “They [Vitol] have an agreement to transport oil and sell it to the Philippines. It is not us [Petronas] supplying it to the Philippines,” he said. “But we are not stopping it. We are giving passage. The oil belon...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney secured a majority government with special election wins Monday night, allowing his Liberals to pass legislation without the support of opposition parties. Voters cast ballots for three vacant seats of the 343 districts represented in Parliament. Liberal candidate Danielle Martin won the election for the Toronto district of University-Rosedale and Liberal Doly Begum won the Toronto district of Scarborough Southwest. The result for a Quebec district was...

As the new Communist Party chief of China’s southern manufacturing hub Shenzhen, Jin Lei is facing his first major test as the city prepares to host the Apec leaders’ summit in November. Beijing is seeking more cooperation with the bloc in areas like artificial intelligence, and the key regional forum is an opportunity to show the potential in tech-driven Shenzhen, where Jin took the helm last month. In recent weeks, the 56-year-old economist and former Sichuan official has been focused on...

A 32-year-old Chinese man who went to hospital suffering from stomach pain was shocked to discover that a Mercury thermometer he had swallowed 20 years ago was still inside him. The man, surnamed Wang, from Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, southeastern China, had sought treatment at the Longgang branch of The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. A scan revealed a foreign object in his duodenum, which doctors highly suspected to be a Mercury thermometer. As the tip of the...

Chinese energy storage firm Sigenergy has ignited a market frenzy with its initial public offering (IPO) plan in Hong Kong, drawing an oversubscription of over 1,000 times, while its listed peer Guoxia Technology enjoyed a rally, as the duo capitalise on the artificial intelligence boom. Shanghai-based Sigenergy, which aims to raise HK$4.4 billion (US$561.6 million) in its IPO, is expected to be 1,414 times oversubscribed, as retail investors borrowed HK$358.6 billion from 17 brokerages,...

Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory, its largest production base, has the potential to build humanoid robots in future, the company’s China president says, with its manufacturing efficiency and innovative capability seen as potential drivers of CEO Elon Musk’s hopes of commercialising the technology swiftly. Allan Wang Hao said in a media briefing on Tuesday that the Shanghai Gigafactory could provide a “golden key” to the mass production of robots designed to resemble and move like humans. “Like ot...

Malaysia’s government has urged the public to be ready to tighten their belts over an extended period, with the full effects of the energy crisis triggered by the Iran war expected to kick in as soon as June after the country’s economic buffers run their course. Domestic gas production and costly fuel subsidies have so far shielded the country’s population of 34 million from most of the fallout from the war, which has choked supply for 25 per cent of global seaborne oil trade and nearly a fif...

France’s interior minister is seeking to block US rapper Kanye West from performing in the southern city of Marseille in June due to his antisemitic remarks, a source close to the minister said on Tuesday. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez is “highly determined” to ban the June 11 concert at Marseille’s Velodrome stadium and is exploring “all possibilities”, the source said. West, 48, has been heavily criticised for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler. Britain has...

China’s world models are benefiting from early integration with the country’s strong industrial base, which gives the domestic ecosystem greater momentum than that of the US, according to an executive at a leading Chinese world model start-up. World models simulate 3D environments and physical dynamics, and are expected to help train the next generation of physical artificial intelligence applications, including robots and autonomous vehicles. Wang Xiaofeng, an algorithm partner at GigaAI, sa...

The number of non-local students admitted to Hong Kong’s public universities with Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) qualifications has risen fivefold in four years, according to the Education Bureau. By comparison, the number of local DSE candidates who qualified for those universities fell by 5 per cent over the same period, the bureau said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, universities admitted more students with non-DSE certificates who paid higher tuition fees, sparking concerns regarding social...

Washington’s naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is threatening to tip Asia into its worst energy crisis in living memory, with peace talks on the Iran war stalled and no clear timeline for when oil flows might resume. The United States moved to seize control of the flashpoint waterway on Monday night, with US President Donald Trump framing the move as a way to force Iran to open the strait and accept a deal to end the war. Iran responded by threatening all ports in the Persian Gulf and th...

A Moroccan man studying in eastern China has been hailed as a hero by local residents and received an award for saving a drowning woman from a lake. On the evening of April 6, Ayoub Fadil, 21, a student at Hangzhou Dianzi University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province and several foreign friends were walking around Jinsha Lake when they noticed a woman floating in the water. A lifebuoy thrown by some residents did not help because she was too far away from the bank, Hangzhou Daily reported. Fadil’...

A former student opened fire at his former high school on Tuesday in Turkey, where school shootings are rare, wounding 16 people including students before killing himself, officials said. Special security forces were deployed to the school in southeastern Turkey’s Sanliurfa province, where students were evacuated, local governor Hasan Sildak said. Television footage showed ambulances standing by outside the school in the Siverek district as students fled the building in panic. Sildak identif...

Nepal’s tourism industry is scrambling to offset a sharp fall in Western visitors during the peak spring trekking season, with operators and officials turning their attention to Asia-Pacific markets as conflict-linked travel disruptions ripple through the Middle East. Arrivals from the Americas and Europe, which account for a sizeable share of Nepal’s higher-spending long-haul tourism business, dropped by nearly 25 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively, during March compared with the same...

The world is undergoing a transformation of historic proportions. Geopolitical rivalry, economic restructuring and technological acceleration are converging to reshape the global order. These changes transcend the logic of any single nation, industry or moment in time, exerting profound influence on international politics, geoeconomics, industrial structures, capital flows and investment strategies. For Hong Kong, this “great change unseen in a century” is not an abstraction. It is a pressing...

Malaysia is doubling down on renewables to secure its energy future, its deputy prime minister has said, as the government scrambles to mitigate the fallout from an escalating energy crisis triggered by the Iran war. Tehran all but shut access to the Strait of Hormuz last month in retaliation for the US and Israel’s attacks, disrupting a key energy chokepoint through which about 25 per cent of global seaborne oil trade and nearly a fifth of global liquefied natural gas exports pass – much of...

We have selected seven stories from the SCMP’s coverage of Asia over the past week that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Singapore’s refusal to negotiate over Hormuz creates waves in Malaysia Singapore’s pushback against negotiating with Iran over access to the Strait of Hormuz has triggered a backlash from Malaysian politicians, who saw its statements as “lecturing” them on how best to...

With millions of Indonesians at risk of being pushed into poverty amid a deepening global energy crisis, President Prabowo Subianto arrived in Moscow this week seeking something straightforward but increasingly scarce: cheap oil. Prabowo’s trip, which got under way on Monday, comes at a moment of acute regional anxiety. Global oil prices have skyrocketed since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran more than six weeks ago amid the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz. T...

A Hong Kong barrister faces additional charges after a second victim accused him of indecent assault, joining a former pupil who levelled similar accusations over events that took place nine years ago. Prosecutors on Tuesday told Eastern Court that a second victim had come forward to file a complaint against Simon So Shun-yan, who was admitted to the bar in 2018 and founded his own chambers that same year. The 32-year-old faces two new counts of common assault and another of indecent assault,...

Hong Kong holds the unwanted distinction of being the most US-sanctioned territory in China, with more than 300 entities blacklisted by Washington in a bid to curb Beijing’s technological rise. But the government maintains that a backlash from Washington will not stop Hong Kong from becoming an international technology hub, in line with an initiative that seeks to bypass technological containment through deepened partnerships with the mainland. Anchored by the cross-border Hetao Shenzhen-Hong...

J.D. Vance had two jobs last week: get an Iran deal and keep Hungary’s Viktor Orban in power. Neither happened for the US vice-president. The 41-year-old Vance looked exhausted as he left Pakistan on Sunday after 21 hours that failed to produce an agreement with Tehran to end a war he had never wanted to begin with. At a terse press conference in Islamabad, Vance delivered the “bad news” and took just three questions before getting on a plane for the long flight back home. But just before...

US President Donald Trump on Monday defended his now deleted social media post that appeared to depict himself as Jesus Christ, contending that it was meant to portray him as “a doctor” after right-wing figures continued a recent trend of pushing back on the president’s recent comments. “Well, it wasn’t a depiction. It was me, I did post it. And I thought it was me as a doctor, and had to do with Red Cross,” Trump said during an impromptu event at the White House. “There was a Red Cross worke...

The bust of an illegal transfer of oil between tankers in Malaysian waters has returned the spotlight to the shadow fleet trade in fuel – much of it from sanctioned nations – in Southeast Asia, which continues despite the paralysis of legitimate shipping routes triggered by the Iran war. Two tankers were intercepted in waters off Bagan Ajam, off the coast of Penang, on Saturday during an alleged illegal transfer of more than 700,000 litres of diesel worth an estimated 5.43 million ringgit...

Pakistan is considering financing from both countries and banks as options to repay a US$3 billion loan from the United Arab Emirates and help maintain foreign exchange reserve levels amid soaring oil prices, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said. The South Asian country this month failed to reach an agreement with the UAE to roll over the debt for the first time in seven years, adding pressure on external buffers at a time when the economy is getting hit by the fallout from the conflict i...