South China Morning Post - Diplomacy & Defence

Young Chinese people enjoy Japanese pop culture such as anime and music, but many draw a firm line at symbols of Japanese militarism. That line was tested recently at Moscow State University, where Chinese students confronted a classmate wearing Japan’s rising sun flag in class and called for his repatriation, state-run newspaper Global Times reported on Sunday. Many countries, ...

Protests in Paris began on Saturday, filling the city’s southern edge with the sounds of a brass band playing “Bella Ciao” and portable speakers blaring “I Will Survive”, despite fears of fresh street clashes. Elsewhere in France, police began dispersing unauthorised gatherings in Lyon and Nice, firing tear gas in Lyon as demonstrators defied local protest bans. French authoriti...

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday, according to state news agency Xinhua. The trip, Kim’s first visit to China in more than a year, comes ahead of next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, where Donald Trump and other world leaders are expected to visit. More to follow …

When Grant Newsham, a retired US Marine colonel and security analyst, sat down for an interview that aired last month, he called China’s economic rise illusory and said there were “600 million Chinese at least who live on US$5 a day or less”. His remarks quickly drew online criticism as well as accusations that he was using outdated figures from 2020 while ignoring differences i...

Just weeks before Donald Trump’s second trip to China this year and his third meeting with President Xi Jinping, whom he has called a “truly great” friend, his administration is intensifying its crackdown on Confucius Institutes – Beijing-backed centres that promote Chinese language and culture at universities abroad. Long viewed by critics as instruments of Beijing’s soft power...